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As San Francisco District Attorney, Kamala Harris decided to cover up the files, which the previous DA had obtained, so we don’t the numbers of boys and girls abused by priests in San Francisco. She was even informed by a victim that the priest who abused him was still working with children, yet did nothing. She could also have helped victims and maybe prevented additional abuse, as California Attorney General, but she did not.

Below is the testimony by a man who was abused as a little boy. More generally: “Catholic Church sexual abuse cases are cases of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests, nuns and members of religious orders. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the cases have involved many allegations, investigations, trials, convictions, and revelations about decades of attempts by Church officials to cover up reported incidents. The abused include mostly boys but also girls, some as young as three years old, with the majority between the ages of 11 and 14.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse_cases

The video (5 min 45 sec) and article are inappropriate for minors. Parental guidance required.

“As San Francisco DA, Kamala Harris’s Office Stopped Cooperating With Victims”
link: https://youtu.be/7sVswKxx9dw

San Francisco District Attorney
Terence Hallinan
1996–2003
Kamala Harris
2004–2011
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_District_Attorney%27s_Office

“About a year after Harris took office, Piscitelli, whose lawsuit was already underway, wrote Harris to ask for assistance in his case against the Salesians of Don Bosco, the church institution that oversaw the school where he was abused. In the letter, which he shared with The Intercept, Piscitelli noted that his alleged abuser, Steven Whelan, was working at the Saints Peter and Paul Church in San Francisco, a position that placed him in an environment filled with children… When no response came, Piscitelli … began posting flyers and picketed the offices of the district attorney,…” Excerpt from: “AS SAN FRANCISCO DISTRICT ATTORNEY, KAMALA HARRIS’S OFFICE STOPPED COOPERATING WITH VICTIMS OF CATHOLIC CHURCH CHILD ABUSE- Thanks to Kamala Harris’s predecessor, the San Francisco DA’s office had files on clergy sex abusers. But Harris refused to share them with victims” by Lee Fang June 9 2019, 9:00 a.m. https://theintercept.com/2019/06/08/kamala-harris-san-francisco-catholic-church-child-abuse/

“At issue in the case is a trove of material that the church surrendered in 2002 after former San Francisco DA Terence Hallinan demanded that Levada turn over records pertaining to priestly sex abuse occurring as far back as 75 years ago. Such records could show, among other things, when Levada and other church officials became aware of specific accusations against individual priests and what was done about the accusations and the priests…

shortly after Hallinan’s demand, Levada quietly began to jettison some of his accused priests, bumping a few into retirement and placing others on leaves of absence. Not wanting to be left behind, the district attorneys of San Mateo and Marin counties fell in step with San Francisco, pursuing church documents related to clerics in their jurisdictions.

And some of what they found enabled Marin prosecutors to pursue Ingels, a high official within the local clerical establishment.

Now that Stogner has mooted criminal action on most of the alleged wrongdoing described in the documents turned over to Bay Area prosecutors, there would seem to be little law enforcement reason for district attorneys to keep many of the records secret. But head prosecutors in San Francisco and San Mateo counties have refused public records requests seeking the documents…

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris has assumed a pro-secrecy posture, rejecting the public records request that her Marin counterpart initially chose to honor…

Linda Klee, Harris’ chief of administration and spokeswoman on the issue…
says the public records law allows her office to withhold the documents, but she also acknowledges that it does not require her office to keep them secret. She says the decision to withhold is based on long-standing office “policy.”

The policy could not be very old. Former District Attorney Hallinan says that his office had no such policy, that he declined to sign the protocol the church offered him, and that he believes the records that he obtained from the church ought now to be released under the California Public Records Act.

Hallinan also expresses disappointment that Harris, who defeated him in his bid for re-election to a third term in 2003, has chosen to keep the church sex abuse materials under wraps. “My policy was and still would be that when I received any sort of materials like that they would become public records,” Hallinan says. “Those are materials that should be brought out to the public.” Excerpt from: “Zipped Up: S.F. Archbishop William Levada Doesn’t Want the Public to Know about Decades of Alleged Sexual Misconduct by His Clerics. But Why Are District Attorneys in San Mateo, Marin, and San Francisco Helping Him Keep Secrets?” By Ron Russell SF Weekly January 19, 2005 http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2005_01_06/2005_01_19_Russell_SFArchbishop.htm

“Billante’s latest accuser contacted authorities in May, said district attorney’s spokesman Mark MacNamara. District Attorney Terence Hallinan had asked for and received records from the San Francisco Archdiocese on sexual-abuse accusations dating back as far as 75 years.

