The Vatican is seeking dismissal of a lawsuit that claims the Pope and the Holy See are liable for sex-offending priests in the United States.

The case was filed in a Kentucky courtroom, where prosecuting lawyer William McMurry has argued that a 1962 Vatican document called "Crimen Sollicitationis" is a "smoking gun" in proving a global conspiracy to keep bishops silent about sex abuse.

The "Crimen Sollicitationis" document – translated "crimes of solicitation" in Latin- prevented bishops from reporting sex abuse to police, according to the Associated Press, although the Vatican's lawyer has maintained that the document was not meant to undermine civil laws, but rather was designed as a guideline for the church's administrative processes.

"It is important that people - particularly people who have suffered abuse - know that, contrary to what some plaintiffs' lawyers have consistently told the media, the canon law did not bar reporting of these crimes to the civil authorities," Vatican lawyer Jeffrey Lena told AP.

Meanwhile, McMurry, who won a $25.3 million settlement with the Archdiocese of Louisville in 2003, is seeking class-action status for the case under claims that there are thousands of abuse victims across the nation.

Lena further plans to bolster his defense by asserting that U.S. bishops are not direct employees of the Vatican and are not overseen by the Pope himself.

Meanwhile, thousands of Catholic faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square on Sunday to support Pope Benedict XVI, who has been faced with a barrage of criticism since last summer's reports on sex abuse in the Irish Catholic Church launched the scandal into the spotlight.

Nearly 150,000 people crammed the public square for Benedict's midday address, where the Pope told them that sin, rather than public criticism, is the "real enemy to be feared and fought."

Benedict has also insisted that the soiled reputations of the church's abusive priests cannot eclipse the good work that the institution does.

"In these last months we have had to repeatedly confront news that aims to take away the joy in the church, to obscure it as a place of hope," Benedict told a gathering in Germany.

"Weeds…exist even in the bosom of the church and among those whom the Lord has welcomed into his service in a special way," he said, according to AP.