Irish Priest Victim Can Sue Vatican

A victim of clerical sexual abuse by an Irish priest 40 years ago may be the first person to hold the Vatican responsible.    

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Portland, Oregon, issued a decision on Tuesday, March 3, that opens the door to survivors of clerical sex abuse in the U.S. Catholic Church to sue the Vatican for its role in the cover-up of priests and molestations by them.

The Court of Appeals concurred with a 2006 ruling from Portland based U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman that “the Holy See is not immune from suit” in a case involving a priest with “dangerous proclivities.”

The court ruled that the victim could pursue a civil suit against the Vatican because the priest allegedly abused him while serving in a religious capacity.

The victim of the abuse, only known as John Doe from Oregon, claimed the late Father Andrew Ronan sexually molested him at a Catholic school on a number of occasions when he was in his mid teens.

Ronan, who died in 1992, was transferred to the U.S. in the early sixties after he admitted to sexually abusing young boys in the archdiocese of Co. Armagh.  Ronan was transferred to Chicago, where he subsequently admitted to abusing three boys at St. Philip’s High School.

He was later moved to Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother in Portland where he was accused of abusing the victim who filed the lawsuit now under appeal.

The case, which was originally brought before a judge seven years ago, only made the courtroom last year. The Catholic hierarchy claimed sovereign immunity when the case went to court under a law that grants protection to foreign states before U.S. courts, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA).

The suit claimed the movement of Ronan from one place to another was part of a church policy and practice aimed at protecting the abusers and the church from liability for their actions. The Holy See, it said, “by and through its agents, granted Ronan faculties to perform as a Roman Catholic priest” and, at the time of the alleged abuse, “also certified and held Ronan out to the community of the faithful as a fit and competent agent of defendant Holy See and a minister of Christ.”

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Nster.com