THE DIOCESE of Clogher is to be sued in the US by clerical sex abuse specialist, lawyer Jeff Anderson, in connection with allegations of child sexual abuse in the early 1980s by a former Clogher priest.
Announcing the formation of a new London-based law firm, set up in partnership with solicitor Ann Olivarus, Mr Anderson said yesterday that the firm’s first joint case would be taken in Minnesota against a retired priest from the Diocese of Clogher.
The priest, now in his 80s, is alleged to have been a serial abuser who molested children in Ireland in the 1960s and 1970s and then in the US from the 1980s. In the case in question, taken in the US because the “John Doe plaintiff” is an American citizen, Mr Anderson is likely to argue the Diocese of Clogher is guilty of fraud because it sent the priest to a US diocese, despite knowing of his extensive history of child molestation in Ireland.
In the last 25 years, Jeff Anderson has filed thousands of suits against clerical child abusers in the US, in the process winning millions of dollars worth of damages in settlements. In 2002, he estimated that he had won $60 million dollars, a figure that has clearly increased since then.
Speaking to The Irish Timesyesterday, Mr Anderson said he hoped to file other British and/or Irish cases, similar to the Clogher one. The diocese of Clogher takes in Fermanagh, Tyrone, Monaghan and Donegal.
Mr Anderson did not rule out setting up a Dublin-based law firm to pursue further clerical sex abuse cases in Ireland.
The lawyer generated international headlines last year when he alleged that the Vatican’s Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, led by Pope Benedict, then cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in the late 1990s had blocked canonical proceedings against Wisconsin priest Larry Murphy, accused of molesting 200 boys at a school for the deaf in Wisconsin.
Last night, Mr Anderson repeated his belief that the “buck” stops in Rome, on Pope Benedict’s desk, although he acknowledged it would be difficult to circumvent the Holy See’s “foreign sovereign immunity” or diplomatic status. “I never planned to be an attorney who specialised in representing the victims of clerical sex abuse but now I feel I have to go where I am called, said Mr Anderson.