Jeffrey Lena | Vatican's US Lawyer | New Public Messenger

RedTracker| Looking beyond the individual lives destroyed by sex abuse cases in the Catholic church is the legal question of Vatican and papal immunity from prosecution. Is the Vatican in effect a multinational corporation with the pope as CEO? Or is the local bishop in charge, as the Vatican argues?

International lawyers and political activists are determined to challenge the immunity status of the Vatican, arguing that it’s not a country. It’s international legal status is young, having been created by Benito Mussolini in WWII and never recognized by the UN, for example.

Reeling from the allegations and lawsuits moving forward in the Catholic Church, the Vatican has promoted one of its own — an American lawyer, Berkeley-based, Saab-driving lawyer Jeffrey Lena — into a position of prominence. Lena will act as lawyer (which he has been for years), adviser and voice, at least in the US.

Presumably we’ll be hearing less about the need for an exorcism at the Vatican, with the Devil in residence. The AP writes an informative look at Jeffrey Lena’s life and career as a no-frills kind of guy. There’s only one problem about the Saab. It’s seen the end of the road and cessation of production. Read on: How the pope got his US lawyer.