By Kathleen Gilbert
LOUISVILLE, Kentucky, August 10, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A lawsuit aiming to subpoena Pope Benedict XVI in connection with the American clerical sex abuse scandal has been dropped by plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs acknowledged that they face “insurmountable hurdles” in pursuing the case after the court acknowledged that the Vatican would be immune from most of the lawsuit due to its status as a sovereign nation. The U.S. Supreme Court then refused to reconsider that ruling.
The case, filed in 2004, was the first in the U.S. to come to the Vatican regarding alleged abuse. Two other lawsuits, one in Wisconsin and one in Oregon, also implicate the Vatican, although no decision on their ability to prosecute the sovereign state has yet been handed down.
The ruling left the three plaintiffs forced to prove, should they wish to succeed, that Roman Catholic bishops in the U.S. were acting as Vatican “employees” and were carrying out the will of their employer in covering up the abuse, grounds that the plaintiffs' attorney, William McMurry, called “so narrow that it's meaningless.”
The fact that the plaintiffs abandoned the case when left with that challenge – although they had alleged in an earlier filing that “the Holy See's actions had the predictable impact of preventing United States bishops from exposing pedophilic priests” and reporting abuse – a Vatican lawyer called proof of their argument that no such documents even existed that could prove such a directive.
“This development confirms that, contrary to what the plaintiffs' lawyers repeatedly told the media, there has never been a Holy See policy requiring concealment of child sexual abuse,” attorney Jeffrey Lena said in a statement. “The theory crafted by the plaintiffs' lawyers six years ago misled the American public.” Lena emphasized that, although the case implicating the Vatican lacked merit, the plaintiffs' actual complaints of abuse are not thereby to be dismissed.
A Vatican spokesman told the press that the Holy See was satisfied that the lawsuit was dropped.
“It is good news that a case that has lasted six years on the alleged involvement of the Holy See in concealing abuse and which has also had strong negative effects on public opinion, has ultimately been proven unfounded,” said Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi. “Justice for victims of sexual abuse and the protection of minors remain our primary objective.”
The plaintiffs' cause was also frustrated after a months-long search to unearth more victims of clerical abuse who had not yet come forward yielded no results.
The pope has been increasingly targeted by mainstream media over the sex abuse crisis, particularly following the release of a New York Times article in March that implicated Benedict, while serving as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as Cardinal Ratzinger, in the cover-up of abuse perpetrated by a Milwaukee priest beginning in the 1950s. The accusations of the article were roundly condemned asunsupported by its own documents.
However, some testimony suggests that bishops implicated in sex abuse cover-up have been less than compliant with Vatican rules. Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, whose diocese is notorious for downplaying Church directives barring homosexuals from the priesthood, admitted in testimony released in June that he did not attempt to contact police or identify two boys whom a priest in his diocese confessed to molesting.
Also in June, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by the Vatican for immunity in the Oregon case. The case will be tried on the state level.
Jeff Anderson, the lawyer in the Oregon case, expressed determination to hunt down the pope - an obsession that has fueled him for years and earned him many millions of dollars. “I have known for 25 years that all roads lead to Rome,” Anderson told the Associated Press. “This is the beginning for us of a new journey, a uniquely difficult odyssey.”
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Accusations that Pope Complicit in Abuse Cover-Up Fall Flat
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/mar/10032913.html
Judge of Abusive Priest Corrects 'Sloppy and Inaccurate' New York Times Smears against Pope
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/mar/10033011.html
UN Judge: Pope Should be Prosecuted at International Criminal Court for “Crimes against Humanity”
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/apr/10040810.html
U.S. Clerical Abuse Prosecutor Obsessed with Hunting Down Vatican, Pope
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/apr/10042310.html
From 'Gay Friendly' LA Cardinal, a Grim Tale of Sex Abuse Complicity
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jun/10062209.html