When the 2010 suit O’Bryan vs. the Holy See sought to depose Pope Benedict XVI in a U.S. court, Vatican lawyer Jeffrey Lena employed a tightly reasoned argument before the U.S. district court in Kentucky, which hinged upon demonstrating that the Vatican was not responsible for the U.S. bishops’ policy on protecting children, and nor was it responsible for day-to-day operational policy.

…

In ordering the U.S. bishops to abstain from voting on measures aimed at addressing clerical sex abuse, Pope Francis may have inadvertently performed the most consequential and costly act of his papacy.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) intended to vote on two measures responding to the ongoing sex abuse crisis in its annual fall meeting, which concluded in Baltimore on Wednesday.

A last-minute intervention, however, from the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops instructed the USCCB to stand down and to await a meeting of global episcopal conference leadership convoked by Pope Francis for February.

The Vatican’s direct intervention into the bishops’ governance would seem to undermine the Holy See’s prime pillar of legal defense when charged with negligence in dealing with sex abuse, namely, the relative independence of Catholic dioceses from Vatican oversight.

This is what makes the Vatican’s eleventh-hour intervention in Baltimore so potentially momentous. It seems to willing wave aside the carefully crafted legal boundaries that the Vatican has energetically used to defend itself from international prosecution.

The failure of the U.S. bishops to challenge the order from the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops suggests that the bishops are indeed answerable to the Holy See on operational matters dealing with sex abuse policy.

This tacit admission will almost certainly have massive ramifications in future litigation.