The Pope.

Bring the Pope to Justice



By Christopher Hitchens | NEWSWEEK
Published Apr 23, 2010
From the magazine issue dated May 3, 2010

Detain or subpoena the pope for questioning in the child-rape scandal? You must be joking! All right then, try the only alternative formulation: declare the pope to be above and beyond all local and international laws, and immune when it comes to his personal and institutional responsibility for sheltering criminals. The joke there would be on us.



The case for bringing the head of the Catholic hierarchy within the orbit of law is easily enough made. All it involves is the ability to look at a naked emperor and ask the question "Why?" Mentally remove his papal vestments and imagine him in a suit, and Joseph Ratzinger becomes just a Bavarian bureaucrat who has failed in the only task he was ever set—that of damage control. The question started small. In 2002, I happened to be on Hardball With Chris Matthews, discussing what the then attorney general of Massachusetts, Thomas Reilly, had termed a massive cover-up by the church of crimes against children by more than a thousand priests. I asked, why is the man who is prima facie responsible, Cardinal Bernard Law, not being questioned by the forces of law and order? Why is the church allowed to be judge in its own case and enabled in effect to run private courts where gross and evil offenders end up being "forgiven"? This point must have hung in the air a bit, and perhaps lodged in Cardinal Law's own mind, because in December of that year he left Boston just hours before state troopers arrived with a subpoena seeking his grand-jury testimony. Where did he go? To Rome, where he later voted in the election of Pope Benedict XVI and now presides over the beautiful church of Santa Maria Maggiore, as well as several Vatican subcommittees.

In my submission, the current scandal passed the point of no return when the Vatican officially became a hideout for a man who was little better than a fugitive from justice. By sheltering such a salient offender at its very heart, the Vatican had invited the metastasis of the horror into its bosom and thence to its very head. It is obvious that Cardinal Law could not have made his escape or been given asylum without the approval of the then pontiff and of his most trusted deputy in the matter of child-rape damage control, then cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Developments since that time have appalled even the most diehard papal apologists by their rapidity and scale. Not only do we have the letter that Cardinal Ratzinger sent to all Catholic bishops, enjoining them sternly to refer rape and molestation cases exclusively to his office. That would be bad enough in itself, since any person having knowledge of such a crime is legally obliged to report it to the police. But now, from Munich and Madison, Wis., and Oakland, come reports of the protection or indulgence of pederasts occurring on the pope's own watch, either during his period as bishop or his time as chief Vatican official for the defusing of the crisis. His apologists have done their best, but their Holy Father seems consistently to have been lenient or negligent with the criminals while reserving his severity only for those who complained about them.

As this became horribly obvious, I telephoned a distinguished human-rights counsel in London, Geoffrey Robertson, and asked him if the law was powerless to intervene. Not at all, was his calm reply. If His Holiness tries to travel outside his own territory—as he proposes to travel to Britain in the fall—there is no more reason for him to feel safe than there was for the once magnificently uniformed General Pinochet, who had passed a Chilean law that he thought would guarantee his own immunity, but who was visited by British bobbies all the same. As I am writing this, plaintiffs are coming forward and strategies being readied (on both sides, since the Vatican itself scents the danger). In Kentucky, a suit is before the courts seeking the testimony of the pope himself. In Britain, it is being proposed that any one of the numberless possible plaintiffs might privately serve the pope with a writ if he shows his face. Also being considered are two international approaches, one to the European Court of Human Rights and another to the International Criminal Court. The ICC—which has already this year overruled immunity and indicted the gruesome president of Sudan—can be asked to rule on "crimes against humanity"; a legal definition that happens to include any consistent pattern of rape, or exploitation of children, that has been endorsed by any government.

In Kentucky, the pope's lawyers have already signaled their intention to contest any such initiative by invoking "sovereign immunity," since His Holiness is also an alleged head of state. One wonders if sincere Catholics really desire to take refuge in this formulation. The so-called Vatican City, a political nonentity covering about 0.17 square miles of Rome, was created by Benito Mussolini in 1929 as part of his sweetheart deal between fascism and the papacy. It is the last survival of the political architecture of the Axis powers. Its bogus claim to statehood is now being used to give asylum to men like Cardinal Law.


