UNITED STATES
Vatican Insider
According to the court’s verdict the Vatican cannot be accused for sexual abuse acts committed by priests
VATICAN INSIDER STAFF
ROME
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled that the Holy See cannot be accused of being directly responsible for acts of sexual abuse committed by any member of the clergy in the world, Vatican Radio reports.
The lawsuit against the Holy See for alleged involvement in a sex abuse case was filed in 2002 and was dismissed by the appeals court today. The case involved an Irish priest who was sued for child abuse in 1965, was reported to the Holy See by his religious order and was consequently reduced to the lay state within the space of a few weeks.
The court ruled that the lawsuit “never should have been filed in the first place” and dismissed the premise that the Holy See is directly informed about the activities of all Catholic priests and that it has control over all priests across the world and should therefore be held directly responsible for sexual crimes committed by any member of the clergy. The case was dismissed precisely because the court recognised that this was a false premise.
As the Holy See’s lawyer Jeffrey S. Lena explained in a statement, priests are under the control of their local superiors and that the Vatican was not the priests’ “employer” as would be the case in a company context. He also said the Holy See did not receive or hold information on all priests across the world.
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