Patheos blog
January 10, 2019
By Barry Duke
This week saw the start of a high-profile trial in France of six people accused of covering up clerical sexual abuse. But a seventh – Cardinal Luis Ladaria Ferrer – is not among the defendants because the Vatican last year played the diplomatic immunity card and refused to hand the cardinal a summons issued by a French court.
They argued that Ferrer had advised the Diocese of Lyon not to involve the French justice system in the case.
It’s quite understandable why Ferrer is being protected. He is a Vatican high muckety-muck. In 2017 he became Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) – formerly the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition – and 2018 Pope Francis made him a cardinal named him the Cardinal-Deacon of Sant’Ignazio Loyola in Campo Marzio.
In 2010 a British barrister Geoffrey Robertson QC argued that the Vatican isn’t deserving of diplomatic recognition, that its claims to statehood are risible, and that it uses its status as a state to take refuge from international law and to cover up clerical sex abuse crimes.
According to Catholic website Crux, the case was brought to court by nine people who said Preynat abused them in the 1970s and 1980s. The victims say top clergy were aware of Preynat’s actions for years, but allowed him to be in contact with children until his 2015 retirement.
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