LOS ANGELES – When the Rev. John Anthony Salazar arrived in Tulia, Texas, in 1991, he was warmly welcomed by the Roman Catholic community tucked in the Texas Panhandle. What his new parishioners didn’t know was he’d been hired out of a treatment program for pedophile priests — and that he’d been convicted for child molestation and banned from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for life.

Over the next 11 years, Salazar would be accused of abusing four more children and young men in Texas, including an 18-year-old parishioner who suffered teeth marks on his genitals. Today he awaits trial on one molestation charge, while his accusers and former followers seek a way to move forward.

Many details of Salazar’s past are contained in a confidential personnel file that was among 120 such files the Archdiocese of Los Angeles made public this year after a legal battle with abuse victims. But those records tell only part of the story.

On Tuesday, attorneys return to court to argue over the release of records for about 80 priests, including Salazar, who belonged to Roman Catholic religious orders that kept their own personnel files on accused clergymen. The hearing will address in what form and when those files will be made public, and involves orders such as the Jesuits, Salesians, Vincentians and Dominicans.

The documents are critical to understanding the full scope of the clergy abuse scandal, said Ray Boucher, who represents Los Angeles-area victims.

As part of a separate settlement, the Franciscans were forced last year to release confidential records on their members who’d been accused of molestation. The papers revealed a culture of abuse that affected generations of students at the seminary dedicated to training future Franciscans.

About 25 percent of priests accused of abuse in Los Angeles belonged to religious orders. In some cases, Boucher said, the orders may have sent known pedophiles to work in the archdiocese in the same way that the larger church has been accused of shuffling around problem priests.

J. Michael Hennigan, an archdiocese attorney representing more than a dozen orders involved in Tuesday’s hearing, said the orders operate as separate entities from the archdiocese in financial and disciplinary matters.

“I don’t think even practicing Catholics have a very clear understanding of where the lines of authority are drawn,” he said.