CHICAGO (IL)
NBC Chicago
[with video]
By Mary Ann Ahern | Tuesday, Jan 21, 2014
Thousands of previously-secret documents released Tuesday by the Archdiocese of Chicago reveal in graphic detail how priests accused of sexual abuse were transferred from parish to parish and how concern for the priests’ reputations took precedence over their victims.
The more than 6,000 pages of letters and internal memos from the 1980s and 1990s also detail the reluctance of church leadership and law enforcement officials to investigate the allegations.
The released documents are part of an eight-year-long negotiated settlement between attorney Jeffrey Anderson and the Archdiocese. The files concern 30 Chicago Archdiocesan priests with the abuse dating back more than 20 years ago. Of the 30 priests, fourteen are dead.
While the abuse crisis has long been reported, the files give the first ever look behind the scenes at how the Archdiocese handled the crisis. There are letters from both Cardinal Joseph Bernardin and Cardinal Francis George to the accused priests, memos on internal church meetings, legal documents, letters from the priests themselves, as well as information as to exactly when church leaders learned of the first allegations.
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