Obama backs Vatican claim of immunity protection against sexual abuse lawsuits

OK, this is about nasty grown men fucking kids! And Obama sides with the child molesters? The priest-molesters don't get foreign sovereignty immunity because they are US citizens, employed by the Catholic Church, but committing crimes on US soil that were covered up by the Catholic Church. If they can't file criminal charges against the church because of foreign sovereignty immunity, they should still be able to be sued in civil suits. Hell, declare the Vatican as a terrorist threat against our children, and bomb the fuckers...

The fact that Obama's administration is purposefully protecting child molestors and keeping them from facing justice is reprehensible. This president is more disappointing than I thought he might be in any worst case scenario I came up with. There's legal precedent and there's what's morally correct, whether you are religious or not: fucking kids is evil, and protecting anyone who fucked a kid is evil, too. These priests have all their rights guaranteed by the constitution: the right to a fair trial, the right to an attorney, etc. Foreign sovereignty immunity should only apply if the priests were foreign, not their Vatican employer.

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Obama admin. backs Vatican’s claim of immunity to sexual abuse lawsuits

By Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

The Obama administration in a brief to the Supreme Court has backed the Vatican's claim of immunity from lawsuits arising from cases of sexual abuse by priests in the United States.

The Supreme Court is considering an appeal by the Vatican of an appellate court ruling that lifted its immunity in the case of an alleged pedophile priest from Oregon.

In a filing on Friday, the solicitor general's office argued that the Ninth Circuit court of appeals erred in allowing the lawsuit brought by a man who claims he was sexually abused in the 1960s by the Oregon priest.

The unnamed plaintiff, who cited the Holy See and several other parties as defendants, argued the Vatican should be held responsible for transferring the priest to Oregon and letting him serve there despite previous accusations he had abused children in Chicago and in Ireland.

The solicitor general's office, which defends the position of President Barack Obama's administration before the Supreme Court, said the Ninth Circuit improperly found the case to be an exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, a 1976 federal law that sets limits on when other countries can face lawsuits in US courts.

"Although the decision does not conflict with any decision of another court of appeals, the Court may wish to grant the petition, vacate the judgement of the court of appeals and remand to that court for further consideration".

The case, which was filed in 2002, does not directly address questions raised in a separate lawsuit in Kentucky alleging that US bishops are employees of the Holy See.

But the Vatican plans to argue that Catholic dioceses are run as separate entities from the Holy See, and that the only authority that the pontiff has over bishops around the world is a religious one, according to Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican's US attorney.

In recent months, large-scale pedophilia scandals have rocked the Roman Catholic Church in a number of countries, including Austria, Ireland, Pope Benedict XVI's native Germany and the United States.

Senior clerics have been accused of protecting the priests involved by moving them to other parishes -- where they sometimes offended again -- instead of handing them over to civil authorities for prosecution.

The pope, who has himself faced allegations implicating him in the scandal, has repeatedly said priests and religious workers guilty of child abuse should answer for their crimes in courts of law.