August 17, 2005
pope immunity
The Vatican has curiously chosen to wake President from his August slumber to request that he immunize Pope Benedict from a lawsuit in a federal district court in Houston (Southern Division of Texas). The suit arises from events that date from then Cardinal Ratzinger's days as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), which came to assume a great role in sexual abuse complaints brought through church channels, primarily as a final appeals board.
What makes this maneuver curious is that there was no need to make this request, as a State Dept. even points out in the article -- a head of state is immune from service in any suit that arises here, even if his involvement was not as a head of state, and regardless of the matter (providing the US recognizes the legitimacy of the head of state in question. See Noriega, Hussain, et. al.)
The government of a foreign state may be implicated in a suit here, however, under the FSIA, although it's really hard to nail any government on anything other than non-payment of a debt. A tort exception exists, but it almost never used.
I think this indicates that the Vatican is increasingly worried about their immunity in general, especially in these priest-abuse cases, where a clear enough master-servant relationship exists to implicate the Vatican under an agency theory. So two general possibilities seem to exist to explain the Vatican's request: 1) they failed to comprehend American law to realize that there was no need to make such a request, or 2) they picked a legal strawman issue for strategic reasons - perhaps hoping a public pronouncement from Bush would provide some benefit for them.
I personally don't see how drawing attention to then-Cardinal Ratzinger's time as head of CDF does them any good at all, but the Vatican often sees things very differently from us 'westerners'. The most cynical angle I can think of has them creating this strawman over head of state immunity in support of their more tenuous government immunity. But while the public may indeed conflate issues, courts generally get around to sorting them out.
It's more likely, I think, whoever issued this request simply didn't understand US law.
posted by scott pilutik at August 17, 2005 10:55 AM