Posted on 10/01/2010 3:21:53 PM PDT by Justaham
A federal U.S. judge is asking the Vatican to cooperate in serving the pope and two other top officials with court papers that stem from decades-old allegations of sexual abuse by a priest in Wisconsin.
The request is an incremental step in a lawsuit that accuses the officials of conspiring to keep the allegations against the Milwaukee priest quiet. The Vatican is not obliged to comply with the request.
When faced with similar requests the Vatican has made service difficult, time-consuming and expensive by insisting, for example, that documentation be translated into Latin, one of the Vatican's official languages.
Mike Finnegan, the attorney representing the Chicago-based plaintiff, said Friday he's not holding out hope that the Vatican reverses course and begins to cooperate now.
"Based on what they've done in other cases, I don't expect them to do the right thing," he said. "I expect more delay and obstruction."
Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican's U.S.-based attorney, said he hadn't seen the court request and couldn't comment on whether the Vatican would comply with it.
The lawsuit, filed in April in U.S. federal court, names as defendants Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI; Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, and his predecessor, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.
It claims the three men knew about allegations of sexual abuse at a Milwaukee-area school for the deaf, and called off internal punishment of the accused priest. The Rev. Lawrence Murphy, who died in 1998, was accused of sexually abusing some 200 boys at the school from 1950 to 1974.
Lena has called the lawsuit a publicity stunt and said it rehashes theories already rejected by U.S. courts.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
The Vatican will ignore it or swat it away like a pesky fly.
Ain’t gonna fly in Vatican City ... except to the ‘Circular File’!
And now, another idiot judge. They just keep crawling out of the woodwork.
Most international service of process is accomplished through various treaties, but I doubt the Vatican, as a sovereign nation, has signed any, but I’m not sure. I don’t know why they would.
how retarded
I didn’t know Dopey was also a judge. Good luck with that. You might get one of those Vatican spears instead.
Stupid. It’s the fault of the damned priest and nobody else. And unless im wrong, isn’t the pope only the head of the American Catholic church in a religious sense? In the corporate structurre, he isn’t technically the “CEO” of every personnel and financial decision made by the American church, is he? Anyone know?
ping
That’s not correct. Bishops might be called the “CEOs” of their dioceses. Archbishops with archdioceses.
This is the fault of (1) the priest; (2) his bishop, the notorious Rembert Weakland, now retired, who FINALLY admitted to being a homosexual after using church funds to pay off a homosexual lover to the tune of $450,000. He didn't want to turn in his fellow fruitcake the priest, so he waited for 20-odd years to notify the Vatican that anything was going on.
The idea that this is somehow the Pope's fault is insane.
How is it we are to hold the pope accountable as we let pedophiles off the hook at record pace in our courts? Just asking.
I imagine the same thing is going to happen with the Pope.
Hmm. This federal judge believes his court has jurisdiction to serve papers upon a sovereign state, yet other US federal courts deny Americans have standing to question their own leaders.
Yeah, right after obama surrenders and gets hauled off in cuffs for being an illegal alien.
You are so right....this is also about homosexuals infiltrating the priesthood and the APA and homosexual organizations making them list the “disorder” as nothing more than alternative “lifestyle” although they molest hundreds of boys compared to the 8 girls that heterosexual pedophiles molest in their lifetimes.
Part of the homosexual movement was to separate pedophilia from homosexuality.....because they molest at a much higher ratio. Anyone who pays attention notices the priesthood has a homosexual problem (but do you notice how PC media ignore it?)
If memory serves the Bishops of the Dioceses in America have been held responsible for acts of priests in the USA ... never the Pope or the Vatican. As a sovereign nation, a nation-state, the Vatican can (and I guess will) claim immunity from prosecution as an entity and for the Pope and Cardinals residing in Rome.
They may be guilty of protecting the priests however as a nation-state I think immune from civil and criminal courts. Its diplomatic immunity much like other nations and the UN enjoys.
They are as sovereign as the United States and its President ... unless the World Court/International Criminal Court is given jurisdiction by the US Senate approving the treaty. If that happened, any diplomatic immunity held by the US or other member nations would be swept aside and this court could arrest and try any nations citizens. As they have tries with former President Bush and former SECDEF Rumsfeld for war crimes.
Bad precedent to be setting in my opinion should the Dem/Lib/RINO controlled Senate ratify this Clinton made treaty.
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