Head of state has immunity from abuse questions, lawyers to argue
By Paul Vernane in Rome
Thursday April 01 2010
The Vatican is seeking to use a legal shield to prevent Pope Benedict from being dragged deeper into the clergy sex abuse scandal in the hope that the Pontiff may be spared from answering questions under oath in a US lawsuit.
Court documents reveal that Vatican lawyers plan to argue that the Pope has immunity as head of state, that American bishops who oversaw abusive priests were not employees of the Vatican, and that a 1962 document is not the “smoking gun” that provides proof of a cover-up.
The Holy See is trying to fend off the first US case to reach the stage of determining whether victims actually have a claim against the Vatican itself for negligence for allegedly failing to alert police or the public about Catholic priests who molested children.
Negligence
The case was filed in 2004 in Kentucky by three men who claim they were abused by priests and claim negligence by the Vatican. Their lawyer, William McMurry, is seeking class-action status for the case.
“This case is the only case that has ever been filed against the Vatican which has as its sole objective to hold the Vatican accountable for all the priest sex abuse ever committed in this country,” he said.
The Vatican’s strategy is to be formally filed in the coming weeks. Vatican officials refused to comment last night.
Plaintiffs in the Kentucky suit argue that US diocesan bishops were employees of the Holy See and that Rome was therefore responsible for their alleged wrongdoing.
They say a 1962 Vatican document mandated that bishops do not report sex abuse cases to police, but the Vatican has argued that there is nothing in the document that prevented bishops from doing so.
But the hurdles remain enormously high to force a foreign government to turn over confidential documents, let alone to subject a head of state to questioning.
The US considers the Vatican a sovereign state — the two have had diplomatic relations since 1984.
Mr McMurry last week filed a new court motion seeking to depose the Pope; Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, currently Vatican secretary of state; Cardinal William Levada, an American who currently heads the congregation; and Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the Vatican’s representative in the US.
Jeffrey Lena, the reclusive architect of the Vatican’s legal strategy in the US, says the Pope’s deposition would break the Vatican’s own laws on confidentiality.
“If Pope Benedict XVI is ordered to testify by a US court, foreign courts could feel empowered to order discovery against the president of the US regarding, for example, such issues as CIA renditions,” Mr Lena wrote in a 2008 brief.
Mr McMurry is eager to find out what the Vatican knew and did, in particular, about the Rev Louis Miller, who was removed from the priesthood in 2004. Miller pleaded guilty in 2003 to sexually abusing one of the plaintiffs in the Kentucky lawsuit and other children in the 1970s. He is serving a 13-year prison sentence.
In a transcription, Miller said he had offered to resign as early as 1962, but was instead moved from parish to parish.
– Paul Vernane in Rome
Irish Independent
Just some comments having a practical bearing on the ´ Suing the Pope´ particularly item 4 below.
1. Ratzinger will be gone for a big sleep soon.
2. Ownership of church assets may in fact be held locally although internal approval is required to sell off church assets by the pope.
3. Canon law is purely an set of internal regulations as is common in many large corporations, it has no legal standing. In medieval times, it did have a legal status.
Clerics still try to get credibility and propaganda value by creating confusion by suggesting that canon law has legal status.
This may work with the ignorant but they are not so common now.
4. Extract from http://www.spiritedlayaction.org/ on ownership of church property.
“In 1968 Fr. John J. McGrath, a Catholic priest with degrees in Civil law and in canon law, published a small book entitled, Catholic Institutions in the United States: Canonical and Civil Law Status. He said, If anyone owns the assets of the charitable or educational institution, it is the general public. Failure to appreciate this fact has led to the mistaken idea that the property of the institution is the property of the sponsoring body.
Consequently, according to Fr. McGrath, ownership of schools, hospitals, parish and diocesan properties belongs to those who donated them (or their descendants) and not to the sponsoring bodies, such as the papacy, a diocese or religious order.
Fr, McGrath was primarily concerned with the ownership of educational and health care institutions, which he claimed did not actually constitute church property. This part of his theory was attacked by Adam Cardinal Maida in his address to the Catholic Lawyers Association in 1973.”
As far as I’m aware, nobody ever sued the Pope despite all the talk. Paddy
Didn’t Colm O’Gorman (of One In Four fame) sue the Pope, successfully? Whatever… The Vatican IS culpable and SHOULD be held to account for their systematic cover-up of child abuse. End of story.
The US considers the Vatican a sovereign state as the two have had diplomatic relations since 1984. If the issue arose before that time as did the 1962 document then it will be interesting to see what happens…maybe we will see men in frocks at the International Court, the Hague, just like other at least former Heads of State from the Balkans.
Happy Easter
MM
Just like a damned corporation–call the lawyers and continue the cover-up! The Catholic church IS a corporation and will do anything to protect itself, its property holdings, its leaders–even to the point of sacrificing its most precious ones to protect the pedophiles and abusers. As I know from my own non-church abuse history, the most damaging thing is to be told “it never happened” or “it was your fault.” Others here are far more eloquent than I but I am sending my loving support to all of you fighting for the sunlight that will heal all the rot created by the lies of the princes of the church. May you be truly blessed.
Ratz hates secularism. When accused he reverts to it’s protection. The Vatican holds it’s own set of Canon Law superior to secular law when it comes to child rape and torture. When it comes to covering up suddenly it’s underlings are not employees. That is of course according to secular law. It’s game of “now you see me, now you don’t”.