An article in the April 20 Los Angeles Times contained misleading implications about the Archdiocese of Los Angeles' handling of reported sexual abuse by clergy, a statement of the archdiocese said.

"The Times story is based entirely on information that the archdiocese made public on our website and also gave to the Times," said an archdiocese statement issued April 20. "In other words, there is absolutely nothing new in the story because the Archdiocese had already announced it."

The Times story, headlined "Details on 11 priests missing in '04 report," discussed cases of priests who remained in ministry "after the Archdiocese received reports, which were sometimes just rumors, of alleged improper of abusive behavior," the archdiocese noted. "The implication of the story is that the 'Report to the People of God' deliberately excluded details of some of the priests' behavior. This is not true.

"We issued the 'Report to the People of God' in February 2004, and released the Proffers [summaries of details concerning civil cases] in October 2005, when the courts --- at our urging --- allowed us to do so. The Report contains every single name mentioned in the Times' story, and the Proffers detail the specific cases the Times story examines.

"The Report was never intended to provide a full and complete discussion of the case of any priest. Instead, it features brief descriptions of cases of several accused priests to illustrate a half-century's development of policy and practice concerning allegations of clergy sexual misconduct in the archdiocese."

In addition to the Report and Proffers having been already made public by the archdiocese, the archdiocese answered reporters' questions for the Times' story, the archdiocese said. "The bottom line is that this story is based solely on information released by the archdiocese."

The statement encouraged readers to visit www.la-clergycases.com for an analysis of media coverage, and to visit www.la-archdiocese.org for additional information on issues related to its handling of the situation.