The Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of St. John's filed a statement of defence in the Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court on June 9.
The church in St. John's denies any responsibility for alleged sexual misconduct by Lahey.
The statement was filed in response to a civil suit launched against Lahey and the church on April 7 by a former resident of the notorious Mount Cashel orphanage in St. John's.
Todd Boland alleges that Lahey, 69, fondled him between 1982 and 1985, when he was a child in Lahey's care.
Lahey, who is to be tried on child pornography charges in an unrelated case, has never been charged with sexual abuse. He filed a statement of defence May 31, denying Boland's claims.
Lahey, the former Antigonish, N.S., diocese bishop, was charged with possessing and importing child pornography.
Boland claims the church in St. John's and specifically Archbishop Alphonsus Penney knew, or should have known, Lahey was a risk to children.
"I mean his propensities were there," Boland's lawyer, Greg Stack, told CBC News Thursday. "If [Penney] didn't have actual knowledge, he was wilfully blind to the sexual propensities of Bishop Lahey."
The allegations have not been proven in court.
In court documents, the church denies it knew or should have known about the activities alleged by Boland.
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2010/06/17/nl-lahey-church-defence-617.html
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