In this instance the church damns itself both ways. It invites our challenge—this is where the appeal to the European Court of Human Rights becomes relevant—to its standing as a state. And it calls attention to the repellent origins of that same state. Currently the Holy See has it both ways. For example, it is exempt from the annual State Department Human Rights Report precisely because it is not considered a state. (It maintains only observer status at the United Nations.) So, if it now does want to claim full statehood, it follows that it should receive the full attention of the State Department for its "lay" policies, and, for that matter, the full attention of the Justice Department as well. (First order of business—why on earth are we not demanding the extradition of Cardinal Law? And why is this grave matter being left to private individuals to pursue?)

It is very difficult to resist the conclusion that this pope does not call for a serious investigation, or demand the removal of those responsible for a consistent pattern of child rape and its concealment, because to do so would be to imply the call for his own indictment. But meanwhile why are we expected to watch passively or wonder idly why the church does not clean its own filthy stable? A case in point: in 2001 Cardinal Castrillón of Colombia wrote from the Vatican to congratulate a French bishop who had risked jail rather than report an especially vicious rapist priest. Castrillón was invited this week to conduct a lavish Latin mass in Washington. The invitation was rightly withdrawn after a storm of outrage, but nobody asked why the cardinal could not be held as an accessory to an official Vatican policy that has exposed thousands of American children to rapists and sadists.


Only this past March did the church shamefacedly and reluctantly agree that all child rapists should now be handed over to the civil authorities. Thanks a lot. That was a clear admission that gross illegality, and of the nastiest kind, has been its practice up until now. Euphemisms about sin and repentance are useless. This is a question of crime—organized crime, by the way—and therefore of punishment. Or perhaps you would rather see the shade of Mussolini thrown protectively over the Vicar of Christ? The ancient Roman symbol of the fish is rotting—and rotting from the head.

Hitchens, a NEWSWEEK contributor, is a columnist for Vanity Fair and the author of * Is Not Great.

 

So many people hate someone they have never met, know practically nothing about and are quick to write of as despicable purely because of his religion and the fact he is the head of the Catholic Church.

I actually feel sorry for all those that find it so easy to hate.

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/com...cle7094310.ece

"RICHARD DAWKINS, the atheist campaigner, is planning a legal ambush to have the Pope arrested during his state visit to Britain “for crimes against humanity”.

Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, have asked human rights lawyers to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church.

The pair believe they can exploit the same legal principle used to arrest Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator, when he visited Britain in 1998.

The Pope was embroiled in new controversy this weekend over a letter he signed arguing that the “good of the universal church” should be considered against the defrocking of an American priest who committed * offences against two boys. It was dated 1985, when he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which deals with * abuse cases.
Related Links

* Children who front atheist ads are evangelicals

* Dawkins aims to convert Islam to evolution

Benedict will be in Britain between September 16 and 19, visiting London, Glasgow and Coventry, where he will beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman, the 19th-century theologian.

Dawkins and Hitchens believe the Pope would be unable to claim diplomatic immunity from arrest because, although his tour is categorised as a state visit, he is not the head of a state recognised by the United Nations.

They have commissioned the barrister Geoffrey Robertson and Mark Stephens, a solicitor, to present a justification for legal action.

The lawyers believe they can ask the Crown Prosecution Service to initiate criminal proceedings against the Pope, launch their own civil action against him or refer his case to the International Criminal Court.

Dawkins, author of The * Delusion, said: “This is a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and * the young victims to silence.”

Hitchens, author of * Is Not Great, said: “This man is not above or outside the law. The institutionalised concealment of child rape is a crime under any law and demands not private ceremonies of repentance or church-funded payoffs, but justice and punishment."

Last year pro-Palestinian activists persuaded a British judge to issue an arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni, the Israeli politician, for offences allegedly committed during the 2008-09 conflict in Gaza. The warrant was withdrawn after Livni cancelled her planned trip to the UK.

