Louisville, USA - The federal government has taken the Vatican's side — at least in part — in a Louisville-based priest-abuse lawsuit seeking class-action damages from the Roman Catholic headquarters.
Lawyers for the Justice and State departments argue in a friend-of-the-court brief that the Vatican can be sued only as a foreign state — a status that grants it broad protections from lawsuits — and not asa private religious organization.
The federal government brief defends the constitutionality of the law that sets limits on when foreign governments can be sued, and maintains it's the right of the president alone, and not the court system, to decide which countries to recognize.
The federal lawyers did not dispute a U.S. District Court judge's ruling that allowed the plaintiffs to sue the Vatican within the limits of the law governing lawsuits against foreign states.
The government lawyers also aren't taking sides on the substance of the lawsuit: the allegation that the Vatican covered up sexual abuse by priests in the USA. The Vatican argues it shouldn't be sued.
"The U.S. sounds like it's mostly concerned about the delicate nature of the international relations part of it, and justifiably so," says Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia, "but I can understand how the plaintiffs' lawyer would be looking to hold the Vatican liable in this case, if it has some responsibility."
At issue is a federal lawsuit filed in 2004 by James O'Bryan, Michael Turner and Donald Poppe. They say priests in the Louisville area sexually abused them between the 1920s and 1970s.
The lawsuit seeks class-action status on behalf of all those abused by priests in the USA.
Federal District Judge John Heyburn ruled in January that the plaintiffs could sue the Vatican only within the law governing suits against sovereign states.
He allowed some of the lawsuit to proceed because the U.S. Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act includes an exception allowing lawsuits over any harmful acts by "officials" or "employees" of the foreign state within the USA.
The plaintiffs' attorney, William McMurry, argues that the sovereign immunities act violates the First Amendment because it gives "a blatant 'special favor' that benefits only one religion: the Catholic Church." He claims American bishops were church officials acting on Vatican orders to cover up abuse.
Under the law protecting foreign states from lawsuits, however, Heyburn refused to allow the plaintiffs to seek damages for anything done by church officials in the Vatican or elsewhere outside of U.S. soil.
Both sides are now appealing Heyburn's decision. Likewise, the Vatican contends that none of the exceptions allowing lawsuits against a foreign state fits this case. It argues that bishops are neither employees nor officials of the Vatican.