Quote:
Originally Posted by GBBob
It's sad when it takes a topic as horrifying as this to bring the Left and Right together.
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some things will unify everyone. rampant injustice being one of them-especially where children are involved.
good news:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37974481/ns/us_news/
Court lets Vatican-sex abuse lawsuit move forward
by RACHEL ZOLL
AP Religion Writer
updated 29 minutes ago
A lawsuit against the Vatican that had been dismissed as a publicity stunt moved forward when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from the Holy See. Monday's development represents a significant advance for what many believed to be a long-shot claim that the Vatican bears legal responsibility for molester priests.
The high court's decision not to stop the lawsuit means the clergy sex abuse case will go to trial in an Oregon district court.
"I have known for 25 years that all roads lead to Rome," said Jeff Anderson, the Minnesota attorney who represents the plaintiff. "This is the beginning for us of a new journey, a uniquely difficult odyssey."
Anderson, who has represented hundreds of abuse victims and has tried for years to sue the Vaitcan, said he hoped to persuade a judge that he should be allowed to depose Vatican officials.
Anderson argues in the case that priests are Vatican employees for the purpose of American law. If the trial judge agrees, that would constitute an exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act, under which the Vatican has been immune from the jurisdiction of U.S. courts.
According to the lawsuit, Ronan, who belonged to a religious order, began abusing boys in the mid-1950s as a priest in the Archdiocese of Armagh, Ireland. He was transferred to Chicago, where he allegedly admitted abusing three boys at St. Philip's High School.
Ronan was later moved to a parish in Portland, Ore., where he was accused of abusing the person who filed the lawsuit now under appeal. He was removed from the priesthood in 1966, according to the Archdiocese of Portland, and died in 1992.
The Obama administration had sided with the Vatican on the issue of sovereign immunity.
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i can't emphatically enough say that i disagree with the obama administration in this.