LOS ANGELES _ For the first time in a decade, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles on Thursday updated its list of clergy accused of molesting children, addressing renewed outcry about how the Catholic Church responds to abuse allegations.
"We owe it to the victim-survivors to be fully transparent in listing the names of those who perpetrate this abuse," Archbishop Jose H. Gomez said in a statement in releasing the list of 54 names.
The decision to disclose names of accused clergy has been made by bishops across the United States after the release in August of a Pennsylvania report, which revealed a decadeslong cover-up of child sex abuse involving more than 1,000 victims and hundreds of priests. Dioceses in San Diego, San Jose, Orange County and San Bernardino have also released names of accused clergy this year.
In 2006, a Los Angeles Times analysis found that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles partially or completely omitted 11 known cases of clerical abuse from its "Report to the People of God." This was after then-Archbishop Roger Mahony said the report provided the "fullest possible disclosure" of how the church responded to sex abuse allegations.
The report reveals two cases of alleged abuse of minors reported in the jurisdiction since 2008, when the list was last updated. Those accused priests, Juan Cano and Jose Luis Cuevas, have since been investigated by law enforcement and removed from the ministry, according to the archdiocese. Cuevas was charged with groping a girl in Long Beach. He later pleaded no contest to sexual assault charges. Cano is under investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department.
In all, 54 names were added to the archdiocese's "Report to the People of God," originally published in 2004. Most of those names belong to clergy who allegedly committed abuse before 2008 and had already been publicly accused. Twenty-seven are dead.
In an online Q&A addressing the report, the archdiocese said it chose to update the list now "out of concern for the healing of victim-survivors."
