THE details will be wearily familiar to any observer of the abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic church in recent decades. Priests accused of horrific crimes are treated by their superiors as victims, while the children who suffered at their hands are seen as administrative headaches to be wished away.

In 2007 the archdiocese of Los Angeles, which serves 5m of the faithful across three southern Californian counties, agreed to a settlement worth $660m with 508 plaintiffs in a vast civil case. The details remained secret. But on January 31st, by court order, the archdiocese published 12,000 pages of personnel documents on 122 priests accused of sexual abuse in cases dating back to the 1940s.

The files showed the efforts of Roger Mahony, who led the diocese between 1985 and 2011, and one of his aides to keep incriminated priests out of trouble. Some were moved out of state; others were urged not to speak to therapists who would be obliged to alert police.

On the release of the files the unassuming archbishop, José Gomez, took the unusual step of publicly rebuking his predecessor. He stripped Cardinal Mahony of his public duties, although added, implausibly, that he remained a bishop “in good standing”. Cardinal Mahony seemed wounded, replying that Archbishop Gomez had not seen fit to raise the concerns earlier. Since then he has retreated to his blog, where he muses on humility and humiliation, and the value of remaining silent in the face of “false accusations”.

But as one of the 117 members of the College of Cardinals aged under 80, Cardinal Mahony should soon be travelling to Rome to join the conclave that will select a replacement for Pope Benedict. Archbishop Gomez has lent his support, asking the Californian flock to pray for their former archbishop. But for some the timing is awkward. Two senior Italian bishops have raised the possibility that Cardinal Mahony might stay at home, and this week an influential Italian Catholic magazine asked its readers what they thought.

There is no precedent for a cardinal renouncing his duty because of personal difficulties, and Cardinal Mahony shows no sign of yielding to the pressure. So it looks as if he will be boarding a plane a few days after he is grilled, under oath, about his handling of a fugitive Mexican priest accused of molesting 26 children in his archdiocese in the 1980s.