Old Documents, Raw Wounds
As the Archdiocese of Los Angeles scrambles to defend itself against sex abuse claims, the Barragan family remains unconvinced.
The Barragans say their family was nearly torn apart by a transferred priest who appears in secret files released Wednesday, reports CBS News correspondent Vince Gonzales.
Father Carlos Rodriguez, the family says, gained their trust from the time they first met him at a church picnic in 1987. Instead, the family says Rodriguez sexually abused Eric, Edgar and Manuel Barragan, who all served as altar boys for Rodriguez.
"Father Carlos was a very integral part of our family, so much so that he came and went as pleased. He had a key to the front door," recalls Eric Barragan, 30.
that are at the core of hundreds of lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles show that church officials for decades moved accused priests between counseling and new assignments.Attorneys for 500 alleged victims and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles had previously agreed to release the information, but lawyers for accused clergy succeeded in blocking publication, arguing it would violate priests' privacy rights. An appellate court last month ordered the documents to be released after nearly three years of legal wrangling.
The records conform with the pattern of the abuse crisis that erupted in the American church nearly four years ago. In many cases, the church provided years of therapy to accused clergy, believing the men could be rehabilitated, then assigned them to new parishes, which often resulted in new claims against them.
Eric, Edgar and Manuel Barragan told CBS News they were all abused by Rodriguez over a four-year period. "He even took turns because we all slept in the same room," Edgar Barragan, 31, says. "He usually started off with me and moved on to my brothers."
The Los Angeles Archdiocese transferred Rodriguez to the Barragans' community after a boy from a different Los Angeles church complained to police about sexual abuse. After the Barrigan's reported Rodriguez to the police, the priest pleaded guilty in 2004 and is now in prison.
In a report released last year, Cardinal Roger Mahony said Rodriguez was "removed from ministry and sent for...psychotherapy." His new duties did "not involve minors."
Rosa Barragan, the mother of the abused boys, says otherwise. "That's a lie. That's a blatant lie," she says. "And for the Church, for Cardinal Mahony to write something as such, it is a disgrace to the community, it's a disgrace to the Catholic Church."
When her youngest son, Manuel, now 29, finally told her what had happened, Rosa Barragan went to the Church, which she says did nothing.
"I can't trust priests," she says. "They say something, but I learned it's something else."
The just-released summaries of personnel files on alleged molesters show church officials moved accused priests between counseling and new assignments for decades.
Plaintiffs' lawyer Raymond Boucher says the files offer more details about the church's "knowledge" of — and what he calls their "participation in" — the molestation of children.
Still, the Los Angeles Archdiocese appears to have so far avoided the damaging full disclosure forced on other American dioceses by judges and grand juries.
Church officials late Tuesday released summaries of their personnel records. By comparison, the files a judge unsealed in the Archdiocese of Boston, where the abuse crisis began in early 2002, contained doctors' reports, memos from diocesan officials about meetings with distraught parents and other details that revealed an insensitivity to victims. The documents enraged Catholics and forced Cardinal Bernard Law to resign as Boston archbishop.
Boucher said the newly released information was a first step, but that complete personnel files should be made public.
"The significance of these files is that they provide a little more information for the public about the church's knowledge and frankly their participation in the molestation of children, but until the (entire) files are made public, we're not going to be satisfied," he said.
Archdiocese attorney J. Michael Hennigan called Boucher's concerns that the summaries might be whitewashed, "nonsense."
"Ray has not seen the files themselves and has no basis to say that beyond speculation," he said. "These are accurate descriptions of the content of the files, without disclosing confidential communication."
The records cover priests who were ordained as far back as the 1920s. Cardinal Roger Mahony, who has led the archdiocese since 1985, had overseen many of the men. A spokesman for Mahony has repeatedly insisted the cardinal wanted to reveal the information to promote reconciliation with victims, but was barred by confidentiality laws.
Mary Grant, the regional director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests accused Mahony of stretching the truth. "Once again, we see huge gaps between what Cardinal Mahony claims and what his own documents prove. Mahoney has claimed he let four priests stay around kids after getting reports of abusive behavior.
"These documents show that Mahony let at least eight priests remain around kids after abuse reports" Grant said at a Wednesday press conference.
Grant adds that, "The very cause of the problem is that not one church official has been disciplined, not one church official has been suspended, not one church official has been criminally held accountable."
Many bishops have said they were misled by therapists to believe that a sexual attraction to young people could be cured. As church officials' understanding of sex abuse deepened, accused priests were generally removed from the ministry altogether, Hennigan said.
The archdiocese, the nation's largest, serves nearly 3.6 million people in 284 parishes. It has posted about 150 pages of summaries from the clergy files on its Web site.