http://www.snapnetwork.org/snap_press_releases/2005_press_releases/031005_letter_condoleeza.htmSexual Abuse Victims Write to Condoleeza Rice
They Ask Her to Expose and Rebuff Vatican Efforts To Nix Lawsuits
SNAP's Letter Prompted by Church's Recent Move to Squelch Class Action Suit
Leaders of a support group for clergy sex abuse victims are writing Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, asking that she expose and rebuff efforts by Vatican officials to interfere in molestation lawsuits in the United States involving the Catholic Church.
Their request is prompted by a report last Thursday in the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) that Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano asked Rice “to intervene in a U.S. lawsuit naming the Holy See as the defendant in a sex abuse case' during her Feb. 8th visit to Rome.
The case, a class-action lawsuit filed in Louisville KY, names the Vatican as the lone defendant.
The NCR is an independent weekly newspaper whose Vatican correspondent, John Allen, is perhaps the most widely-respected American journalist at the Holy See.
The support group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), wants to know whether similar requests have been made in the past, and wants Rice to pledge to disclose and oppose any such moves in the future.
"We urge you to expose any such Vatican efforts ' past and future - and to 'just say no' to any such secretive moves to undermine the American justice system and deny justice for those who have been raped and sodomized by clergy," said Peter Isely of Milwaukee. Isely, an abuse survivor, is on the Board of Directors of SNAP, a Chicago-based support group.
According to the NCR, this is not the first time, according to (Vatican) observers, that the Vatican has asked the State Department for help on a legal matter.'
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4610Overlapping Agendas
Things haven't always been tense between Bush and Benedict. They share similar views regarding abortion, gay marriage, and other hot-button conservative issues. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (as Benedict was known before becoming Pope in April 2005) even helped Bush secure the White House for a second term.
Specifically, after Bush visited the Vatican in June 2004, complaining that "not all the American bishops are with me," Ratzinger sent a letter to U.S. bishops, ordering them to refuse communion to "a Catholic politician … consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws" – a thinly-veiled reference to John Kerry. Ratzinger added that any person even voting for this Catholic politician “would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion." Probably no surprise, then, that Bush increased his margin among Catholics by 6% from 2000 to 2004.
In an interesting twist, Ratzinger also partnered with George W. Bush's brother Neil in a foundation "to promote ecumenical understanding and publish original religious texts" in 1999. Oddly enough, business credit reports listed the foundation as a "management trust for purposes other than education, religion, charity or research," leaving the true nature of the Neil Bush/Cardinal Ratzinger venture unclear.
In 2005, Ratzinger was named as a defendant in a U.S. lawsuit suit accusing him of conspiring to cover up the sexual abuse of minors. At the center of the controversy was a May 2001 confidential letter he had sent Catholic bishops across the world ordering them to keep evidence of the sexual abuse of minors by clergy secret until 10 years after the child had reached adult status.
Soon after becoming Pope, however, Ratzinger was dismissed from the case. A U.S. federal judge decided the lawsuit would be "incompatible with the United States' foreign policy interests."
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