For example, the file on Carlos Rodriguez, a priest serving in a parish in Central Los Angeles, includes a letter to him from his religious order, the Vincentian Fathers and Brothers, informing him that he is being sent to a treatment center in Maryland. Mr. Rodriguez was accused of molesting several teenage boys over the years. But while the letter makes clear that the writer is the priest’s religious superior, the name is redacted. Other documents in the file are similarly missing names of religious order supervisors.

Terrence McKiernan, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, a victims’ advocacy group that collects documents on sexual abuse by clergy members, said he found many omissions by comparing the files on priests released by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles with those released by the Diocese of Orange. The Orange Diocese used to be part of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, so there is an overlap in some files.

“They seem to be trying to protect the names of supervisors not only in Los Angeles, but in other dioceses as well,” Mr. McKiernan said.

Even the number of pages that exist in the files is now in contention.

At the hearing before Judge Elias on Jan. 7, Mr. Hennigan, the archdiocese’s lawyer, said there were 30,000 pages, arguing that it would take too long for his team to go through and remove the redactions on everything they had already redacted. “We have 30,000 pages,” he said. “Every page has to be gone through. Every redaction has to be examined afresh.”

But when the church announced on Jan. 31 that it was releasing the redacted files and making them accessible through its Web site, the announcement pointed out that there were actually only 12,000 pages of files.

Mr. Hennigan said the reason for the discrepancy was that the 30,000 number was a “wild guess” he had made based on how many bankers boxes of documents he had.