Court lets Vatican-sex abuse lawsuit move forward

The Associated Press
Monday, June 28, 2010; 10:37 AM



WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court won't stop a lawsuit that accuses the Vatican of transferring a priest from city to city despite repeated accusations of sexual abuse.

The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from the Holy See, the legal name for the Vatican.

The Vatican wanted the federal courts to throw out the lawsuit that seeks to hold the Roman Catholic Church responsible for moving the Rev. Andrew Ronan from Ireland to Chicago to Portland despite the sex abuse accusations.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...ml?hpid=topnews

Mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand, I am slow to hold a corporation responsible for the actions of their employees, especially when the employee is violating company policy when committing whatever offense is being alleged.

On the other hand, when the corporation is aware of the offenses, and takes affirmative action to cover for the employee, they lose all protections in my book.

Anyone (teacher, coach, priest, parent, et. al.) who sexually abuses a child should be put to death. Unless there are new studies of which I am unaware (very possible because it has been years since I did any research in this field), almost every study shows that the recidivism rate of pedophiles is astonishing. They simply do not change no matter what "therapy" is used.

I have to go with punishing the Vatican for its complicity in this one - if the facts are as they have been reported to be in this article.

As a former member of The Church, Steve, I fear that I have to agree with you. I don't care if you are a police officer, a firefighter, a politician, and yes, even a priest, you have no right to abuse a child! I really truly believe that.

I can understand working with an individual with issues, but pedophilia is way past that. Even if you could convince me that the first offense warranted some leniency, the facts as outlined indicate not a person with an issue, but a remorseless predator.

There was a section in R. Heinlein's book (but not in the movie), "Starship Troopers" where a squad is sent out to find one of their own who has killed a 4 year old girl. Their job - and it was their job because he was one of their own - was to hunt him down and kill him. The rationale was compelling: if he is insane, it would be cruel to lock him up. If he isn't insane, he should be forced to pay the ultimate price for the ultimate offense. If he is insane but can be "cured", the only way to know when he is sane is when he is so thoroughly horrified by his action that he can not live with what he has done, and commits suicide. Anything less than that feeling that he can not live with what he has done indicates he does not understand the gravity of what he did. In the book, the main character, Rico, determines that all he can be sure of is that this man would never kill again, and he'll have to be satisfied with that. Not a bad way of thinking.

The logic is somewhat circular, I agree. True, killing the murderer does not bring back the victim, but killing the murderer does guarantee that he will never kill anyone else. No other sentence can make that assurance.

Pedophiles do not change, they merely bide their time. For them, it is simply a matter of time before they destroy the life of another child.

You're right, they don't change whatsoever. They just look for another victim, and it's obvious with what has happened in The Church.