LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

January 22, 2013 | 6:51am

Internal Catholic church records released Monday show that 15 years before the clergy sex abuse scandal came to light, then-Archbishop Roger M. Mahony and a top advisor discussed ways to conceal the molestation of children from law enforcement.

Times reporters Harriet Ryan and Victoria Kim will join L.A. Now Live at 9 a.m. to discuss the records.

Ryan, Kim and staff writer Ashley Powers reported that the records offer the strongest evidence yet of a concerted effort by officials in the nation’s largest Catholic diocese to shield abusers from police. The newly released records, which the archdiocese fought for years to keep secret, reveal in church leaders’ own words a desire to keep authorities from discovering that children were being molested.

The records contain memos written in 1986 and 1987 by Mahony and Msgr. Thomas J. Curry, then…