“There is every possibility of legal action against the Pope occurring,” said Stephens. “Geoffrey and I have both come to the view that the Vatican is not actually a state in international law. It is not recognised by the UN, it does not have borders that are policed and its relations are not of a full diplomatic nature.”

 

his dogma is science -as we understand it now, to be the absolute truth.

who is he to say that there is nothing more to life than what science "describes".

i think dawkins is a bit of a *.

and no, i'm not religious.

First off, there are some nasty echoes of anti-Catholic prejudice in this campaign. However, there are also some pretty clear indications that parts of the Catholic Church operated on the basis that they were operating a parallel legal system, and that they were under no obligation to pass on serious criminal matters to the police and prosecutors. Indeed, there is some evidence that this Pope actively obstructed efforts to bring this matter to the police.

That isn't an indictment of the Catholic Church as a whole. Abuse of power goes on within any institution without sufficient accountability. Religious institutions are prone to this, because they are often (but not always) led by individuals who claim authority from *, and so look only to Him to account. However, look at child abuse in council run children's homes.

The anti-Catholic aspect of this scandal probably doesn't register as a blip on the radar of non-Catholics. There is a rapid (and to be welcomed) forgetting of the extent to which Catholics were subjected, until very recently, to formal legal discrimination. Anti-Irish prejudice was a significant part of anti-Catholicism.

In that context, it is interesting to see the old anti-Papist charges being levelled again. Seeing all priests as potential sexual deviants is a very good example of that. This charge originates in the battles between the Dominicans and the Franciscans, but was then incorporated into anti-clerical and anti-Catholic agitation.

Or, suggesting that the problem is that the "pope is infallible". Papal infallibility is obvious crap, and is a relatively recent innovation. However, it doesn't mean - as Catholic bashers often claim - that the Pope can't get anything wrong. It relates to ex-cathedra dogmatic pronouncements on matters of divine revelation only. What people really mean is that "the Catholic Church is unaccountable", and that is a very different thing altogether.

None of this is a reason not to condemn this Pope, or those in the Catholic Church responsible - but I think people could be a little more careful about how they do it.

 

All excellent observations which I agree with totally. I'm atheist myself, and would in no way condone the sins committed by the Church regarding these scandals. Nevertheless, there's more to it the campaigns than just that, particularly in Scotland.

Despite what the gutter press tries to portray in order to sell more papers (Boyd rumour a good example), priests are NOT more prone to sexual deviance than ANY other group in society - studies and stats show that. They should be far less prone due to their morals though.

As for the Pope, I don't see him as an evil figure, but I AM disappointed in his lack of vision with these scandals.

What he IS, though is a good and easy target for the anti-Catholic sentiment being branded at times. That's only natural. He's the figurehead, and in my view he can be held responsible to a certain extent for the failings of the Church towards the vulnerable.

Excommunication of missionary priests under the present and previous Pope are more examples. Nor my favourite guy, but I wouldn't mind going for a pint with him for curiosity's sake.

 

from dawkins blog -

'Needless to say, I did NOT say "I will arrest Pope Benedict XVI" or anything so personally grandiloquent. You have to remember that The Sunday Times is a Murdoch newspaper, and that all newspapers follow the odd custom of entrusting headlines to a sub-editor, not the author of the article itself.'

'Even if the Pope doesn't end up in the dock, and even if the Vatican doesn't cancel the visit, I am optimistic that we shall raise public consciousness to the point where the British government will find it very awkward indeed to go ahead with the Pope's visit, let alone pay for it.'

like the UK government pay any attention to such things as 'public consciousness' or 'feeling awkward'.

at the most some headlines will be generated. thinking that the pope will be arrested when he lands in the UK is laughable.

and did pinochet not get hustled out by his good pal herr maggie?

 

This thread lost all credibility when Hitchens and Dawkins were quoted. Quote me an impartial observer and it might have some relevance to the thread. Asking them whether they like the Pope is like asking Steven Hawking if he likes jogging.

I agree with Airdrie Onion.

I will also add that Benedict is an academic theologian. Many of the points he has made on the subject are a bit difficult to follow as a result, and so he often gets quoted out of context with spectacular results.

