Portland, Ore., Dec 6, 2011 / 00:39 am
Demands for face-to-face questioning of Vatican officials were denied by a federal judge in a case involving a Washington man who claims he was abused by a priest in the 1960s.
U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman ruled on Dec. 1 that prosecutors have yet to produce enough evidence to justify the need for personal testimony from members of the Holy See.
An anonymous 63-year-old plaintiff from Washington filed suit against the Vatican in 2002, several decades after Fr. Andrew Ronan—an Irish priest with a record of sexually abusing minors—was transferred from Ireland to the U.S. and eventually moved to Portland, Oregon.
Fr. Ronan, a Servite priest from the Friar Servants of Mary, died in 1992.