{"id":364,"date":"2010-04-23T06:58:04","date_gmt":"2010-04-23T12:58:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/?p=364"},"modified":"2010-04-23T06:58:04","modified_gmt":"2010-04-23T12:58:04","slug":"pope-sued-in-wisconsin-by-victim-of-pedophile-priest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/2010\/04\/pope-sued-in-wisconsin-by-victim-of-pedophile-priest.html","title":{"rendered":"Pope Sued In Wisconsin By Victim of Pedophile Priest"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

\u00a0A man who says he was molested by a priest at a school for the deaf in suburban Milwaukee Thursday filed a federal suit against those he holds responsible: Pope Benedict XVI, the Holy See and several top Vatican officials. http:\/\/www.aolnews.com\/nation\/article\/pope-sued-in-milwaukee-clergy-sex-abuse-case\/19450730<\/a><\/p>\r\n

\u00a0The lawsuit only identifies the plaintiff as Illinois resident John Doe 16, who asserts that he was molested by the Rev. Lawrence Murphy at St. John\u2019s School for the Deaf in St. Francis, outside Milwaukee. Father Murphy, who died in 1998, admitted to abusing 200 boys at the school from 1952 to 1974.<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0The lawsuit charges that the Vatican, and the Pope himself, knew that Father Murphy was a pedophile but didn\u2019t act to stop him or defrock him. The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0There have been many lawsuits filed against Roman Catholic dioceses across the nation by those who allege that they were sexually assaulted by pedophile priests. But it\u2019s unusual for the\u00a0Pope himself to be named as a defendant, as in Thursday\u2019s action.<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0The Survivors Network For Those Abused By Priests told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that there two other cases pending against the Vatican that have been filed by men who say they were molested by priests. http:\/\/www.jsonline.com\/news\/milwaukee\/91801904.html<\/a><\/p>\r\n

\u00a0Appeals courts have allowed suits in Oregon and Kentucky to go forward, but the Vatican has requested that the U.S. Supreme Court\u00a0rule on the Oregon case, according to the Journal Sentinel.<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0The Vatican\u2019s position is that the Pope is protected from litigation by sovereign immunity, but victims\u2019 attorney maintain that the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act permits foreign countries and their representatives\u00a0to be sued in some cases related to commercial or private activity.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0The suit against the Pope is also unusual in that it wants the Vatican to be ordered to release secret files that have the names of pedophile priests.<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0Father Murphy\u2019s case made headlines when The New York Times broke a story that alleged that the Pope, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at the Vatican, knew about the allegations against Murphy but stopped proceedings to have him defrocked.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0The Times wrote Thursday that documents released with the suit in Milwaukee show that the Vatican was told earlier than previously thought about the allegations against Father Murphy. http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/04\/23\/us\/23priest.html?ref=us<\/a><\/p>\r\n

\u00a0The Pope could have stopped John Doe 16 from being a victim, according to the suit.<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0\u201cHad plaintiff or his family known what the defendant Holy See knew \u2013 that Lawrence Murphy was a suspected child molester and a danger to children before plaintiff was first molested by Murphy, plaintiff would not have been sexually molested,\u201d the suit says.<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0And here\u2019s a fine touch of irony: Father Murphy first approached the plaintiff about having sex while in a confessional booth. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0A man who says he was molested by a priest at a school for the deaf in suburban Milwaukee Thursday filed a federal suit against those he holds responsible: Pope Benedict XVI, the Holy See and several top Vatican officials. http:\/\/www.aolnews.com\/nation\/article\/pope-sued-in-milwaukee-clergy-sex-abuse-case\/19450730 \u00a0The lawsuit only identifies the plaintiff as Illinois resident John Doe 16, who asserts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[436,382,433,434,435,437],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-father-lawrence-murphy","tag-pedophile-priest-in-milwaukee","tag-pedophile-priests","tag-pope-lawsuit","tag-pope-sued","tag-st-johns-school-for-the-deaf"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":486,"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions\/486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}