LOS ANGELES (CA)
Associated Press
By GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Less than three months after the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles released the files of priests accused of sex abuse, attorneys for alleged victims are back in court seeking similar records kept by more than a dozen religious orders.
A hearing Tuesday will begin the process of determining if — and in what form — the records kept by religious orders such as the Jesuits, Vincentians, Salesians and Dominicans, among others, will be made public.
The continued legal battle comes after the Los Angeles archdiocese unsealed under court order the files it kept over the years on 120 of its priests who have been accused of sex abuse in civil lawsuits. The church agreed as part of a $660 million settlement to release the documents, but attorneys for individual priests fought for five years to keep them under wraps, citing privacy issues.
A number of religious orders signed off on the settlement agreement and contributed significant amounts to it because up to one-third of the accused priests belonged to religious orders, said J. Michael Hennigan, an archdiocese attorney representing the interests of the orders at the hearing.
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