He acknowledged that until about three years ago, the archdiocese had a policy against informing parishioners that their priest had been accused of abuse, even when the priest had been sent away for psychological treatment.
But Hennigan said that the documents "do not show a coverup. They do not show transfers to hide the problem. They do not show transfers between and among parishes without [medical] intervention that was perceived at the time to be effective."
Los Angeles lawyer Raymond Boucher, who represents the plaintiffs in more than 300 lawsuits against the church, said the publication of the documents was not as voluntary as the archdiocese asserted. He said the plaintiffs had made the release of priests' personnel files a precondition for entering into settlement talks.
Because those negotiations have stalled, both sides are moving to prepare for nine initial trials next year, which would air a number of priests' files in open court. The Los Angeles district attorney is also seeking access to the archdiocese's confidential records for a criminal investigation.
Boucher added that he is far from satisfied with the summaries, which he said were heavily edited. He said that allegations of sexual misconduct with minors have been made against 245 current and former Los Angeles priests, and that the summaries amount to nothing more than a "table of contents" to about half of those files.
"This cardinal and the archdiocese doesn't intend to ever let the public see just how deep and pervasive their participation was, and they're hoping that these kinds of public relations stunts will dumb down the demand for full and complete transparency," Boucher said.
One of Boucher's clients, Joe Beckman, 45, said that when he was 14 years old in 1974, his father met with Cardinal Timothy Manning to complain that Joe had been molested by his choir director, the Rev. Richard T. Coughlin. There is no mention of that meeting in Coughlin's summary.
"I think they're trying to let the damaging information out a little bit at a time," Beckman said.
