On the publication side of this website (the right-hand column consists of links to stories subscribers to the Register get; we offer only a few free each week) is Jeff Gardner’s excellent report on the attempt to have Pope Benedict XVI deposed in a U.S. sex abuse trial.

“One lawyer in the United States feels confident that he will be able to ask the Pope certain questions during a deposition,” writes Gardner, “now that a federal appellate court has ruled that a Kentucky district court may consider jurisdiction over the Holy See.”

Key questions in the case:

1. The question of when a sovereign state can be sued by a U.S. interest.

“In 2007, Judge John Heyburn II of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky ruled that the three men could pursue a claim that the Holy See should have issued warnings that members of the clergy had been accused of sexual abuse.”

“Jeffrey Lena, representing the Holy See, appealed that ruling to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but on Nov. 24, that court, in part, upheld the ruling.”

2. The question of what relationship the pope has to bishops.

“In his original 2004 complaint before the federal district court in Louisville, McMurry alleged that the Holy See has ‘absolute and unqualified power and control over the Roman Catholic Church, including … its bishops.’” The 6th Circuit also noted that a plaintiff could bring suit against the Holy See if ‘any official or employee’ of the Holy See harms someone in the United States.”

But bishops aren’t the pope’s employees, says canon law expert Edward Peters in the piece.

“Catholic bishops love the pope,” said Peters, “but they would rightly take affront at the characterization that they are employees or officials of the Holy See.”

Read the whole story for all the details, including McMurry’s particular targeting of Pope Benedict XVI because, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for so long.

— Tom Hoopes