Vatican-- Vatican says it controls foreigners but not predator priests?

For immediate release: Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those abused by Priests (314 566 9790, [email protected])

Catholic officials are showing stunning hypocrisy as they pursue a journalist who they say used “leaked” documents to expose financial misdeeds.

Time and time again, Vatican officials claim they’re powerless over predator priests. That’s the claim they make when secular authorities, like two United Nations’ panels, criticize them for doing so little to prevent clergy sex crimes and cover ups.

But in a stunning display of hubris and hypocrisy, Catholic officials “assert jurisdiction over foreign citizens even when the alleged crime occurs outside the Vatican if the crime is considered to be against the Vatican itself, and if the potential penalty is over three years.” (Their basis for this power grab is a new Vatican law passed in 2013.)

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/11/18/journalist-refuses-to-answer-vatican-prosecutors-questions-over-leaks/

So they claim control over non-ordained, non-Catholic foreigners but none over clerics who are recruited, educated, ordained, hired, trained, shielded and transferred by Vatican-appointed bishops?

We applaud Gianluigi Nuzzi, author of Merchants in the Temple, for rebuffing Vatican officials who are seeking to question him. We also applaud Emiliano Fittipaldi, author of Avarice, for refusing to divulge his sources to Vatican officials. And we’re saddened that a church employee sits in the Vatican jail, not for committing or concealing heinous crimes against kids, but for allegedly leaking secret church records.

(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. SNAP was founded in 1988 and has more than 20,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

Contact - David Clohessy (314-566-9790 cell, [email protected], [email protected]), Barbara Dorris (314-503-0003 cell, [email protected]), Barbara Blaine (312-399-4747, [email protected])

According to the 2013 law, the Vatican asserts jurisdiction over foreign citizens even when the alleged crime occurs outside the Vatican if the crime is considered to be against the Vatican itself, and if the potential penalty is over three years.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/11/18/journalist-refuses-to-answer-vatican-prosecutors-questions-over-leaks/

Italian Reporter Refuses to Answer Vatican's Questions About Leaked Documents

Brendan O'Connor, 11/17/15 11:55pm

An Italian journalist under criminal investigation by the Vatican was summoned to Vatican City this week, the Associated Press reports. The journalist, who published a book, based on leaked documents, about scandals at the Vatican, said Tuesday that he refused to answer a prosecutor’s questions.

A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told the New York Times last week that  . . . 

Read full article here