VATICAN CITY
The Republic
By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press
February 06, 2013
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican’s new sex crimes prosecutor has insisted on the need for transparency about the church’s failures to protect children from sex abuse by priests.
In his first public comments since taking office, the Rev. Robert Oliver quoted Pope Benedict XVI in saying the church must recognize the “grave errors in judgment that were often committed by the church’s leadership.” For decades, bishops around the globe actively covered up abuse by priests in their care, while Vatican officials in Rome often turned a blind eye.
Oliver, previously a canon lawyer in the Boston archdiocese — ground zero of the U.S. abuse scandal — spoke days after thousands of pages of personnel files of abusive priests were released by court order in Los Angeles. They showed how retired Cardinal Roger Mahony and other top archdiocese officials protected the church by shielding priests and not reporting child sex abuse to authorities.
The archdiocese agreed to release the files as part of a $660 million settlement with abuse victims in 2007. Attorneys for individual priests fought for five years to prevent the papers from being made public and the archdiocese tried to blot out large sections of the files, including the names of hierarchy involved in decision-making. The Associated Press and Los Angeles Times fought successfully to have the names of Mahony and top church officials made public.
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