US Judge Says Vatican Isn’t Priests’ Employer

PORTLAND (OR)
Time

By Associated Press | August 20, 2012

(PORTLAND, Ore.) — The Vatican has won a major victory in an Oregon federal courtroom, where a judge ruled the Holy See is not the employer of molester priests.

The ruling Monday by U.S. District Court Judge Michael Mosman ends a six-year question in the decade-old case and could shield the Vatican from possible monetary damages.

The original lawsuit was filed in 2002 by a Seattle-area man who claimed the Rev. Andrew Ronan repeatedly molested him in the late 1960s.

Mosman made a previous decision strictly on legal theory and determined that if all the facts in the case were true, the Vatican would indeed be Ronan’s employer.

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