The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, the center of a US scandal over pedophile priests, will surrender background information on its priests to the US government under a deal to end a criminal probe.
The US attorney in Massachusetts, Michael Sullivan, said the agreement announced last night was "groundbreaking" and would lead to tighter checks on priests who apply to work as chaplains in federal prisons, the military and with veterans.
The Catholic Church in Boston also agreed to stricter reporting requirements for priests and other workers suspected of committing federal crimes and tougher auditing of its programs to protect children, Mr Sullivan said.
The Boston diocese was at the heart of a national sex scandal and agreed to pay nearly $85 million in 2003 to settle claims that its priests had abused at least 540 parishioners.
Many US bishops were found to have moved priests known to have abused minors to new parishes instead of defrocking them or reporting them to authorities.
The deal stemmed from allegations that the Archdiocese in 1999 failed to reveal key information about a priest who had been hired to work with veterans.
The US government accused the church of maintaining a secret archive about the priest, including allegations he had "fooled around with kids" and had become infatuated with a boy under his care at a home for adolescents.
The government said the church failed to provide psychiatric care that its own review board had recommended. Boston's Archdiocese long denied the charges but agreed to settle to avoid a long trial, Kelly Lynch, a spokeswoman for the church, said.
"We sought to avoid long and costly litigation with the US attorney's office and we would rather continue to move forward with the implementation and strengthening of policies and practices to protect children," Ms Lynch said.