BOSTON -- The Boston archdiocesan finance council voted Dec. 4 to allow Cardinal Bernard F. Law to pursue reorganizing the archdiocese under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Code.

No U.S. diocese has ever made a Chapter 11 filing, in which a court determines what a corporation must do to satisfy creditors equitably and, if possible, regain solvency.

"No final determination to file Chapter 11 has been made at this time," said archdiocesan spokeswoman Donna M. Morrissey. She said that if such a decision were made "other approvals," including a go-ahead from the Vatican, would also be needed.

The archdiocese faces some 450 lawsuits for alleged sexual abuse of minors by its priests.

Morrissey said the cardinal "is seeking to establish a global settlement with all abuse victims ... as an alternative to resolving each case by separate litigation or negotiation."

"We would like to ensure that all cases are resolved expeditiously and that the funds available will go to the victim-survivors instead of into litigation costs," she said.

The day before the finance council met, more than 2,000 pages of archdiocesan files on eight priests accused of sexual misconduct in the 1960s to 1990s were released after a judge turned down archdiocesan requests to keep the documents sealed.

The documents -- made public when lawyers for alleged victims of Father Paul R. Shanley added the materials to their courtroom file -- marked the first phase in release of what is expected to total about 11,000 pages of files on 65 priests accused of sexual abuse.

Included in the files were cases of priests receiving or retaining an assignment despite recommendations against it.

Morrissey called the revelations in the files of the accused priests "truly horrendous" and said, "I wish the policy we have now had been in place for the last 50 years."

Since January, she said, "our comprehensive new policy has not allowed any priest with a credible allegation of abuse of a minor to serve in ministry."

Unlike the high-profile cases of Father Shanley and defrocked Boston priest John J. Geoghan, whose names have been constantly in the news for the past year, the newly released files mostly involve priests whose names were virtually unknown even in Boston before now.

One set of files covers the career of Father Thomas P. Forry, who is accused of a long history of violent behavior including twice beating a housekeeper severely in the 1970s.

He also allegedly molested a young girl and inappropriately touched her brother, carried on a 10-year secret sexual affair with a woman, molested her young son and threatened her husband with death if the husband spoke to authorities.

After admitting the love affair with the woman in 1984, he refused a recommendation of long-term inpatient psychiatric care and was allowed to return to ministry after a few months of outpatient therapy.

In 1993 Father Forry was suspended and he and the archdiocese reached an out-of-court settlement with the molested son of the woman he had an affair with. Two years later, however, the archdiocesan review board lifted all restrictions on his ministry.

He continued in ministry despite other complaints until early 2002, when he and several other priests were abruptly removed from ministry amid daily headlines about past archdiocesan failures to remove abusive priests.

Among the other accused priests in the files made public Dec. 3 were:

-- Father Robert V. Meffan, 73, accused by at least three women of having recruited them as teen-agers to religious life in the 1960s and '70s and then forcing sexual acts on them by saying it was a part of their spiritual formation to become "brides of Christ." The alleged acts stopped short of intercourse.

-- Father Robert M. Burns, a priest from Youngstown, Ohio, who after receiving treatment for child molestation was given regular assignments in two Boston archdiocesan parishes from 1982 to 1991, despite warnings from Youngstown Bishop James W. Malone and the treatment institute that he should be kept away from children. He was removed from ministry in 1991 after a complaint that he had raped a boy in his first Boston parish, and in 1996 he was sentenced to three years in prison for molesting a boy in New Hampshire.

-- Father Richard A. Buntel, removed from ministry in 1994, who in 1983 was accused of giving a 15-year-old boy cocaine in exchange for sex and was described as having a reputation in his parish for drug abuse and rumored homosexual activity.

-- Father Peter J. Frost, 62, who was removed from active ministry in 1992 and has admitted that he began sexually abusing boys back in 1969, when he was a deacon preparing to be ordained a priest.

Attorneys for alleged victims of Father Shanley sought the files on other priests accused of sexual abuse over the years in hopes of proving a pattern of Boston archdiocesan officials treating child sexual abuse complaints too lightly and reassigning priests without sufficient care to protect children from harm.