Supreme Court refuses church-state case involving child sex abuse by clergy

By Warren Richey
 

The US Supreme Court declined on Monday to take up a case challenging the use of the First Amendment’s separation of church and state as a shield to block a negligence lawsuit against a Roman Catholic archdiocese that hired and supervised a priest accused of being a pedophile.
 

The high court action ends an attempt to hold the Catholic Church legally accountable for alleged sexual abuse that took place more than 40 years ago.
 

The plaintiff in the case says he was twice sexually abused by a trusted parish priest when he was 13 or 14 years old. The priest, who has since died, was assigned to a Catholic Church in St. Louis.
 

(To read full article, visit this Christian Science Monitor link)