A victims group has responded angrily to the Vatican's defence in an American case that it cannot be considered as an employer to its bishops. "This lawsuit is trying to say that the bishop in Louisville is an employee of the pope," Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican's US attorney, is cited saying in an AFP report on the Sydney Morning Herald. "I say that's not true."
But a US victims group denounced that position, the report said.
"It's just disingenuous for the Pope to claim he's not in charge of the bishops he selects, appoints, transfers and supervises," said Barbara Dorris, outreach director with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
"The church isn't some loosely-knit hippie commune with diffuse authority," she argued.
"It's an ancient, rigid, crystal-clear hierarchy in which bishops ordain, transfer and supervise priests and in which the Pope selects, transfers and supervises bishops."
Three men brought the case over abuse they alleged they suffered at the hands of priests decades ago.
They want the Vatican held accountable because the bishop of Louisville, Kentucky, failed to report the abusers.
But the Vatican will 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.
"The pope is not a five-star general ordering his troops around," The Vatican's lawyer, Lena, said.
"The pope does not have the power of a king."
SIC: CTHAUS