LOUISVILLE - Prosecutors say the Roman Catholic Archbishop Thomas Kelly did not violate the state's child-abuse reporting law when he failed to notify authorities in 1990 about Louis Miller's admissions in mental evaluations that he fondled boys.

        Archbishop Kelly requested the evaluations for Father Miller, who last month was indicted on 56 counts of child sexual abuse. The evaluations showed that Father Miller “posed a risk to children and that risk hadn't diminished,” said William K. Moore, the Kentucky Cabinet for Families and Children's top lawyer.

        The archdiocese never reported Father Miller to civil authorities or alerted parishioners.

        Mr. Moore said that if he had been asked at the time, he would have told the archdiocese to notify the state about Father Miller as set out in Kentucky's mandatory child-abuse reporting law.

        The law says “any person who knows or has reasonable cause to believe that a child is abused shall immediately cause a report to be made to a local law enforcement agency or the Kentucky State Police, the cabinet, the commonwealth's attorney or the county attorney.”

        Excluded from the statute are priests and lawyers who are in an attorney-client or clergy-penitent relationship.

        Lawyers in the state attorney general's office and the office of the Jefferson County commonwealth's attorney say the state law only requires reporting to government agencies when a particular victim is identified, when the victim is under 18 and when the abuse is current.

        Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Stengel's office, which is prosecuting Father Miller on 42 counts of child abuse, said the archdiocese didn't break the law.

        The priest's mental evaluations didn't identify specific victims and were triggered by allegations of an adult who told the archdiocese that Father Miller had abused him 13 years earlier, said Jeff Derouen, a spokesman for Mr. Stengel's office.

        But child advocates, ethicists and some Catholic theologians say they think the archdiocese should have notified civil authorities, as well as parishioners at churches where Father Miller had served.

        “They should have alerted people and invited victims to come forward for help,” said

        Chester Gillis, chairman of the theology department at Georgetown University and author of Roman Catholicism in America.

        Brian Reynolds, chancellor and chief administrative officer of the archdiocese, said the church didn't report Father Miller to authorities but thought the priest's therapist had.

        Richard Brush, a Cincinnati psychiatrist who evaluated Father Miller, said the now-retired priest admitted molesting his first victim in 1960 and periodically acting out sexual impulses with 10- to 15-year-old boys as often as every other month.

        The evaluations were sent to Archbishop Kelly, who had requested them after Mark Delmenhorst alleged in 1989 that he was molested by Father Miller in 1977, when Mr. Delmenhorst was 15.

        Archbishop Kelly restricted Father Miller from working with children and in 1992 assigned him to Sacred Heart Village, a nursing and retirement home. Between 1990 and 1992 Father Miller studied at St. Louis University and was chief financial administrator at Holy Name Church.

        At the home, Father Miller was supervised and had less exposure to children, Mr. Reynolds said.

        He said the wisdom of that decision is shown by the fact that no one has accused Father Miller of committing sexual abuse since 1990.

        Father Miller, 71, has pleaded innocent to the criminal charges in Jefferson County, as well as 14 counts in neighboring Oldham County. Forced to retire in March, he was removed from ministry after the archdiocese received reports of alleged incidents of abuse from the 1960s and 1970s.

        Father Miller also is named in 65 lawsuits filed against the archdiocese.

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