Lawyers say Vatican failed to remove Florida priest

The AP (3/31) reported on a Florida clergy sex abuse case targeting a priest whose abusive habits go back years, to when the current pope was a cardinal heading the Church’s organization responsible for investigating claims of clerical misconduct. Lawyers for the plaintiff accuse then-Cardinal Ratzinger of having failed to remove an alleged pedophile even after the priest himself requested to be defrocked. This case, like many others, raises suspicions of the Vatican’s role in instructing Church officials to shelter priests accused of sex abuse.