Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Vatican official accused of mishandling case

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0424/1224269034739.html
AN ITALIAN advocacy group that defends the rights of paedophile victims 
has accused Vatican chief prosecutor Msgr Charles Scicluna of 
mishandling the case of alleged paedophile priest Don Ruggiero Conti, 
who is on trial in Rome.
At a Rome news conference yesterday, Roberto Mirabile, president of La 
Caramella Buona, said that he had had a meeting with Msgr Scicluna on 
July 18th, 2007.
He had requested the meeting because his association had received 
several reports alleging paedophiliac activity by Don Ruggiero, based in 
the Rome parish of Natività di Santa Maria Santissima.
During the course of a 30-minute meeting with Msgr Scicluna at the 
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Mr Mirabile showed the 
Vatican prosecutor extensive documentation containing various 
allegations against Don Ruggiero.
At one point during the meeting, Msgr Scicluna left the room and 
returned 10 minutes later to say that he had no information about Don 
Ruggiero, adding that La Caramella Buona could take the matter further 
themselves if they wanted. Furthermore, Msgr Scicluna handed back the 
incriminating documentation.
Almost one year later, in June 2008, Don Ruggiero was arrested while 
still serving as parish priest at Santa Maria Santissima. Police 
investigators claim that he continued to abuse minors until March 2008, 
nine months after Mr Mirabile’s meeting in the Vatican, prompting La 
Caramella Buona to claim that had Msgr Scicluna or some other church 
figure intervened, other crimes of sexual abuse of minors could have 
been avoided.
Msgr Scicluna was unavailable for comment yesterday afternoon. In a 
recent interview with Spanish daily El Pais , however, he expressed his 
regret that “La Caramella Buona is against me, but when I met them, they 
weren’t able to provide me with signed statements”.
Further from Rome, the clerical sex abuse scandal provoked fresh 
embarrassment for the Holy See yesterday when it was announced that Pope 
Benedict XVI had accepted the resignation of Belgian bishop Roger 
Vangheluwe.
In a statement yesterday, Dr Vangheluwe admitted that he had sexually 
abused a minor when he was a priest, and “for a certain period at the 
beginning of my episcopate”.
Archbishop Andre-Mutien Léonard, primate of the Belgian Catholic Church, 
said that Dr Vangheluwe had resigned “out of respect for the victim and 
his family, and out of respect for the truth”.
In a separate case, the Vatican yesterday claimed that a US lawsuit 
against the Holy See was “without merit”.
Filed on Thursday in a Milwaukee federal court by Jeffrey Anderson, a 
lawyer who has represented many abuse victims in cases against US 
dioceses, the lawsuit, John Doe 16 v Holy See , names Pope Benedict, the 
Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and former 
secretary of state Cardinal Angelo Sodano as defendants.
The lawsuit has been brought by an unidentified plaintiff who was 
allegedly abused by Fr Lawrence Murphy, who taught at a Catholic 
boarding school for the deaf in Wisconsin from 1950 to 1974 and who has 
been accused of abusing some 200 deaf boys.
The suit alleges that in the 1990s, Pope Benedict, in his previous role 
as Prefect of the CDF, had failed to take action against Fr Murphy, 
stalling those US church officials who had discovered the abuse, had 
reported it to the Vatican and had wanted Fr Murphy defrocked.
The Vatican’s US lawyer, Jeffrey Lena, yesterday dismissed the lawsuit, 
saying: “The case against the Holy See and its officials is completely 
without merit. Most of the complaint rehashes old theories already 
rejected by US courts. While legitimate lawsuits have been filed by 
abuse victims, this is not one of them.”
All previous attempts to sue the pope have failed, with US courts ruling 
that the Vatican enjoys diplomatic immunity. For example, Cardinal 
Ratzinger, in his CDF role, was sued in 2004 by three victims of 
clerical sex abuse in a District Court in Harris County, Texas. One year 
later, Cardinal Ratzinger had become Pope Benedict, and the court ruled 
that he was covered by “head of state immunity”.

 in Rome.
eh, ma basta postare merda anticattolica!!!! (cit)