The Vatican has filed formal opposition to a Louisville lawyer's bid to take sworn testimony from Pope Benedict XVI and top Vatican officials over sexual abuse in the United States. Church lawyers said requiring the "unprecedented" testimony from the pope and his top aides would set a dangerous precedent that could inspire foreign courts to subpoena the president of the United States in future cases.
"If Pope Benedict XVI or the Secretary of State is ordered to testify by a United States court, foreign courts could feel emboldened to order depositions of the President or Vice President of the United States regarding, for example, such issues as CIA rendition," lawyer Jeffrey Lena stated in a brief filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for Western Kentucky.
Louisville attorney William McMurry is seeking the pope's testimony as part of a long-running lawsuit attempting to hold the Vatican accountable for coverups of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests in the United States. He is also seeking testimony of the Vatican's secretary of state, its ambassador to the United States and the head of the Vatican's doctrinal office, which has handled sexual abuse cases since Benedict held that position before becoming pope.
"The proposed depositions are unprecedented - akin to a foreign plaintiff seeking a foreign court order compelling the depositions of the United States president, vice president, secretary of defense and ambassador," Lena wrote.
McMurry declined to comment Friday morning, saying he would respond in his court filings.
McMurry filed the suit in 2004 on behalf of three Kentucky natives who said they were sexually abused by priests between the 1920s and 1970s. An appeals court upheld U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II's decision to toss out most of the lawsuit because the Vatican is a sovereign state immune to most lawsuits. He's allowing the case to proceed only if McMurry can prove that archbishops are Vatican employees following mandated Vatican policies -- points Lena disputes in extensive legal filings.
Heyburn has said he won't even consider McMurry's requests for depositions until the judge decides whether the case can proceed at all under the claims that the archbishops were Vatican employees following Vatican policies.
McMurry also is seeking wide-ranging Vatican documents related to any knowledge of sexually abusive priests in the United States -- a request Lena says is far too broad. Lena also said it isn't necessary given that the Archdiocese of Louisville has already turned over thousands of documents to McMurry in previous lawsuits in 2002 and 2003.
Those documents, Lena said, actually disprove that archbishops of Louisville were acting as Vatican employees or following Vatican mandates.
"Plaintiffs have never in six years introduced a single page of evidence from the Louisville Archdiocese Litigation in support of their" case," Lena wrote
