Mary Valle: Two American lawyers named Jeff are taking key roles in the ongoing Pontifigate crisis. In the Vatican’s corner, scholarly Jeffrey Lena, a 51-year-old “tennis-loving, Saab-driving solo practitioner” who is fluent in both Italian and Canon law, working out of an unmarked office in Berkeley; on the offense; and 62-year-old Jeff Anderson, who has been pursuing sexual abuse cases against since 1983. Lena, who keeps a low profile due to “threats,” got into the Vatican’s business 10 years ago when he was asked to work on a case defending the Vatican bank against accusations of “stashing Nazi loot.”  Lena’s fairness feathers were ruffled when, looking for co-counsel, several firms declined the case to avoid “defending a Holocaust claims suit.” Lena then went solo for the Vatican, with a few helpers. He avoids being photographed.

Anderson took a young man’s molestation case against a priest in 1983 and begin digging. Soon, the Woodstein light bulb went off over his head: He said to himself that he was “in the middle of a [expletive] cover-up.” Anderson, who began these cases making nothing, has raked in major church ducats over the years, but uses his “manic” energy to keep “taking bites” out of the Vatican’s “ass.” He just filed suit in Los Angeles on behalf of a Mexican man who claims he was raped by a priest who was shuttled between Mexico City and Los Angeles by Cardinals Mahony and then-archbishop (now Cardinal) Rivera, who are being accused of “conspiring” to “shelter” the priest.