Law firm implicates Vatican, Pope in abuse case By CHRISTINE ARMARIO AP March 31, 2010 MIAMI - A South Florida law firm is implicating the Vatican and Pope Benedict XVI in its handling of a priest accused of sexually abusing children. Jessica Arbour, an attorney representing one of the alleged victims, says documents show the Vatican was aware of Rev. Ernesto Garcia-Rubio's misconduct as early as 1968. Thirteen years later, Benedict became head of the Vatican office that received a petition from Garcia-Rubio seeking to leave the priesthood. Arbour says the paperwork was lost. Arbour says they do not have any evidence indicating children were abused during that time. A lawsuit has been filed against the Archdiocese of Miami, claiming it was negligent in its supervision and assignment of the reverend. Arbour says it may be amended to include the Vatican.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/31/AR2010033100931.html
Vatican offers 3 reasons it's not liable for abuse By NICOLE WINFIELD, AP Mar 30, 2010 VATICAN CITY – Dragged deeper than ever into the clerical sex abuse scandal, the Vatican is launching a legal defense that it hopes will shield the pope from a lawsuit in Kentucky seeking to have him answer attorneys' questions under oath. Court documents obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press show that Vatican lawyers plan to argue that the pope has immunity as head of state, that American bishops who oversaw abusive priests weren't employees of the Vatican, and that a 1962 document is not the "smoking gun" that provides proof of a cover-up.
The Holy See is trying to fend off the first U.S. case to reach the stage of determining whether victims actually have a claim against the Vatican itself for negligence for allegedly failing to alert police or the public about Roman Catholic priests who molested children.
The case was filed in 2004 in Kentucky by three men who claim they were abused by priests and claim negligence by the Vatican. Their attorney, William McMurry, is seeking class-action status for the case, saying there are thousands of victims across the country.
"This case is the only case that has been ever been filed against the Vatican which has as its sole objective to hold the Vatican accountable for all the priest sex abuse ever committed in this country," he said in a phone interview. "There is no other defendant. There's no bishop, no priest." The Vatican is seeking to dismiss the suit before Benedict XVI can be questioned or documents subpoenaed. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100331/ap_on_re_eu/eu_the_vatican_s_defense_16
describes abuse
German bishop accused of beating orphaned girls April 1, 2010 One of the Pope's closest conservative allies in Germany, Bishop Walter Mixa, has been accused of brutally beating and flogging children in his care. The Bishop of Augsburg, 68, denies the claims by five former pupils at a Catholic-run orphanage and care facility. But they will be a source of deep embarrassment and concern in the Vatican: Bishop Mixa is part of a conservative axis in Pope Benedict XVI's native Bavaria that has always backed the pontiff in his most controversial decisions, from criticising the violence of Islam in Regensburg cathedral, to rehabilitating the Holocaust-sceptic Bishop Richard Williamson....The beatings were regular and always brutal.
"At least 50 times Mr Mixa pulled down my trousers and beat me on the bottom with a stick, five or six whacks each time," Mr Tagwerk added....The blows were always administered in places where the bruising could be hidden - high up on the arm or on the bottom. One of the victims, a man who is now 44, reports being flogged with a carpet beater, 35 strokes each time. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7082705.ece
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