A stringent European money laundering exam in July and a federal court ruling in Oregon this week both make the point.

Earlier this year, the Vatican faced secular scrutiny of its financial operations for the first time with a review by Moneyval, Europe's anti-money-laundering agency. The Vatican submitted voluntarily, a somewhat surprising choice given its long history of fighting off such perceived incursions on its autonomy tooth and nail. The truth, however, is it didn't have much choice. If the Vatican is perceived as a suspect financial player, it risks higher transaction costs and being shut out of important markets.

July's verdict was a mixed bag, raising questions such as whether regulation of the Vatican Bank is sufficiently strong. Yet on the whole, Moneyval concluded the Vatican "has come a long way in a very short period of time" toward transparency, and "there is no empirical evidence of corruption."

Those findings undercut conspiracy theories about Vatican finances, and, to some extent, they also offset perceptions of Benedict XVI's papacy as an administrative train wreck.

Taking its medicine, in other words, did the Vatican some good.

Something similar happened Monday, with a ruling in a federal district court in Oregon on a sex abuse lawsuit. In a nutshell, the judge held that the Vatican is not the "employer" of Catholic priests and dismissed it from the case.

Judge Michael Mosman compared policies for priests set in Rome to the sort of control a state bar association wields over lawyers — important, sure, but not tantamount to an employer/employee relationship.

Before explaining why that experience was healthy, too, a bit of background. Read more

Sources

• John L Allen Jr in National Catholic Reporter
• Image: San Francisco Sentinel

The ruling in an Oregon courtroom came in a lawsuit filed by a man who alleged the late Father Andrew Ronan, a Servite priest, repeatedly molested him in the 1960s.

Judge Michael Mosman said there was insufficient evidence to prove a true employment relationship between Ronan and the Holy See, or that the Vatican has both direct and operational control over Catholic priests in the US.

While a priest clearly functions under obligations and rules set by the Holy See, he said the relationship is not that of employee-employer. He compared the situation to that of attorneys and the state bar association, which sets rules for practising law, but does not actually employ all the state's attorneys.

The judge said that if he accepted the plaintiff's argument that the Vatican maintains absolute control over all priests, and is therefore their employer, then all Catholics everywhere could similarly be considered employees of the Holy See.

The Vatican's California-based attorney, Jeffrey Lena, said the court had at its disposal all of the materials the Holy See could provide about Ronan and his assignments.

"The court examined those documents and the outcome was that there was no evidence that the Holy See was the employer of Ronan, or that it transferred Ronan, or that it knew of the abuse in question until after the abuse had taken place in 1965," Lena said. He said the Holy See only learned of the abuse in 1966, after which Ronan was quickly laicised.

The plaintiff's attorney, Jeff Anderson, said he would appeal.

"We believe that under further scrutiny, the courts will find that Vatican protocols and practice make it clear that obedience to Rome required the secrecy and concealment practised by priests and bishops as the clergy abuse crisis unfolded in the United States," Anderson said.

Sources:

Catholic News Service

CBS

Image: USA Today