Jeffrey Lena: California lawyer is voice of Vatican, Pope Benedict in U.S. court

[Bluebear]

"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man." - Romans 1:22

This is a bad time for Jeffrey Lena to have quit caffeine.

In Kentucky, the 51-year-old attorney is defending Pope Benedict XVI from a deposition motion in a case involving child abuse by clergy. In a suit pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, Lena is arguing that the Vatican cannot be tried for transferring a predatory priest from Ireland to Oregon. In Mississippi, he is defending the Vatican against accusations that it participated in a money-laundering scheme. In New York, Lena is defending the Holy See in a commercial-licensing dispute about the use of images belonging to the Vatican Museums.

Wherever it is in the United States that the Vatican stands accused, Lena is there to protect it.

"I am counsel for the Holy See," Lena said.

As an international clerical sex abuse scandal has rocked the Roman Catholic Church and raised questions about the meaning of sin and crime, penance and punishment, church and state, Lena, a sole practitioner who works out of a small office in Northern California where his wife has kept the books, has taken the lead in defending the Vatican in the courts of law and public opinion. That means that the mild-mannered and reclusive comparative law specialist is swamped. And he looks it.

Puffy bags hung under Lena's brown eyes on Wednesday morning as he ordered an herbal pomegranate tea at a Washington coffee shop. With waves of salt-and-pepper hair, a workman's build, unclipped fingernails and an outfit of plaid flannel shirt, bluejeans and black shoes, Lena doesn't look the part of advocate for the supreme pontiff of the universal church, prince of the apostles and vicar of Jesus Christ on Earth.

The genesis of Lena's employment with the Vatican is an enduring church mystery upon which he refuses to shed any light...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/18/AR2010041801523.html