In terms of how he handles the Paedophilia scandal (which is, if you will pardon the pun - a Godsend to Hitchens and his ilk) the jury is still out. Allegations linking him directly to "cover ups" are thrown about but none have hit the mark as yet.

As Pope I will judge him as he acts as Pope, and not as Cardinal. The Chruch is still sorting this mess out, marks at the end of the paper.

 

Dawkins is a buffoon - fair enough have your own belief but why should he be actively seeking to state other religions are wrong. I don't believe in religion, as i have mentioned, but i respect people that do - a lot of them have higher morals as a result, whether i believe it to be true or not. I know people who have went through sadness in their lives and their faith has guided them through it and that is why i would never actively seek to tell someone there belief's are wrong.

The Catholic Church abuse scandal was blown out of proportions by the press. As mentioned above it happens in all walks of life - if a teacher is found guilty of the same crime it doesn't make every teacher a paedophile. The problem was that it was covered up which was wrong

 

I have no opinion on him. He's just another person to me.

 

I have not read this thread because I know some of the bigotry that will be contained within. Here is my unpopular opinion
Do I love this Pope, yes I do. I will take a bullet for the man. He is by no means the best Pope in 2000 years. But compared to the other Popes in the last 50 years he is floating above them like a Saint.
I believe that what you see today in the Catholic Church is not Catholic. It is a watered down version, a diet version if you will of Catholicism. To understand this you would have to be well equipped with your knowledge of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. Which has been led to this day by weak Priest, Bishops and Popes.
For your information, I only attend the Traditional Latin Mass which is offered by the SSPX or the FSSP. I would call myself a Traditionalist Catholic who would not attend a Novus Ordo Mass, and I believe the Church must return to the full Catholic Faith pre dating the Second Vatican council. Without explaining it all here is a brief summary of what is a Traditionalist Catholic
Traditionalist Catholic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Catholic Church in the past 50 years has been destroyed by weak teaching and week Popes. JP2 in particular kissing koran's, setting up Religious Prayers gatherings with heretics, suppressing any Traditional Catholic teachings, stopping the TLM, changing the Rosary. The list goes on. All this for a feel good Catholic faith, which lost all sense of 1960 years of Catholic Tradition. And became a modernization of truth on the same level as other religions
Wheras Pope Benedict on the other hand has realized the Church has went to * since The Second Vatican Council. And is doing is best to reverse these atrocity's.
Allowing the TLM ( the mass of the Saints ) to be said once again under Summorum Pontificum
Summorum Pontificum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
But our great Bishops have done everything in there power to stop Tradition, because it is that they never knew. And it is why they have ran the Church in to the ground, with there modern liberal ideas.
You disagree ?
Why has the only Seminary in Scotland closed down ?
Because what you see is not the Catholic Faith
Why are the Traditional Seminaries, SSPX, FSSP, ICK Etc, bursting to compacity, why is there waiting lists to enter ?
Because they give the Catholic Faith that has been stolen from our schools and Masses the past 50 years .

John Paul 2 was loved because he was of the world, Pope Benedict is hated because he is Catholic.

Chris

 

i didnt say that i "hated" the pope or the catholic church i just said i dont have time for them,because i dont agree with their extreme views

 

dawkins is a * who is just as bad as any mormon or born again christian knocking at your door telling you how to live

 

"Let me make the supersititons of a nation and I care not who makes its laws"
- Mark Twain

 

Remove the fact that he's The Pope...if you had found out that your next door neighbour had his peadophilic, child raping friend laying low in his house and doing his best to protect him, would you're first emotions not be of disgust then anger? I doubt you would want anything to do with him let alone go for a pint with him. Pope or not, one thing that's as bad as a peadophile is someone who's willing to cover it up and not report said offender to the authorities.

Some people just can't see the man for his robes. I'm looking at Joseph Ratzinger, not the head of the catholic church. In any other walk of life, we'd be screaming for justice, but no...the pope be arrested? How ludicrous.

I urge everyone to read my last two posts with a clear and open mind. If you don't feel even slightly disgusted then I'd ask you to take a long, hard look in the mirror.

Under NO circumstances is it okay for someone to be an accessory to a crime as evil and sick as this.

