Vatican US child sex abuse cases 'falling apart'

By Karin Zeitvogel(AFP)"“21 hours ago

WASHINGTON A US lawyer who has successfully sued the US RomanCatholic church over the long-running child sex abuse scandal said cases against the Vatican are crumbling and he is throwing in the towel.

"You have to have an impossible alignment of planets and moons to win anycase against the Vatican," attorney Bill McMurry told AFP a day after he asked a Kentucky court to dismiss a case to hold the Vaticanaccountable for all child sex abuse by Catholic clergy in the UnitedStates.

"It's out of my hands now. It's impossible to meet theburdens that the courts have placed on plaintiffs" who take on theVatican, said McMurry, accusing the US judicial system of protecting the Holy See.

The Supreme Court has refused to review whether theVatican is a sovereign state and therefore has broad legal immunity from prosecution over the sexual abuse of minors by priests in the UnitedStates.

"I was disappointed that our Supreme Court didn't correctthis injustice, and I'm frustrated that I can't hold the Vaticanaccountable for what the Vatican did, but only for what the bishopsdid," said McMurry.

"Immunity allows international religiousorganizations masquerading as foreign countries to commit any horrendous act as long as they do it from a distance," he said.

McMurryfiled a motion Monday with Louisville district court to dismiss a caseagainst the Vatican filed by three men who claim they were sexuallyabused as boys by members of the Catholic clergy. One of the cases ofalleged clergy sex abuse dates back to 1928.

The suit, filed in 2004, alleged that the Vatican had a policy of keeping secret any cases of clergy sex abuse.

In March, McMurry filed a motion in a Kentucky court to take sworntestimony from Pope Benedict XVI on what the Vatican knew about thelong-running scandal of predator priests.

The plaintiffs asked todrop their case because US courts have recognized the Vatican as asovereign state with immunity from prosecution, and, said McMurry,"because nobody has got a case that can meet the particulars that thecourts say have to be met to win a case against the Vatican.

"Howin the world are you going to prove that the bishop knew that the priest who abused a plaintiff in 1928 was a pedophile? The priest and bishopare dead," he said.

Other child sex abuse cases against theVatican were also fraying at the edges, according to Jeffrey Lena, thelawyer who has represented the Holy See in a number of cases that havecome before US courts.

The cases of an alleged serial pedophile priest in Wisconsin and another in California "never filed anything," Lena said.

And both sides in a high-profile case in Oregon will file for dismissal atthe end of the month, said Lena, though a lawyer on the case insisted it was going ahead.

"The United States Supreme Court recentlyallowed the case to proceed and we will be providing the Oregon courtwith requests for documents and depositions in the coming months,"attorney Jeff Anderson said.

The clergy sex abuse scandal eruptedin the United States in 2002 when the archbishop of Boston admitted hehad protected a priest he knew had molested children.

Thefollowing year, the archdiocese of Louisville agreed to pay out nearly26 million dollars in damages to 243 plaintiffs who had accused priestsand other church employees of sexual abuse, and the archdiocese ofcovering it up. McMurry was the lead attorney on that case.

Thesex abuse scandal has spread to Europe in recent months, withaccusations of predator clergy coming from countries ranging fromAustria to Ireland to the pope's native Germany.

But in Europe,too, people who say they were victims of abusive clergy have come upagainst roadblocks as they seek justice for acts that in many casesoccurred decades ago.

German prosecutors last month halted aprobe against a German archbishop who was accused of allowing a priestto be hired even though he was aware of claims the man abused a boy inthe 1960s, arguing that the alleged abuse occurred outside the statuteof limitations.