I'm not a lawyer, obviously, but somehow I am hoping the interpretation given here of the Supreme Court decision not to intervene is wrong - especially since the lead sentence is so evidently wrong!
With at least five Catholics in the US Supreme Court now (a majority in a nine-man Court), one would think they would have more appreciation for what their decision means. Just more tiresome legal wwrangling in which the Vatican will be at the mercy of some liberal anti-Church judge - and that kind is rife in US courts today.
US Supreme Court declines to consider
appeals court ruling against Vatican immunity
WASHINGTON, June 28 (AFP) — The US Supreme Court declined Monday to hear an appeal by the Vatican in a landmark case
that opens the way for priests in the United States to stand trial for pedophilia.
[That is a false statement! Hundreds of priests have stood trial in the US for their individual offenses and been convicted for sex abuse crimes. I cannot believe a major news agency can allow such a factual error to be so blatantly reported! The following two statements, however, refer to another issue altogether: Vatican immunity from the US court system regarding crimes committed by priests who are not employed in any of the Vatican agencies.]
Allowing a federal appeals court ruling to stand, the decision means Vatican officials including theoretically Pope Benedict XVI could face questioning under oath related to a litany of child sex abuse cases.
The Supreme Court effectively confirmed the decision of an appellate court to lift the Vatican's immunity in the case of an alleged pedophile priest in the northwestern state of Oregon.
The Oregon case, which was filed in 2002, does not directly address questions raised in a separate lawsuit in Kentucky alleging that US bishops are employees of the Holy See.
In recent months, large-scale pedophilia scandals have rocked the Roman Catholic Church in a number of countries, including Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Pope Benedict XVI's native Germany and the United States.
Senior clerics have been accused of protecting the priests involved by moving them to other parishes -- where they sometimes offended again -- instead of handing them over to civil authorities for prosecution.
The Pope, who has himself faced allegations he covered up the scandal, has repeatedly said priests and religious workers guilty of child abuse should answer for their crimes in courts of law.
OK - A statement from Jeffrey Lena puts the right construction on the SCOTUS action. Kudos and thanks to John Allen who had the journalistic initiative to get Lena's reaction:
Vatican's US attorney responds
to Supreme Court action
Jeffrey Lena, the California-based attorney who represents the Vatican in American litigation, issued this statement following the announcement that the U.S. Supreme Court would not hear an appeal from the Holy See.
The Vatican was asking the federal court to stop a law suit filed in Oregon that accuses the Vatican of transferring a priest from city to city despite repeated accusations of sexual abuse.
Lena's statement:
Today the Supreme Court decided not to grant the Holy See's petition for certiorari. These decisions are made based upon the Supreme Court's docket and what cases it wishes to hear each term. [NB: The Court's judicial year ended today. They go on summer vacation now and will reconvene for the new judicial year in the autumn.]
The decision not to hear the case is not a comment on the merits of our case (importantly, the United States does agree that we are correct on the merits). [??? Does he mean the Solicitor-General of the United States, who did present an amicus curiae brief to this effect!]
The effect of the Supreme Court's decision is to cause the case to return to the district court in Oregon, where the additional remaining defenses will be heard. Plaintiff currently has one jurisdictional theory left. That theory is that the priest who committed the abuse was an "employee" of the Holy See.
We will, of course, point out to the district court that the priest in question is not an employee of the Holy See, and that, therefore, the district court does not have jurisdiction over the case.
In our view the indicia of employment simply are not present. The Holy See does not pay the salary of the priest, or benefits of the priest, or exercise day-to-day control over the priest, and ANY of the other factors indicating the presence of an employment relationship. This is a priest of the Order Friar Servants of Mary. His very existence was unknown to the Holy See until after all the events in question.
Statements from the attorneys representing people who alleged abuse by Fr. Andrew Ronan were posted earlier to the NCR Today blog:
ncronline.org/node/18932
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 29/06/2010 06:06]