HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle
By HARVEY RICE
Houston Chronicle
A Houston federal judge has removed Pope Benedict XVI from a lawsuit accusing him of being part of a conspiracy to cover up the molestation of three boys in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.
A letter from the U.S. State Department giving the pope sovereign immunity shields him from further legal action, U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal ruled.
"Pope Benedict's motion to dismiss all claims against him is granted on the basis of this court's recognition of head-of-state immunity," she wrote.
The lawsuit — by three men listed in court documents as John Does I, II and III — alleges that they were molested as boys by then-seminary student Juan Carlos Patino Arango in the mid-1990s. Rosenthal's ruling leaves the archdiocese, Archbishop Joseph Fiorenza, Monsignor William Pickard and Patino Arango as defendants.
Tahira Merritt , attorney for the plaintiffs, now 23, 19 and 21, said she has not decided whether to appeal Rosenthal's ruling.
"We're going to press forward with the case and hope we can get Patino to stand trial and go forward with the case against the archdiocese," Merritt said.