Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a devout Catholic, was admittedly troubled and mad when he called an unusual meeting on a cold day in January with prosecutors and church lawyers to talk about the unspeakable.

The result is a 12-page memorandum of understanding effective this month between the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta joined with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Savannah—which together cover the entire state. The memo sets out the rules for the church to voluntarily provide all its records, files, documents and complaints about priests or others accused of abusing children for an independent third-party review.