Today the Vatican released details of its upcoming sex abuse defense. The AP has learned the Vatican will argue that bishops are not its employees and were not required to remain silent by a 1962 document, “Crimen Sollicitationes,” meaning “crimes of solicitation.”
The Vatican attorney in the U.S., Jeffrey Lena, will argue not only that the document was hardly known but also that it did not override civil laws.
In other words, bishops had the discretion to report cases of abuse if required by civil law.
Orthodox. Faithful. Free.
Sign up to get Crisis articles delivered to your inbox daily
A lawyer for plantiffs in Louisville, KY has argued the document is a “smoking gun” that will place the responsibility for bishops’ silence on the Vatican.
The attorney, William McMurray, said,
It’s evidence of a ‘written’ policy that demands no mention be made by a bishop of priest sex abuse,” he said. “Since our case, and no other, is about holding the Vatican accountable for the bishops’ failure to report to civil authorities, any policy that gags the bishops is relevant and material.
The somewhat surprising argument that bishops are not employees of the Vatican is based upon the fact that they are not paid by the Vatican and are not managed on a day-to-day basis.
Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, a canon lawyer and expert on clerical sex abuse, believes its immaterial whether or not “Crimen” was well known by the bishops at the time.
“The fact that the document was not publicly known is not, in any way, evidence that it was not a viable piece of ecclesial legislation, because it was.”
The announced defense is an attempt to build a legal firewall between the lawsuits in the United States, and around the world, and the Holy Father and the Vatican.