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	Vatican Releases Files in Bid to Rebut Claims of Coverup By Stacy Meichtry Wall Street Journal August 17, 2011 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904070604576514653744331210.html [documents] The Vatican published a cache of internal files on Wednesday documenting the Catholic Church's handling of allegations of sexual abuse against a U.S. priest—an unusual attempt by the Holy See to rebut claims that it sought to cover up the alleged abuse. Vatican lawyer Jeffrey Lena said in a statement that the Holy See decided to post the cache on the website of Vatican Radio after a federal court in Portland, Ore., ordered the Vatican to turn over the documents by Friday to lawyers of a man who alleges he was abused by the late Rev. Andrew Ronan in the 1960s. The alleged victim, who is named John V. Doe in court filings, brought a lawsuit against the Vatican in 2002 alleging the Holy See acted as the late priest's employer, overseeing plans to transfer Father Ronan from Ireland—where his religious order said it had received complaints of abuse from parents of children—to archdioceses in the U.S. The move to release the documents is a rare step for the Vatican, a sovereign city-state that has often said that its internal affairs and archives are off-limits to foreign authorities. The Vatican has often been slow to respond to allegations of sexual abuse by priests, including the thousands of allegations that emerged in Europe and other parts of the world last year, rocking the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI. On Wednesday, Mr. Lena said documents culled from the archives of the Vatican's office for religious orders showed that Vatican officials learned about the possible abuse after it allegedly occurred in the U.S. and acted swiftly to dismiss the priest. In his original complaint, the plaintiff alleged he was abused by Father Ronan in "late 1965 or early 1966." Years of correspondence between Father Ronan's superiors discussing his alleged abuse of minors in Ireland were first sent as attachments to the Vatican in February 1966, Mr. Lena said, as part of a request from his religious order to defrock Father Ronan—a request that was granted weeks later. Father Ronan died in 1992. "The Holy See was not involved in Ronan's transfers, including the transfer to Portland, and had no prior knowledge that Ronan posed a danger to minors," Mr. Lena said. "The plaintiff's lawyers never had support for their calumnious accusations against the Holy See," he added. In a statement, Jeff Anderson, a lawyer for the plaintiff in the case, said he hadn't yet received the documentation ordered by the Portland court and "will reserve comment until the document production is received and reviewed." The Vatican cache released on Wednesday, Mr. Anderson added, didn't include documents detailing its protocols for handling all abuse cases, which the Portland court also ordered the Holy See to turn over. Mr. Lena said he planned to send those additional documents by Friday. Write to Stacy Meichtry at stacy.meichtry@wsj.com
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