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BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

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30/06/2010 13:19
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Two important clarifications
on the judicial news from the US


The first has to do with the case itself, at least as Il Foglio summarizes it in an editorial yesterday: It concerns a religious of the Servite order, Andrew Ronan, who 50 years ago was assigned by his order from Ireland to Chicago and then to Portland, Oregon, where some ten years after he came to the USA - i.e., four decades ago , in the 1960s - he abused a minor, was denounced by priests who knew about the abuse, confessed and was laicized in 1966! Apparently, he had also committed abuses in Ireland and in Chicago. Ronan died in 1982.

a) Obviously the timeline makes it clear Joseph Ratzinger could have had nothing to do with this case. Fifty years ago, he was a university professor, who had been a priest only for nine years.

b) Ronan belonged to a religious order, whose administrative decisions - e.g., assignment of priests - are completely autonomous and have nothing to do with the Vatican at all, nor, as I understand it, even with the diocese to which they are assigned other than its consent to have the priest work on its territory and carry out pastoral duties.

c) Tne file on Ronan from the Archdiocese of Oregon
www.archdiocesedocuments.org/uploads/Fr_Ronan.pdf
shows there was even no correspondence with the Vatican about Ronan until 1966 in connection with his laicization ('defrocking').

And yet, none of this was mentioned by the MSM stories about the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) decision not to take up the case during its 2009-2010 session which ended the other day. They are on summer vacation and will reconvene in October for the 2010-2011 session. It does not preclude they may take it up in a future session.

Those are objective facts about the specific case that SCOTUS has not taken up. Here is what canon law expert Phil lawler writes about the SCOTUS 'decision' itself:


Can the Pope be compelled to testify?
What the Supreme Court did — and did not — say

By Phil Lawler

June 29, 2010 3:23 PM


Despite the impression created by dozens of headline stories, the US Supreme Court did not issue a decision against the Vatican yesterday, nor have sex-abuse victims won the right to take testimony from the Pope.

In fact, the Supreme Court did not issue any decision at all. The justices decided not to decide.


Every year thousands of legal decisions are appealed to the Supreme Court. The nation’s top court can handle only a fraction of those cases. The justices choose the issues that seem most pressing from a constitutional point of view, and leave the lower courts to sort out the remaining cases.

On Monday, the court announced that it would not hear the Vatican’s appeal of an Oregon court’s ruling that allowed the Holy See to be listed as a defendant in a sex-abuse lawsuit. The suit, originally filed in 2002, now goes back to the Oregon court for arguments.

By declining to hear the case, the Supreme Court did deal a minor legal setback to the Vatican, which had sought to have the case summarily dismissed.

But the Oregon court’s ruling — which the Supreme Court let stand —only gives plaintiff the opportunity to argue that the Pope and the Vatican can be included as defendants. That argument is far from resolved.

In their effort to include the Pope as a defendant, the plaintiff faces an uphill struggle. The Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act protects the Holy See from liability unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that the priest who abused him was acting as an employee of the Vatican.

By any of the normal legal standards — who signed his paycheck, who was his direct supervisor, who gave his assignments — the priest was working for the diocese, not the Vatican. [In this specific case, he was not even working 'for' the diocese although he worked 'in' the diocese - Ronan was working as a Servite, member of a religious order.]

Any effort to draw a connection between diocesan policies and Vatican directives would run into a further obstacle: the historical (and very prudent) reluctance of the American courts to become involved in the internal affairs of a religious body.

Even if an American court did give plaintiffs the right to take testimony from the Pope, the Pope would not be bound by that ruling. The Pope is not subject to American law-- nor to any other system of civil law. He is sovereign; in Vatican City he is the law.

Bottom line: If an American plaintiff takes testimony from the Pope, it will be because the Pope chose to give testimony — not because a court compelled it.


I wish Lawler had bothered to look into the specific Oregon case itself, because then the absurdity of bringing in the Vatican, much less Benedict XVI, into the case is just too blatant to be ignored! No wonder MSM is glossing over the facts of the case itself.

It is yet another egregiously unscrupulous action by Vatican bounty hunter and shyster lawyer Jeffrey Anderson who is behind this whole filing, as he is in assorted other pending cases, and does not care how absurd his claims are as long as they get him publicity!

What I do not understand, however, is why the Oregon appeals court even bought Anderson's arguments to bring in the Vatican into this case! Obviously, a neutral investigative report on this case is much needed. Where are Jason Berry et al in all this?




[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 30/06/2010 15:08]
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