Crime Victims Can Now Sue the Vatican Ninth Circuit Decision in San Francisco Tuesday, by Kay Ebeling, Examiner, March 4, 2009

Crime Victims Can Now Sue the Vatican, Ninth Circuit Decision in San Francisco Tuesday

By Kay Ebeling
Examiner
March 4, 2009

http://www.examiner.com/x-1960-LA-City-Buzz-Examiner~y2009m3d4-Crime-victims-can -now-sue-the-Vatican-Ninth-Circuit-decision-in-San-Francisco-yesterday

"Not only did the Court listen but they provided openings other courts have not provided. We can go forward for now one solitary victim this is really an individual versus a system," said Marci Hamilton who litigated the lawsuit before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco which allowed one lawsuit against the Vatican to go forward yesterday. Here is Part Two, a rough transcript of what was said at the press conference which just ended this morning, from Jeff Anderson's law offices in St. Paul. Hamilton was online from New York.

HAMILTON: And we will also be able to go forward against the Vatican as though it was a commercial entity, in that this was an employee of theirs, so this is the most

It allows the victim to sue the Vatican

It's a great moment for victims everywhere.

Read the majority opinion but also Judge Berjon's trenchant reasoning in the commercial dissent. She lays out the framework for applying for an exception in the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

ANDERSON: advises lay folks may have trouble reading the decision as it is a lengthy discussion on the Act.

But for the laity and all of us the good news is that the Vatican can now be held accountable.

The facts in this case are like so many others we've handled before.

In Ireland he abused in the 1950s, they sent him to Chicago to St. Philips there admitted abusing there youths in his charge, he was moved to Portland and abused this boy when he was a teen.

That scenario is nothing new. What is new and what is hopeful is that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has now said, the door is open, you've made enough of a showing to us that the Vatican can perhaps be held accountable for its role in these crimes by this priest and that is hopeful.

HAMILTON: This is really what the tort system here and internationally is all about. It's about David versus Goliath. The United States courts have opened this opportunity and set a standard for the whole world, there really can be justice for one victim, even if he is a victim of an extraordinary and powerful organization.

This is a victory for every victim who feels he is up against all odds, it's not easy to go through federal litigation.

We now have a template that anyone who harms children in the United States will be held accountable, whether they're sovereign or not.

ANDERSON: The Vatican chose to protect the clerics and themselves and not the kids. This is another door open through our American justice system. The well reasoned decision of the 9th Circuit gives us this chance for justice, accountability at the top, healing, and a chance to do some prevention so these misdeeds of the past are not repeated in the future. If the Vatican chooses to change its protocols and to do more than lip service to this issue, by making a statement, it will go back down the line to the bishops, to the priests.

And it'll be a safer place.

NOW TO QUESTIONS

How is this different from Louisville case that went forward against Vatican last year?

HAMILTON: You can bring claims regarding misrepresentation and fraud. In cases where misleading statements and s

Opens fraud claims and makes them capable of being brought forward. If you're limited to tort section no fraud claims, so we are in a much better position just in that aspect.

Under tort claims, not so much torts as claims with employee employer relations.

ANDERSON: Vatican's Canon Law says they have to keep scandals secret, in secret files, referring to Crimen Solicitaciones

(That explains the pattern, and Anderson explains the pattern, for anyone who doesn't know it by now, the otherwise inexplicable way the archdioceses across the country transferred felony sex crime committing priests instead of getting them to law enforcement and away from children. It all makes sense when you consider, the archdioceses and bishops were following the orders laid down by the Vatican.)

Crimen Solicitaciones is the document from the Vatican which steered bishops in the United States in their handling of pedophile priests and here it a link a story by Kathy Shaw with a link to that document:

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news5/2003_07_29_Shaw_VaticanDocument.htm