LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Los Angeles Archdiocese under Cardinal Roger M. Mahony for many years kept information from police and allowed clerics facing prosecution for sexual abuse to flee to foreign countries, The Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday.
Citing internal records and interviews, the newspaper said that Mahony, at the same time, had been more aggressive than many U.S. bishops in dismissing members of the clergy implicated in the growing clergy sex abuse scandal
The cardinal, who leads 5 million Catholics in the nation's largest archdiocese, has recently taken a stance as an outspoken reformer on a mission to oust all sex offenders from the priesthood.
But the Times said its investigation showed that during the last decade Mahony had quietly removed 17 priests who had either admitted to, or been credibly accused of, molesting minors.
Officials at the Los Angeles Archdiocese and the public relations firm recently hired to assist the archdiocese could not be reached for comment on Sunday.
But the Los Angeles Times quoted Mahony as saying, "I want the truth out. I want this thing dealt with."
He said he wanted it known that "we haven't been just sitting around, either, for 15 years."
"We've learned a lot the hard way ... What I'm trying to do is learn from all of my mistakes and try to make sure this never happens again," he told the newspaper.
The newspaper said the archdiocese had worked over the last 15 years to keep the abuse problem from the eyes of the public and the police.
It found that five parish priests fled the country and one disappeared after learning complaints had been lodged against them about sexual abuse.
Two of the clergymen left after a top aide to Mahony informed them of the allegations and a third was told to join the priesthood in the Philippines. Of the six, two are still fugitives, the Times said.
Police complained in two cases that church officials had hampered criminal investigations by refusing to cooperate, the paper said.
Two convicted sex offenders were allowed to continue serving as priests for years before Mahony dismissed them in February in response to the growing furor over clergy sex abuse, the newspaper said.