ALLEGED SEX ABUSE VICTIM PERMITTED TO SUE VATICAN

In a landmark decision, a federal judge in Oregon permitted a man claiming to have been abused by a priest to go forward with his suit against the Vatican. Attorneys for the Vatican had tried to get the claim dismissed, but were unsuccessful. At present, the victim will be allowed to press forward with the Vatican as a named defendant.

The claim involved grows out of the actions of Andrew Ronan. Ronan had been a priest in Northern Ireland in the 1950's, but was reassigned after being accused of sexual misconduct by a student. [According to the federal lawsuit, Ronan admitted to his misconduct in Ireland]. Ronan then found himself reassigned to St. Philip High School, an all boy school in Chicago, from 1959 to 1965. And guess what? He was AGAIN accused of sexual misconduct by three students at St. Phillip. He was then shuffled off to Portland, Oregon where he placed in a ministry where he had access to children. He left the priesthood in 1966 but not until he was accused of additional allegations of sexual misconduct in Portland. One of Ronan's Oregon victims recently filed suit against the Vatican in the Federal Court in Oregon. The Vatican, understandably, tried to get the case thrown out, citing the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act. The Act protects foreign countries from having to defend themselves in U.S. Courts.

But Judge Michael W. Mosman, however, was having none of it. In a courageous ruling, Mosman held the Vatican were not entitled to the protection afforded by the Act. Mosman founded his ruling on a portion of the Act limiting its scope where there the conduct involved is tortious or harmful. Mosman noted: "Placement of a known child molester in a Portland parish, where he would have unlimited access to young boys for the THIRD time, without warning the new parishioners, is not the kind of discretionary act that the exception is meant to immunize." [the emphasis there is mine]. Kudos to Judge Mosman for refusing to let the Church and its lawyers run and hide. This case is just the most recent example of why Catholics in the United States no longer have much faith in their Church. How is it, that a guy like Ronan can be allowed to drift through the country and repeatedly be given unfettered access to children? Simple answer - because the Church would much prefer to cover up these problems and put additional kids at risk then admit that its mistakes. Hopefully other judges across the country will show the courage that Mosman showed and hold the Church accountible for its sins.

HUGE VERDICT AGAINST COOK COUNTY SHERIFF

As reported by Steve Patterson in the May 25, 2006, Chicago Sun-Times, a Cook County jury recently reached an enormous verdict on behalf of a 58 year old woman who was rendered a quadriplegic after the car she was driving was struck by a Cook County Sheriff's Squad Car. There was evidence at trial that the squad car was going 70 miles per hour when it slammed into the rear of Margaret Petraski's vehicle. Petraski was turning into an intersection when the squad car sped through a red light and into the Petraski vehicle. The officer was responding to a non-emergency call. Petraski who now is cared for in a nursing home was awarded over $28 million dollars. A hotly contested issue at trial was the admissiblity of evidence that at the time of the occurrence, Petraski's blood alcohol content[BAC] was .11. In Illinois, any reading of .08 or higher is considered legally drunk. Judge Richard Elrod ruled that the plaintiff's BAC was irrelevant for a couple of reasons. First, the procedures used at the hospital to obtain the reading are known to elevate the actual reading. In addition, the article indicated that the trial court also kept the BAC out because there was no evidence that Petraski had done anything that contributed to the crash.

Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan, who has been known to tangle with judges in the past, ripped Judge Elrod's on the alcohol, noting that "In my 35 years of law enforcement, experience, I've never heard of a judge barring evidence of drinking and driving in an auto accident case. " Sheahan went on to note that "...driving while intoxicated is never irrelevant". Actually, he is wrong. Sometimes evidence of drinking is inadmissible. In this case, where the plaintiff was not shown to have done a single thing wrong, permitting evidence of a potentially compromised BAC would have been unduly prejudicial. And there is a final irony to the verdict. Judge Elrod used to occupy the same chair Sheahan presently occupies - Elrod is a former Sheriff of Cook County.