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	Kentucky Natives Press on with Lawsuit against Vatican Courier-Journal May 17, 2010 http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20100517/NEWS01/5170328/1008/NEWS01/Kentucky+natives+press+on+with+lawsuit+against+Vatican Michael Turner stayed away from the Roman Catholic Church for decades after being sexually abused as a boy by a priest who is now in prison. But Turner returned to the church about three years ago, he said, and is impressed by its good works and his current priest. Still, Turner has been troubled by recent reports of how the Vatican has handled cases of sexual abuse. And he remains adamant in pursuing a long-running lawsuit in which he is the lead plaintiff — one targeting the Vatican for allegedly orchestrating a cover-up of sexual abuse by priests and allowing thousands of children to be victimized in the United States. "I'm a very devout Catholic, but discovery (of evidence) is actually where it's at," said Turner, a contractor from Prospect. "I just want all the information out there." Six years after its filing — and still facing severe legal hurdles — the lawsuit has drawn renewed attention with reports on Pope Benedict XVI's handling of abuse cases when he was a senior Vatican administrator and an German archbishop. Louisville lawyer William McMurry is using the revelations to renew his attempt to put the pope on the witness stand. Newly disclosed documents, McMurry said in a recent court filing, "directly implicate Pope Benedict XVI's involvement in the Holy See's decision to cast a shroud of secrecy over clergy sexual abuse cases in the United States." The Associated Press reported Sunday that the Vatican on Monday will make its most detailed defense yet in a motion to dismiss the case. Legal experts say McMurry has almost no chance of taking the pope's deposition. And U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II said he won't even consider the request any time soon. "There's a big difference between taking a deposition of a bishop (in America) and taking the deposition of the pope," Heyburn said at a February hearing. Heyburn ruled recently that he first wants to see evidence that would answer a more basic legal question — whether the case can proceed at all, even under the narrow grounds on which he has allowed it to survive so far. The suit was filed in June 2004 on behalf of Turner and two other Kentucky natives who said they were sexually abused by priests between the 1920s and the 1970s McMurry is seeking class-action status on behalf of all victims of priest sex abuse throughout the United States — a potentially vast number given that more than 10,000 people have alleged abuse since 1950, according to a nationwide survey by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. McMurry previously represented about 300 plaintiffs, including Turner, in settlements totaling more than $27million with the Archdiocese of Louisville and two religious orders. The Vatican says the suit should be dismissed. "There is a strong likelihood" that will happen, Vatican lawyer Jeffrey Lena of California said at the February hearing. He contended the suit was filed too late — decades after the alleged abuse. He also said it fails to meet the needed proof that American bishops were Vatican "employees" carrying out orders to cover up abuse. And he said many of the potential class-action plaintiffs, including Turner, already had their day in court when they settled with bishops and can't sue again over the bishops' alleged role as Vatican "employees." At the February hearing, McMurry acknowledged the "implications" for such plaintiffs. And in a May 4 advertisement in The Courier-Journal, he solicited clients for the Vatican lawsuit — but only if they were victims who had never made a prior settlement. Lena told The Associated Press the motion to dismiss the case will include a response to claims the 1962 document "Crimen Sollicitationis," which is Latin for "crimes of solicitation," barred bishops from reporting abuse to police. He has said files released by the Archdiocese of Louisville in McMurry's earlier lawsuits show no reference to "Crimen" — a document McMurry has contended is central to his case. McMurray said Crimen is central because it mandated a secretive process for abusers. The other, filed in Oregon in 2002, accuses the Vatican and a religious order of abetting the transfer of an abusive priest from Ireland to Chicago to Portland. A third suit was filed April 22 in Wisconsin after revelations about how the office led by the future Pope Benedict XVI in the 1990s handled the case of an admitted serial abuser, the Rev. Lawrence Murphy. Lena is representing the Vatican in all three cases. The Minnesota lawyer in that case, Jeff Anderson, is seeking the release of Vatican files on abuse cases worldwide. He said he based his legal arguments in part on the successes and failures, so far, of the lawsuits in Oregon and Kentucky. In the older cases, judges have allowed the suits to proceed only on narrow legal grounds because the Vatican, as a sovereign state, enjoys broad immunity from lawsuits. The Kentucky ruling — upheld on appeal in 2009 — left McMurry unable to sue over anything church officials did outside U.S. soil, including in the Vatican. But under an exception to the immunity law, Heyburn is allowing McMurry to argue that American Roman Catholic bishops are Vatican employees and that they were required by their employer to cover up sexual abuse. Heyburn, in 2008, rejected McMurry's first attempt to take the pope's deposition. But McMurry revived the attempt in April, saying that documents recently disclosed by The New York Times "unequivocally" link the pope to "a policy of secrecy" regarding abuse. The documents show that in 1998, a Vatican office led by the future pope halted a church trial of Murphy. Murphy had appealed that he was in failing health — he died within months — that he had repented and that decades had passed since the abuse. Other news reports also have questioned Benedict's past handling of cases. Defenders of Benedict say that others handled many of these decisions, that he didn't have widespread oversight over such cases until 2001 and that he has since taken a hard line. On Sunday, more than 100,000 people filled St. Peter's Square in a major show of support for Benedict.The Vatican plans to object vigorously to any attempt to put the pope or other Vatican officials on the witness stand. "To give you an idea of what a big deal it is, a United States official has never submitted to a deposition by a foreign state," Lena said in February. McMurry is also seeking testimony from two top Vatican cardinals and its top diplomat to the United States, as well as evidence on U.S. bishops' handling of scores of accused abusers named in a 77-page list. Before that happens, Lena said, the case should be dismissed entirely. He contended there are no grounds for claiming that the bishops are Vatican "employees." The effort to put the pope on the stand is "going to be tough, I must say," said Cindy Galway Buys, an associate professor of law at Southern Illinois University and a specialist in international law. Mark E. Wojcik, a professor at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago, said the lawsuit may fare better with its claim that bishops were Vatican employees. "It's not like they are independent contractors that can go out and make their own policies," he said. "They're following orders."
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