VATICAN CITY
Daily News
December 23, 2005
Vatican City: A US judge in Texas has ruled that Pope Benedict XVI enjoys immunity as a head of state and removed him from a civil lawsuit accusing him of conspiracy to cover up the sexual abuse of minors by a seminarian.
According to a copy of yesterday's ruling, US District Judge Lee Rosenthal cited a motion filed by the US Justice Department in which the government said that allowing the suit to proceed would be "incompatible with the United States' foreign policy interests".
"After a suggestion of immunity is filed, it is the court's duty to surrender jurisdiction," Rosenthal wrote in the ruling from US District Court in Houston.
Joseph Ratzinger - Bene-dict's former name - is named as a defendant in the civil lawsuit, accused of conspiring with the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston and some of its officials to cover up the abuse of three boys during the mid-1990s. The suit is seeking monetary damages.
The three boys, identified in court documents as John Does I, II and III, allege that a Colombian-born seminarian at St Francis de Sales church in Houston, Juan Carlos Patino-Arango, molested them during counselling sessions in the church in the mid-1990s.