Details on 11 Priests Missing in '04 Report

Boundary violations are considered nonsexual, covering such behavior as a priest walking with his arm around a child, said J. Michael Hennigan, an attorney representing the archdiocese. Catholic officials in Boston and elsewhere have used the term interchangeably with child molestation, and the Los Angeles Archdiocese sent at least one priest to a residential treatment center for what was reported as a boundary violation.

Hennigan said the cardinal began dealing proactively with clergy sexual abuse on his arrival in the Los Angeles Archdiocese in 1985. But Hennigan acknowledged that Mahony had been "overly optimistic" at first about the prospects for treating abusers through psychological therapy and made some "terrible mistakes" by ordering accused priests to counseling and then letting them back into the archdiocese.

"He ultimately got to the point where he is now, which we believe is one of the nation's leaders in how to deal with the problem on a large scale," Hennigan said.

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On the Web

The Los Angeles Times has posted on its website a searchable database of records for 247 Los Angeles priests who have been accused of child molestation. The priests listed were either accused in civil lawsuits, named by the church or both.

The database was compiled from public records provided by the Los Angeles Archdiocese, the lawsuits and the Official Catholic Directory, an annual listing of U.S. clerics and their assignments.

By going to www.latimes.com/priests, readers can access the assignment histories for all the priests, the years and locations of abuse alleged in lawsuits, and edited summaries of their personnel files that were released publicly by the archdiocese and turned over to plaintiffs' counsel.

Comparing the documents

The Los Angeles Archdiocese in October publicly released edited summaries of priests' personnel files that it had turned over to plaintiffs' counsel as part of an effort to settle sexual abuse lawsuits. Church officials detailed some of the cases in a 2004 "Report to the People of God." But a Times analysis of the summaries found that the archdiocese provided incomplete information in the report for numerous cases in which priests remained in ministry after complaints came in during Cardinal Roger M. Mahony's tenure.

Incomplete accounts

In these four cases, the People of God report described action taken against priests, but omitted some complaints: