VATICAN CITY
Huffington Post
By Alessandro Speciale
Religion News Service
VATICAN CITY (RNS) A prominent sex abuse lawyer has dropped a high-stakes lawsuit that sought to hold Pope Benedict XVI and other top church officials responsible for a clergy sexual abuse case.
The Vatican’s U.S. attorney, Jeffrey S. Lena, welcomed the decision to drop the suit on Friday (Feb. 10), saying the case was “held together by no more than a mendacious web of allegations of international conspiracy.”
The plaintiff’s attorney, Jeffrey Anderson, said the case was withdrawn as a consequence of progress in a separate court case involving the bankruptcy bid of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
The case involved the victims of the late Rev. Lawrence Murphy, a priest who was accused of molesting some 200 boys at the Milwaukee-area St. John’s School for the Deaf between 1950 and 1974.
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