Portland, USA - The Vatican filed an appeal Thursday to a federal judge's ruling refusing to dismiss a lawsuit that claims the Holy See bears responsibility for a priest who was transferred from city to city even though he was known to be a molester.
Jeffrey Lena, a Berkeley, Calif., attorney representing the Vatican, said a district court had agreed to send to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals his appeal of a ruling Wednesday that the Vatican may be subject to the lawsuit despite the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act. The act presumes states, including the Vatican, are immune from being sued, but there may be exceptions.
Jeffrey Anderson, the attorney representing the Seattle-area man who filed the lawsuit, has praised Wednesday's ruling as the first of its kind in the nation. He said Thursday he had been expecting the Vatican's appeal.