DALLAS _ The Dallas Catholic Diocese Thursday afternoon joined Catholic leaders across Texas to release the names of hundreds of clergy members who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of children going back nearly seven decades.
The Dallas diocese said its list of 31 includes those who were accused of sexual abuse of a minor since 1950 and does not constitute a determination of guilt. Seventeen of them are dead. Four of the living have already been "laicized," meaning they were removed from the clergy.
Dallas Bishop Edward J. Burns said in a letter accompanying the list that a credible allegation "is one that, after review of reasonably available, relevant information in consultation with the Diocesan Review Board or other professionals, there is reason to believe is true."
Some of the names on the list are likely familiar to Dallas Catholics, and their cases had been covered by The Dallas Morning News and other media. One of those on the list is Rudolph "Rudy" Kos, a Dallas priest found guilty and sentenced to life in prison on child sexual abuse charges in the late 1998.
The year before, 11 families won a $119.6 million verdict against the Catholic Diocese of Dallas in a civil trial on the Kos case. At the time, the verdict was the largest ever awarded involving clergy sex abuse of minors.
By Thursday afternoon, seven Texas dioceses, including Dallas, had released their lists. Among them, the list included dozens of priests, two deacons and one bishop. Three in Dallas also served as military chaplains. Two others served as chaplains at Southern Methodist University. One served as chaplain at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas.
Archdioceses of San Antonio and Galveston-Houston have yet to publish their lists. Burns said at the news conference that all the lists, once released, will show about 280 names.
But victims' advocates immediately questioned whether the lists will be complete and credible.
"The only way to ensure that the bishops here in Texas are truly sincere about rebuilding their sacred trust is to allow for independent, properly trained experts in law enforcement to review all files and allegations related to clergy sexual abuse," said a statement released by the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
Dallas lawyer Tahira Merritt, who has represented many church abuse survivors over the past three decades, said the list deserves a skeptical eye.
"The public should keep in mind that church officials should have released these names decades ago," she said.
Merritt said until law enforcement conducts an independent audit, "the 'lists' will be incomplete."
"It's simply another version of 'trust us.'"
The 15 dioceses in the state decided to release the lists in September during the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops. The transparency measure came as the Catholic Church in Dallas and around the world has come under increasing pressure to address the ongoing sexual abuse crisis.
The Dallas Catholic Diocese in August disclosed that Edmundo Paredes, a former longtime priest at St. Cecilia Catholic Church in Oak Cliff, was credibly accused of molesting three teenage boys in the parish over a decade ago.
Paredes, whose name was on the list Thursday, fled Dallas almost a year ago and is believed to be living in his native Philippines.
The diocese confirmed in September it had reached a financial settlement with the three accusers. But the settlements' details were kept confidential.
The three men declined to speak with police investigators, according to a statement released by Dallas police in August. But in mid-January, Dallas police issued an arrest warrant for Paredes after a fourth accuser reached out to Dallas police.
Burns in October told St. Cecilia parishioners that the diocese had hired former law enforcement investigators to comb through priests' files. He announced the plan to release the list the next day at a news conference.
Burns, whose diocese counts 1.3 million Catholics in nearly 75 parishes over a nine-county area, said the church wanted to "protect our children, create a safe environment, to promote healing for those who've been abused, and to demonstrate that we are focused on facing this issue."
Many U.S. dioceses have recently published similar lists. And the Jesuits of the USA Central and Southern Province released a list in December that included 11 clergy members who had previously worked at Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas.
A recent review by The Associated Press determined that over the past four months, Catholic dioceses across the United States have released the names of more than 1,000 priests and others accused of sexually abusing children.
Those lists followed a scathing Pennsylvania grand jury report alleged decades of abuse and cover-ups in Catholic dioceses in that state.
The diocese of Fort Worth had been releasing names of credibly accused clergy since 2007 on its website and had no new ones to reveal Thursday, spokesman Pat Svacina said.
The Dallas Police Department also has a detective assigned to investigate accusations of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy.
