MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune

By Tom Olsen on May 21, 2015

Attorneys representing alleged victims of clergy sex abuse were in court Thursday asking a judge to grant broader access to internal documents kept by the Diocese of Duluth.

The diocese in December 2013 publicly released the names of all priests it considered “credibly accused” of abuse, but officials have combated advocates’ efforts to examine decades’ worth of files.

“These documents are the secret documents that Bishop (Paul) Sirba has under lock and key at the diocese headquarters,” attorney Mike Finnegan said. He claimed that the documents “show what the bishops knew, when they knew it and how they sealed and covered up child sex abuse for years.”

At a Thursday afternoon hearing, Finnegan asked 6th Judicial District Judge Shaun Floerke to order the diocese to turn over all of its files on child sex abuse — a request…