The California Attorney General has subpoenaed half of California’s Roman Catholic dioceses, including San Jose and San Francisco, signaling what victims of sex abuse by priests say is an important step toward what they hope will be a comprehensive expose of child molestation and cover-ups in the church.
The archdioceses of San Francisco and Los Angeles and the dioceses of San Jose, Sacramento, Fresno and Orange all have received subpoenas to produce documents, said Kevin Eckery, a spokesman for the California Catholic Conference.
Those dioceses already had been providing documents and, along with the other six dioceses like Oakland, retaining records since the attorney general requested that they do so in May. Eckery said the subpoenas make it easier for the dioceses to produce records for which privacy concerns pose a barrier to voluntary disclosure.
“In some ways, it can speed the process because sometimes files contain things like medical records or private information that without a subpoena you couldn’t legitimately give up,” Eckery said.
The attorney general’s office would not comment. But abuse victims called on Attorney General Xavier Becerra to launch a California investigation like the one in Pennsylvania where a two-year grand jury probe last year documented widespread sexual abuse of children in six dioceses and systemic cover-up by senior church officials.
SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the subpoenas this week marked important progress and hoped it would lead to convening a grand jury.
“This is a great step forward that will certainly lead to more transparency, and will also hopefully lead to more protections for children and more justice for survivors,” SNAP said in a statement.
It wasn’t clear why the attorney general has sought records from dioceses and not others like Oakland.
The Diocese of San Jose said in a statement it already had provided the Attorney General with “more than a thousand documents that did not affect the privacy rights” of victims or “disregard state and federal labor laws regarding personnel files.”
Those documents, the diocese said, were related to the mandatory reporting of allegations of sexual misconduct with children by clergy and laypeople since 1996. The diocese said it “will continue to cooperate with the Attorney General toward our shared goal of ensuring that the safeguards in place for our children are working as they should.
“The Diocese of San Jose believes that by learning from the past, we can bring about true healing for victims/survivors and our Church,” the statement said.
The priest sex abuse scandal has rocked the Roman Catholic church for decades, and settlements in legal claims have led some dioceses to bankruptcy reorganization. In 2002 after a Pulitzer-prize winning Boston Globe expose of abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted its “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” to improve reporting of abuse claims and punish offenders.
But while the number of abuse allegations have dropped since what is known as the Dallas Charter, abuse victims and other critics have accused church officials around the country of covering up the extent of past abuse and protecting offenders, keeping victims who may have valid claims in the dark.
Recent efforts by 10 California dioceses, including San Jose and Oakland, to publish lists of “credibly accused” priests have met criticism from SNAP and victim lawyers who say they were incomplete and failed to include visiting priests or lay teachers. Others, like the Archdiocese of San Francisco, have yet to produce such lists.
The Oakland diocese named 65 abusers, but SNAP said it has documented more than 150 with ties to the diocese. And SNAP said San Jose’s list grew from 15 abusers to 90 after the group reported other names that hadn’t been included.
“Grand juries in other places around the country, such as Pennsylvania and New York, have been critical in uncovering not only hidden cases of abuse, but also information related to the cover-up of those crimes,” SNAP said. “These details are critical in understanding who knew what, when they knew it, and what they did in response to allegations of abuse.”
The attorney general investigation comes as California lawmakers have agreed to temporarily ease the statute of limitations barring pursuit of old abuse claims. Like an earlier law in 2004, Assembly Bill 218 signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October will allow abuse victims a three-year “window” starting in January to bring claims of past sexual abuse regardless of their age.
Lawyers for abuse victims who supported the bill expect it could lead to more than 1,000 new abuse claims involving the Catholic church and other organizations troubled by repeated child abuse claims like the Boy Scouts of America.
