Mahony, top aide discussed ways to thwart investigation into pedophile priests, church records show January 21, 2013, 1:00 p.m. Fifteen years before the priest abuse scandal erupted, then-Archbishop Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles and a top advisor discussed ways to conceal the molestation of children from law enforcement officials, according to internal Catholic Church records released today. The archdiocese's failure to purge pedophile clergy and reluctance to cooperate with law enforcement had previously been known, but the memos by Mahony and Msgr. Thomas J. Curry offer the strongest evidence yet of a concerted effort by officials in the nation's largest Catholic diocese to shield abusers from police. In confidential letters written in 1986 and 1987 and filed this month as evidence in a civil court case, Curry, then the archdiocese's chief advisor on sex abuse cases, proposed strategies to prevent police from investigating three priests who had admitted to church officials that they abused young boys.