Vatican Lawsuit Driven by Hate

by Catholic League on June 28, 2010 · 5 comments

A lawsuit against the Vatican was filed yesterday in Louisville by attorney William McMurry seeking to depose Pope Benedict XVI. McMurry contends that officials of the Catholic Church in Rome, including the pope, knew about cases of priestly sexual abuse and then covered them up.

Responding is Catholic League president Bill Donohue:

It is a staple of anti-Catholic thinking that every priest on the face of the globe takes his marching orders from the pope, and that every instance of priestly wrongdoing is known to the Holy Father and his inner circle. The fact is that the Catholic Church is among the most decentralized entities in the world, and it is positively preposterous to think that the pope sits around orchestrating coverups in places ranging from Louisville to London. McMurry knows this as well, but having creamed over $10 million for himself (out of a $25.7 million pot) from a settlement with the Archdiocese of Louisville in 2003, he can afford to be motivated more by ideology than greed at this point.

“I have yet to meet a Catholic, expert or otherwise,” McMurry says, “who does not believe that the Holy See has the absolute right to control the day-to-day activities of a bishop’s work.” Yet when even parents cannot possibly control the day-to-day activities of their children, only someone who is hopelessly naïve—or malicious—would contend that the pope is tweeting the bishops all day long.

McMurry has three clients: one says he “thinks” the local bishop knew of his alleged abuse; another maintains that he was molested over three decades ago; and the third contends that a priest touched him through his pants pocket in 1928. If this is McMurry’s best shot, then he is bound to fail. Besides, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act makes it difficult to prosecute a head of state.

This lawsuit, then, is not driven by a noble pursuit of justice. It is driven by hate. As such, it deserves a quick death.

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  • http://prairiehawk.me PrairieHawk

    I don’t know about hate but it sure sounds to me like McMurry is angling to line his pockets with a few more million extorted from the Holy See itself. He should be kicked out of the courtroom and heavily fined for wasting the court’s time and taxpayer dollars.

  • SeanReynoldsNZ

    By what authority do American courts seek to impose punitive judgement on another Sovereign nation? They should stick to their own jurisdictions! This is utterly contemptable, and to put it mildly the American court system should bugger off and judge American cases.

  • wmcmurry

    I am William F. McMurry, the attorney referenced in this misleading and inaccurate article. The lawsuit was not filed “on Thursday” but was filed 6 years ago. The issue of Sovereign Immunity has been decided AGAINST the Vatican by both the trial Judge and the Appellate Court.

  • rakeys

    WMcurry

    It appears that the trial judge and the Appellate Court also do not know the law.

    However, assuming the pope is responsible for all the people working under him, why don’t you file a lawsuit against all the leaders of Protestant Churches, who have a higher incidence than Catholic priests of child molestation?

    Better yet why don’t you file a lawsuit against President Obama and all the state governors for all the child molestation performed by public school teachers, with an incidence which is 3 to 4 times higher than priestly abuse? Many of these teachers are just moved from one school district to another.

    The charge against the pope is ludicrous, but I believe you should pursue the suit against Obama and the governors. They live here in the US, and it affects more American children

  • SeanReynoldsNZ

    William, by what authority do US courts decide against the Sovereign Immunity of the Holy See, something that is an international entity, i.e. not part of American jurisdiction?

    Following on from RakeyS, suppose a child in Christchurch, New Zealand, was molested by an American Serviceman posted to New Zealand in support of the US Antarctic Program in the 1970s when Richard Nixon was president. Now suppose that US Serviceman had been moved to NZ because they were involved in similar activity in the USA. Given that the President of the USA is the Commander in Chief of the US Armed Forces, then by the logic you are using, you would have to agree that Barrack Obama would be justifiably the subject of any prosecution of such a case in the New Zealand court system. If not, then your logic doesn’t work in this case either.

    Besides, this US court system is the same that ruled in Dred Scott in 1857 that African-Americans could be considered the property of a slave owner, according to the US Constitution that took a civil war to amend. And there have been numerous ludicrous lawsuits in the US court system such as some drongo getting a few million dollars out of McDonald’s for burning themselves while driving with a cup of coffee from the drive-thru on their knee. Your court system is a joke! (So is the Kiwi one too, that is for leniency in sentencing, but that is another matter).

    In all honesty bro, are you doing this for the headlines or something? Maybe you should pursue those American bishops who allowed this priest to continue. Or perhaps American law has nothing to do with justice?

    Sexual abuse is a travesty, but the victim won’t get justice by suing the person who was not responsible for what happened to them. All you will do is create another victim of your decision to bomb the innocent. BTW, Pope Benedict is the most hardline Pope in a long time on the matter of sexual abuse as evidenced by his actions against the founder of the Legionaries of Christ.