A lawyer who often sues Roman Catholic Church officials on behalf of alleged sex abuse victims plans to take his efforts a step further by accusing the Vatican of protecting priests who molested children.
Attorney Jeffrey Anderson said he will file suits that accuse the Holy See, two religious orders, and the dioceses of Portland, Ore., Chicago and St. Petersburg, Fla., of conspiring to hide two abusive clergymen by moving them across state and national lines.
Anderson declined to release specifics of his claim Tuesday and would not reveal the names of the religious orders or the plaintiffs. He planned to say more after he files the lawsuits Wednesday.
Anderson has represented more than 400 plaintiffs in abuse lawsuits against church officials since the 1980s.
Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, Vatican ambassador to the United States, and William Ryan, a spokesman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, did not respond to requests for comment.
No one has successfully sued the Vatican in a sex abuse lawsuit, although a handful of lawyers have tried, said the Rev. Thomas Doyle, a priest who co-authored a 1985 report to the U.S. bishops warning more must be done to stop abuse.
Doyle, a canon law expert who worked in the Vatican embassy in Washington in the 1980s, now testifies on behalf of plaintiffs in abuse cases against the church and said he will be an expert witness for Anderson.
Doyle said when he worked at the embassy, he regularly sent information about sex abuse claims to Vatican administrators.
Anderson plans to file two separate suits on behalf of two men.
One lawsuit is scheduled to be filed in Pinellas County Circuit Court in St. Petersburg on behalf of a man who said he was abused at a Catholic school in the 1980s. The second lawsuit is to be filed in federal court in Portland on behalf of a man who said he was abused at a parish in the 1960s.
Doyle anticipates church lawyers will argue the Vatican is a country with diplomatic immunity and therefore cannot be sued.
Spokesmen for the Portland Archdiocese and the Chicago Archdiocese both they could not comment until they saw the lawsuit. A spokeswoman for the Diocese of St. Petersburg did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Last month, Anderson filed a lawsuit accusing all U.S. bishops and three dioceses of conspiring to cover up sexual abuse by former Bishop Anthony O'Connell of West Palm Beach, Fla., who resigned after admitting he inappropriately touched a teen-ager more than 25 years ago.
Anderson based that suit on racketeering laws meant to bring down the mob