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	Kentucky Plaintiffs Give up Sex Abuse Case against Vatican By Peter Smith The Courier-Journal August 9 2010 http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20100809/NEWS01/308090089/1008/Plaintiffs+give+up+sex+abuse+case+against+Vatican Three Kentucky natives have dropped their long-running lawsuit against the Vatican, admitting they face “insurmountable hurdles” to collecting damages for what they continue to insist was a top-level coverup of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. The three men filed a motion to dismiss the case on Monday in U.S. District Court in Louisville. They had originally filed the lawsuit in 2004, seeking class-action status on behalf of the thousands of victims of clergy sexual abuse across the United States and alleging secret Vatican policies of the past two centuries had required a coverup of abuse. But despite advertising by their attorney, William McMurry, they were unable to find more plaintiffs willing to join their case, McMurry told The Associated Press. While the judge and an appeals court allowed the case to proceed on narrow grounds, plaintiffs' attorney William McMurry said in a court filing on Monday the courts had dealt a fatal blow to the case by declaring the Vatican to be immune from most of the lawsuit because it is a sovereign nation. The refusal of the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider that ruling sealed the case's fate, McMurry conceded. It left only one option for the three plaintiffs, who had alleged abuse between the 1920s and 1970s: to prove that Roman Catholic bishops, acting on U.S. soil, were acting as employees of the Vatican and were carrying out Vatican orders to cover up sexual abuse. The two sides had been sparring for months in court documents about whether bishops, who are bound to follow church authority but have broad discretion in how they run their dioceses, were really Vatican employees. And they disagreed over whether church policy really mandated bishops to cover up cases of sexual abuse by priests. Plaintiff Michael Turner dropped his case because, by already settling with the Archdiocese of Louisville in 2003 over abuse by a priest, he had effectively released the Vatican of liability for actions by Louisville bishops. The other two plaintiffs, James O'Bryan and Donald Poppe, dropped their cases because the abuse happened under archbishops who are now dead, and “further discovery regarding the bishops' actions is believed to be impossible.” But the plaintiffs got in some parting shots in their dismissal, saying their case fell apart on legal but not factual grounds, a contention the Vatican disputed all along in court filings. “The Holy See's actions had the predictable impact of preventing United States bishops from exposing pedophilic priests and reporting instances of childhood sexual abuse to law enforcement authorities, resulting in the sexual abuse of thousands of United States children,” the plaintiffs' filing said. In previous filings, Vatican lawyers have said the church did not have a mandated policy and noted the plaintiffs themselves had failed to unearth any documents showing bishops were following Vatican orders in systematically covering up sexual abuse. McMurry's attempts to put Pope Benedict XVI on the witness stand never made headway during the six years the case slowly progressed. An attorney for the Vatican, referred to in the lawsuit as the Holy See, said the lawsuit lacked merit. “This development confirms that, contrary to what the plaintiffs' lawyers repeatedly told the media, there has never been a Holy See policy requiring concealment of child sexual abuse,” attorney Jeffrey Lena said in a statement. “The theory crafted by the plaintiffs' lawyers six years ago misled the American public.” Lena added: “That the case against the Holy See always lacked merit does not mean that the plaintiffs themselves did not suffer as a result of sexual abuse. “But bringing this case only distracted from the important goal of protecting children from harm.” A separate American claim against the Vatican in Oregon is headed for trial in federal court after the U.S. Supreme Court refused in June to hear an appeal from the Holy See. That suit was filed in 2002 by a Seattle-area man who said a priest molested him in the late 1960s. Attorneys in that lawsuit also are arguing priests are Vatican employees for the purpose of American law. Reporter Peter Smith can be reached at (502) 582-4469. The Associated Press contributed to this story. Contact: psmith@courier-journal.com
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