Reporter Matt Smith at San Francisco Weeklyreported in 2010 that Harris rebuffed reporters’ efforts for five years to view her office’s files on Catholic clergy sex abuse under the state Public Records Act, despite statements by former San Francisco DA Terence Hallinan saying they should be released.
The files in question involve the San Francisco Archdiocese files on clergy abuse, and contain details of how the church dealt internally with alleged pederast, homosexual and pedophile priests going back as far as 80 years,according to a second SF Weekly article. Cardinal William Levada was archbishop of San Francisco until 2005.
Matt Smith reported:
Portions of this record came to light in stories by then—SF Weekly staff writer Ron Russell in 2005 and in a May 5 story in The New York Times that recounted elements of Russell’s reporting. By sifting through documents made public as a result of lawsuits, Russell learned that during the 1990s and 2000s, Levada helped keep allegations against pedophile priests shrouded in secrecy. Alleged abusers included Salesian Brother Salvatore Billante, who police alleged had sexual relations with at least 24 children, but charges were dropped after the California Supreme Court overturned a state law extending the statute of limitations for pedophiles. And so the full contents of archdiocese clergy abuse files obtained by prosecutors were never revealed at trial.Relatively unscathed by his San Francisco legacy, now-Cardinal Levada is the chief Vatican official charged with responding to global allegations of clergy abuse.
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