Sex abuse suit filed against Vatican

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., April 3 (UPI) -- St. Paul, Minn., attorney Jeffrey Anderson filed suits Wednesday against the Vatican, three Catholic dioceses and two religious orders charging them with moving pedophile priests across state and national boundaries to protect them from prosecution.

The suit names the Holy See, the dioceses of St. Petersburg, Chicago and Portland, Ore., the Salesian Order and the Order of Friar Servants of Mary.

It cites two cases of alleged child abuse. A St. Petersburg case involves a plaintiff, Rick Gomez, 28, who said he was abused by William Burke, a brother and teacher at a Catholic boarding school in the Tampa Bay area in the 1980s. Gomez has since moved to California, Anderson said.

The other case that took place involved a plaintiff, whose name was withheld, who alleged abuse at a Catholic Parish in the 1960s by the late Rev. Andrew Ronan, Anderson said.

The Florida case was filed in Pinellas County Circuit Court and the Oregon suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Portland.

The suit said Gomez complained about the abuse leading the Vatican and other defendants to move Burke to New Jersey, "outside the jurisdiction of local authorities in order to obstruct justice, avoid public scandal, avoid loss of financial contributions and criminal and civil liability."

The suit said the abuse took place about 30 times in various locations.

Legal experts, including Father Robert F. Drinan of Georgetown University Law Center, said lawyers have tried to sue the Vatican in sex abuse cases in the past, but so far none has been successful.

They expect church lawyers will argue that the Vatican is a separate country with diplomatic immunity and therefore cannot be sued.

Anderson last month sued the American Catholic Church charging it violated federal racketeering laws in the case of former Bishop Anthony J. O'Connell of the Palm Beach, Fla., diocese.

O'Connell resigned before the suit was filed as a result of a newspaper story containing claims of sexual abuse at a seminary in Hannibal, Mo.

Anderson says has represented more than 500 suits since the 1980s involving sexual abuse by clergy.

In other cases, the Archdiocese of Atlanta said it has faced claims over the last 13 years that six priests had sexually abused boys. Four of the claims were settled for $31,250 in church funds along with additional insurance money.

In New York, the diocese there said they told a Boynton Beach, Fla., seminary of allegations against a visiting priest but seminary officials asked if he could stay. Monsignor William White was forced to resign five years later.