Lawyer in priest sex-abuse cases calls Supreme Court's ruling 'the biggest breakthrough'

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(Source: Star Tribune, Minneapolis)trackingMINNEAPOLIS _ Sex-abuse victims may have been handed a way to sue the Vatican in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling announced Monday that St. Paul lawyer Jeff Anderson called "the biggest breakthrough in the movement's history."

Anderson, who for decades has specialized in abuse suits against the Roman Catholic Church, filed the case that led to the decision.

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"This is huge. Really, really huge," he said. "We've kicked down the iron gates that they've been hiding behind for all these years." He predicted the ruling eventually will allow him to interrogate Pope Benedict in a legal deposition.

But the Vatican's lawyer, Jeffrey Lena, noted that the court's decision leaves another step to clarifying just who is culpable in a 2002 lawsuit. The Supreme Court is sending the case back to district court in Oregon, where the two lawyers will argue over whether a priest accused of abuse is an employee of the Vatican or of the local order that appointed him _ an issue crucial to determining whether the Holy See ultimately can be held responsible for the priest's actions.

Nationally, the church has faced hundreds of lawsuits in sex-abuse cases, especially during the past decade. The issue jumped to prominence in 2002 with revelations of widespread abuses in Boston. Since then, lawsuits have occurred all over the world, including high-profile cases in Ireland and Germany.

The Supreme Court case is the latest in a series of recent high-profile abuse cases brought by Anderson. In April, the Roseau County attorney's office filed extradition papers against the Rev. Joseph Jeyapaul, a native of India accused of raping a 15-year-old girl while on a temporary assignment in Minnesota. In March, Anderson filed a suit alleging that the Rev. Lawrence Murphy, a priest accused of abusing at least 200 children in Milwaukee, committed further abuse after being sent to the Diocese of Superior.

The suit at the heart of the Supreme Court's decision is a case Anderson filed in 2002 for an unidentified 49-year-old Oregon man who alleges he was sexually abused as a teenager by the Rev. Andrew Ronan.

The priest was reassigned to Oregon after being accused of similar abuses in parishes in Chicago and Ireland. Anderson argued that the Vatican can be sued for sexual abuse if church officials knowingly reassign priests who have been accused of such acts in their previous parishes.

In the appeals court, the Vatican argued that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction over the church, with its headquarters in Vatican City, under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976.


But the appeals court ruled that the case fell under an exception involving employees acting within the scope of their employment.

The case now returns to the original court in Oregon, where Anderson and Lena, a California lawyer who represents the Holy See in most of its legal dealings in the United States, will argue over who officially employed Ronan.

Anderson and Lena said they both expect the Oregon case to move forward quickly, with the hearing likely within a month.

Lena said he intends to argue the priest was an employee of the Order of Friar Servants of Mary.

"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," he said.

Anderson has argued repeatedly that the highest level of the church should be held liable in sex-abuse cases because it is a hierarchy in which decisions flow down from the top.

"The Vatican must own up to its accountability," he said.

Pope Benedict himself is not being sued _ the suit names the church as the defendant. But the pope could be questioned under oath if the case reaches trial.

Anderson intends to do just that if he prevails in the next round of hearings, he said.

"I won't start with him; I'm going to work my way up," he said. The ruling will allow him to question "anybody within the organization who has knowledge about the events," Anderson said.

Before becoming pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger oversaw the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the office that disciplines priests for abusive acts.

SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) issued a statement saying the Supreme Court's decision "gives hope to hundreds of thousands of clergy sex-abuse victims across the globe who know lies remain under wraps at the Vatican and will only be unearthed through persistent action by secular justice officials and systems."

Whatever ruling comes from the ensuing hearing likely will apply only in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii. But the precedent it sets could have widespread impact, especially with a similar case being argued in Kansas City, which is in the same appeals court circuit as Minnesota.

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(c) 2010, Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

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