--------------------Edit----------------------

Oh, and if anyone's going to insult Hitchens or Dawkins eg. name calling: *, idiot, buffoon, atleast back it up as to why you think this and on what grounds, otherwise it makes for a fairly empty argument.

 

1) Actually I WOULD feel disgusted at that. I'd report them.

2) Maybe as a disinterested atheist I pay less attention/am not as up to date on details. I'm not sure of to what extent he was involved in cover-ups etc. but if he was deep in it, then a) he should not /CAN not be where he is. And yes I think his robes should be left out of this too.

Actually, thanks for bringing those points up. Food for thought.

 

Cheers for the non-hostile reply, doubt I would have got that from a few other members posting in this thread! haha

If you go to page 3, you'll see two posts that I've put up. If you're interested, have a read. Everything you'll read is fact and can easily be backed up by searching online.

 

Will do tomorrow when I've got time. In any case, just because we may not agree is no reason for a charge of the light brigade from me!

I'm willing to be open-minded if I think others might be better informed than me.

 

The Pope was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for 24 years before becoming Pope. That (literally) makes him Grand Inquisitor, the fellow responsible for teaching and enforcing Church doctrine - including (and I mean specifically including) cases of sexual misconduct by clergymen.

The refusal to remove and report abusers and the secrecy among the Bishops and Vatican proceedings is a decision that stems directly from his office. As recently as 2001, he reaffirmed the confidentiality of internal investigations. That's nine years ago, he felt that sexual predators did not have to be reported to the police.

The Mafia had a code like that for centuries; they called it the Omerta. Not so different after all, eh?

 

I feel i gave reasons as to why i think Dawkins is a buffoon. I respect he has his beliefs, which aren't too different from mine, nut the fact he goes out of his way to have a go at the Catholic Church is wrong.I respect anyones beliefs no matter my opinion and i wouldn't actively seek to say they were wrong as no one knows for sure hence why it is a belief and not just fact.

To be honest i'm not too sure of the level of knowledge Pope Benedict had when it came to covering up paedophiles. Obviously, like any decent human, i would be disgusted if he covered it up but i honestly don't believe he had any role in it. Was it not people below him that made the decision, a vicar general or something? Tried to be as non- hostile as i could mate

 

Actually Marco old boy I did not resort to name calling when referring to Hitchens or Dawkins. I may do so when referring to Watty and his happy Huns, but not in debate of this sort.

What I said was that they are not impartial commentators on the Catholic Church (or any organised religion whatsoever), and so hardly able to come out with a balanced view on whether one would like the Pope or not.

Here is an analogy for you, based on yours.

Suppose one of your neighbours, A, dislikes another of your neighbours, B, because of his religious viewpoint, and spreads gossip throughout the neighbourhood that B was hiding his paedophilic, child raping friend and doing his best to protect him?

Would you not feel slightly used?

What if A spread this rumour based on a manichean and simplistic view of actual events, and by selecting the most useful parts (to A) of the whole story, applied with hindsight from present perspective, but had not yet been able to prove what he asserts?

Would you not feel gulled?

some have drawn assumptions from the alleged role of the Congregation (and, yes, they bring up the Spanish Inquisition. I expected that.) and Cardinal Ratzingers position at the head of that. I fear for Scout Leaders with criminal deduction like that.

And as for your assertion that there are "no circumstances" that would make it okay for someone to be an accessory to a crime such as paedophilia. Well, lets hope your moral absolutism doesnt backfire some day, and your best friend doesnt find themselves accused of something similar.

* forbid.

In my opinion, people who see the world in terms of absolutes and truisms are as much to be feared as religious zealots. Its all baloney, no matter how you slice it.

So I will continue to think my own thoughts, look for my own evidence, and reach my own conclusions, and most definately not swallow sideways anything - including publicity stunts - Hitchens or Dawkins dream up in their black and white world to get their books and lecture tours sold.

And for PRD - "But wonder at a greater wonder, for to us Created nature doth these things subdue, But their Creator, whom sin,nor nature tied, For us, his creatures and his foes, hath died." John Donne, Holy Sonnets