\u00a0\u00a0This week the U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for the Vatican to be sued by people who allege that they were sexually abused by priests, a decision that likely means a go-ahead for a suit filed against the Pope and involving\u00a0a now-deceased\u00a0Milwaukee priest.<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/06\/28\/AR2010062805003.html<\/a><\/p>\r\n The nation”s highest court let stand a lower court ruling that\u00a0suits can be filed against the Holy See in American courts on certain grounds. The Vatican has sought to appeal a case stemming\u00a0from a lawsuit filed in Portland, Ore., by a man who alleges that he was molested\u00a0by a priest as a teenager in 1965. That priest was moved around to different assignments, which the plaintiff alleges was all done as a cover-up.<\/p>\r\n The Vatican\u2019s longtime position is that the Pope and Vatican are 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<\/p>\r\n With the Supreme Court refusing to hear the Vatican’s appeal, now\u00a0pretrial discovery in the Portland suit can begin, with attorneys planning to\u00a0subpoena church documents and call Vatican officials as witnesses.<\/p>\r\n Earlier this year a man who alleges\u00a0he was molested by a priest at a school for the deaf in suburban Milwaukee\u00a0filed 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\u00a0identified the plaintiff as Illinois resident John Doe 16. The teen claims\u00a0that 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 the action filed in Wisconsin.<\/p>\r\n \u00a0The suit Milwaukee 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 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 \u00a0Today, Friday,\u00a0 The Times\u00a0has a huge Page One story on\u00a0how Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI,\u00a0handled his duties as head of what was\u00a0essentially\u00a0the Vatican task force on the priest-abuse scandal. The story’s headline tells the story:\u00a0“Amid Sexual Abuse Scandal, A Office That Failed To Act: Pope Benedict’s Track Record Called Into Question.”\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/07\/02\/world\/europe\/02pope.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper<\/a><\/p>\r\n \u00a0<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0This week the U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for the Vatican to be sued by people who allege that they were sexually abused by priests, a decision that likely means a go-ahead for a suit filed against the Pope and involving\u00a0a now-deceased\u00a0Milwaukee priest. \u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/06\/28\/AR2010062805003.html The nation”s highest court let stand a lower court ruling […]<\/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":[469,466,468,467],"class_list":["post-479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lawsuit-against-pedophile-priests","tag-milwaukee-priest-sex-abuse-case","tag-priest-sued-for-sex-abuse","tag-u-s-supreme-court-and-priest-scandal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479","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=479"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":502,"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479\/revisions\/502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}