MILWAUKEE—Lawyers for a man who was sexually abused decades ago by a priest at a school for the deaf have withdrawn their lawsuit naming Pope Benedict XVI and other top Vatican officials as defendants, a major victory for the Holy See, which has long insisted the pope bears no liability for the actions of an abusive priest.

Attorney Jeff Anderson had filed the lawsuit with great fanfare at the peak of a European explosion of the sex-abuse scandal in 2010. He alleged that the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and his deputies knew about allegations of sexual abuse at St. John’s School for the Deaf and prevented internal punishment of the accused priest.

The lawsuit had helped shift the blame for priestly sex abuse in the public mind away from bishops—who are responsible for their priests—to the Vatican and Benedict himself.

The Vatican at the time had rejected Anderson’s lawsuit as a publicity stunt, and the Vatican’s US attorney said Saturday the dismissal demonstrates that the case was meritless and never should have been filed in the first place.

Anderson’s firm filed a voluntary notice Friday in US District Court in Milwaukee to dismiss the lawsuit.

Anderson said a key reason for the suit, which named Ratzinger as one of four defendants, had been to hold the pope and Vatican accountable for abuse.

He claimed that the goal was now accomplished in a secondary way, after a favorable ruling this past week from a federal court in which the Archdiocese of Milwaukee had filed bankruptcy. He said he was given 30,000 pages of new documents that show how Vatican officials were indifferent to reports of clergy sex abuse.

“There really is no compelling reason to move forward with this battle on two fronts when we’re making ground on one,” he said on Saturday.

While his initial goal was to depose Ratzinger and other top officials, Anderson acknowledged that the legal impediments were proving to be enormous. He said at the least the new documents represent a “consolation prize—it’s not a victory but it’s still a real prize.”

Jeffrey Lena, a Vatican attorney, said Anderson had settled on a convenient excuse for dismissing the lawsuit.

“The real reason is, he was required to file a response to our motion to dismiss, and he knew he was going to lose the suit,” Lena said.

(AP)