Plaintiffs give up sex abuse case against Vatican
Their attorney, William McMurry, said he was seeking to end the case because of an earlier court ruling that recognized the Vatican’s immunity and failure to turn up new plaintiffs to add to the lawsuit who haven’t yet been involved in a Catholic clergy abuse case.
“Virtually every child who was abused and will come forward as an adult has come forward and sued a bishop and collected money, and once that happens, it’s over,” McMurry told The Associated Press. McMurry represented more than 240 abuse victims who settled with the Louisville Catholic archdiocese for $25 million in 2003.
The lawsuit was considered the first in the U.S. to make it to the stage of determining whether victims had a negligence claim against the Vatican, which argued the plaintiffs never showed a connection between Rome and the American clergy abuse scandal.