Those documents included allegations against Keegan, a former priest who church records suggest may have molested as many as 80 children locally over the course of three decades, authorities said.

Keegan was indicted Sept. 12 on 40 counts stemming from the alleged abuse of three people over a 28-year span ending in 1992. He is wanted on a $5 million warrant and is believed to be in Mexico, authorities said”
Excerpt from: “More Ex-Priest Molest Indictments: 2 Named by S.F. Grand Jury Had Been Accused in Past Criminal or Civil Cases” By Jaxon Van Derbeken San Francisco Chronicle September 20, 2002
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news3/2002_09_20_Derbeken_MoreEx_Salvatore_Billante_4.htm

“After Harris was elected California attorney general in 2010, she continued to avoid taking a stand on the Catholic Church’s abuse problem, according to Piscitelli and other advocates. They say that the state’s current attorney general, Xavier Becerra, has been more aggressive in dealing with the issue….Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro released an explosive grand jury report in August 2018 finding that 300 priests had molested more than 1,000 victims over 70 years…” Excerpt from: “Clergy Abuse Survivors Question Kamala Harris’ Record” June 26, 2019 at 1:31 pm Filed Under:Campaign 2020, Catholic Church, Priest Sex Abuse Scandal, Religion, San Francisco, San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, San Francisco News, Sen. Kamala Harris https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/06/26/clergy-abuse-survivors-question-sen-kamala-harris-record/

In 2005, while she was San Francisco’s district attorney, Harris rebuffed a public-records request by SF Weekly to release personnel files from the Archdiocese of San Francisco. (Her predecessor had planned to make them public after prosecuting criminal priests, but the California Supreme Court stopped those cases when it declared unconstitutional a 2002 law that lifted the criminal statute of limitations.) Similar archives in Boston had exposed the scope of the scandal there…

And she never prosecuted any pedophile priest. Excerpt from: “California needs to take another look at its Catholic Church sexual abuse cases” By Gustavo Arellano Los Angeles Times, September 12, 2018 http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2018/09_10/2018_09_12_Gustavo_Times_California_Church.htm

In Pennsylvania: https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/report/

PISCITELLI v. THE SALESIAN SOCIETY
No. B195450. https://www.leagle.com/decision/incaco20080821025

Piscitelli v. Salesians Of St John Bosco
State Civil Lawsuit
Superior Court of California, County of Contra Costa, Case No. CIVMSC03-02976
https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/12enqmrvk/superior-court-of-california-county-of-contra-costa/piscitelli-v-salesians-of-st-john-bosco/

“former U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz, Cardinal Levada and then-San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown at a Day of Remembrance for the victims of the 9/11 attacks… Then-San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, Cardinal Levada and Archbishop John R. Quinn at a University of San Francisco colloquium on racism and Catholic social teaching.”

Link: https://issuu.com/productioncsf/docs/web_csf10.10.19

Kamala Harris’ former boyfriend Willie Brown and Archbishop Levada cut a deal since the Catholic Archdiocese was a city contractor through Catholic Charities and Catholic Health Care West:
“Church, S.F. Make Deal On Benefits Law Compromise Alters Language Of Domestic-Partners Ordinance” Sun., Feb. 9, 1997 https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/feb/09/church-sf-make-deal-on-benefits-law-compromise/

City Catholic Church contract examples: https://sfcontroller.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/controller/wcm_controller/hhsproviders/CityDatabyCBO.html
What a scam. Religious institutions should provide charity and not take from taxpayers to render services. It means that the taxpayer is indirectly paying for the abuse settlements, too. And, as with foreign aid, and more recent Covid aid, people think that it is coming from religious institutions and NGOs, rather than the government-taxpayers.
Regarding concerns re separation of church and state: https://www.au.org/church-state/march-2001-church-state/featured/leap-of-faith

Kamala Harris Failed to Prosecute Mnuchin’s OneWest Bank Despite “Evidence Suggestive of Widespread Misconduct” Uncovered By Her Office

Emphasis our own throughout.