Want to Sue the Vatican? Bill McMurry in Kentucky is laying the groundwork, with next hearing in Cincinnati March 18, but it is not a class action

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By Kay Ebeling
Imagine thousands of lawsuits, each detailing sex crimes committed by priests, arriving at the office of the Pope in The Vatican. He’d be forced to read about forced sodomy, sex with 7 year olds in seedy motels, monsignors who kept adolescent boys as travelling companions, priests who tricked young women who sought counseling into bed instead, a priest arousing a little girl (me) during training for First Confession. With all those stories in the Pope’s face, there can be no more denial.

Attorney Bill McMurry of Kentucky, has taken the fight for victims of pedophile priests up a notch. “We are suing the Vatican,” McMurry said recently. “After we get through all the legal issues about whether the Vatican can be a defendant, then we can go forward with this case against the Vatican.

“And if I can sue, so can anyone.”

March 18th at 9 AM in Cincinnati, a federal court hears arguments from McMurry for the plaintiffs and Jeff Lena, international transactions attorney of Berkeley, California, for the defendants, The Vatican.

“If the case is allowed to go forward against The Vatican,” McMurry says, “then everyone of us can sue the Vatican individually.

“They tried to dismiss the case on the basis of foreign sovereign immunity.” McMurry said.

The Louisville attorney is appealing last year's ruling which said we can sue only for actions by bishops in the United States, not the Pope or any of his agents in The Vatican.

“Last year the Judge said The Vatican enjoys immunity from its own misdeeds at the Vatican because of the foreign sovereignty,” McMurry said. “But The Vatican is not immune for conduct of the bishops in the United States, because the bishops are agents of the Vatican,.

“I want to sue them for what the pope and his guys are doing in The Vatican,” McMurry says. “It will be for the Pope like it’s been for most of these archbishops and archdioceses, they have to wake up and realize what happened here.”

As of now, whatever the Pope and his “staff” in The Vatican do is still untouchable by an American Court, according to Heyburn’s last ruling. McMurry is appealing to sue for actions by the pope and hierarchy in The Vatican as well.

The Vatican attorneys argue that no one under the Pope can be sued at all. It will be decades before it’s resolved.

NOT A CLASS ACTION

This is not a class action lawsuit, and McMurry asks that people please stop calling his office and asking to join the class action.

“When a class action is ultimately made a class action, then notice goes out in every newspaper of any circulation in the United States and that's how all these folks will find out.

“Then it’s time to come forward,” McMurry said.

“Please tell people to stop calling my office and asking to join the Class Action.

“We are years away from any determination as to whether it will be a class action. You file a lawsuit, asking can we be a class action. After we get through all the legal issues about whether The Vatican can even be a defendant, then we ask the original judge to make it a class action.

“But before even asking for a class action, we can go forward on behalf of my two plaintiffs in Kentucky, with this case against the Vatican.

"And if I can go forward, so can anyone.”

In Kentucky because of that state’s “tolling statute” the Statute of Limitations is suspended where it can be shown the Defendant conducted “hidden misconduct” or fraud during the years after the crimes were committed. . . .

It's likely McMurry won't have any trouble going forward in Kentucky because of the SOL.

However lawsuits against The Vatican filed in Illinois or California, "have to deal with the rules that apply in those situations,” McMurry said.

“If this case does become a class action, it becomes a class action out of the state of Kentucky.”

Fighting George Bush, The Vatican, and Goliath himself
McMurry had to go up against attorneys for the U.S. State and Justice Departments January 2007

US Attorneys argued in a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of The Vatican.

McMurry is fighting Goliaths from Pope Benedict to George W. Bush.

If McMurry is successful, after the 20 years or so all this will take, any Catholic Church sex crime victim will be able to sue the Vatican individually, in our respective states, depending on the Statutes of limitations in our states.

From the time of Constantine, The Vatican fortress has grown with walls of plaster and stone and miles of hidden corridors that serve as passageways for escape, defending against centuries of attacks by Barbarians and the British. Today The Vatican defends itself by hiring corporate attorneys who find holes in America’s lenient justice system.

You go, Bill McMurry, try and stop them, you have a rooting section here.

Onward