Of course, I think we can all agree that those tickets he's accrued for double-parking his PopeMobile can be forgiven. But the kid-buggering part, that's a different deal.
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/09/11/should-the-pope-face-charges/
Should the Pope face charges?
A renowned lawyer makes the case that the Pope should have his day in court for harbouring pedophiles
by Brian Bethune on Saturday, September 11, 2010
Excerpt:
God in the Dock, meaning God on trial, is a familiar concept in Britain, both from the title of a famous collection of essays by C.S. Lewis and as a general term for skepticism about religious belief and doctrine. But Pope in the Dock? Literally? Perhaps not in our lifetimes, as British lawyer Geoffrey Robertson concedes in The Case of the Pope: Vatican Accountability for Human Rights Abuse, a book set to appear just one week before Benedict XVI makes the first-ever papal state visit to Britain. But, Robertson argues, the once unthinkable idea that Benedict or a successor could be charged with obstructing justice or for “harbouring pedophile priests” is now very thinkable, and—given evolving trends in international human rights law—may soon be practical.
The plain facts of the case to be answered are horrific and undeniable. Since the dam crumbled around the turn of the decade, a cascade of child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy has come tumbling into the open. So many cases emerged that the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference commissioned an expert study, which concluded in 2004 that, since 1950, 10,667 individuals had made plausible allegations against 4,392 priests, 4.3 per cent of the entire body of clergy in that period. The total bill in settlements with victims is spiralling toward $2 billion and won’t stop, Forbes predicts, this side of $5 billion. Depressingly similar stories from other First World countries, including Canada, soon emerged; the situation in Latin America and Africa, where no investigations have ever been made, can only be imagined.
All that is but half of Robertson’s case. And for the former president of the UN War Crimes Court in Sierra Leone and author of a landmark judgment on the illegality of recruiting child soldiers, it’s actually the lesser half. Any institution can have criminal employees; what matters is its awareness of and response to their illicit acts. Church legislation against clerical sexual abuse dates back to the fourth century, and in 1952 Gerald Fitzgerald, the American founder of the Paraclete order, which treats erring priests of all sorts, brought a specific warning to Rome. “Leaving pedophile priests on duty or wandering from diocese to diocese,” he said, was a moral evil and a scandal waiting to break.
But for another half century they were usually left on duty or shuffled about, without warning to their flocks, new or old. The Church dealt with its offenders in secret via a parallel system of justice, its own canon law, as overseen by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, itself overseen by cardinal Joseph Ratzinger from 1981 until he became Pope Benedict in 2005. Insofar, that is, that the Church dealt with them at all. Penalties, in comparison with secular law, were negligible, ranging from spiritual exercises (extra prayers mainly) to the canon law’s ultimate “degradation”: being returned to the lay state. A church dedicated—in its best incarnation—to the belief that the worst sinners can be saved, and—in its worst mode—to avoiding scandal, did what came naturally to it, what Fitzgerald had warned against.
From New York, confessed molesters were sent to Africa, as they were from Italy, Germany and Ireland. More often they simply moved next door. The archbishop of Dublin, faced with 46 cases of known pedophile priests, reported none to the police, and instead dispatched them to new parishes in full awareness of the risk to children—an awareness made plain by the 1987 purchase of insurance policies to cover future claims.
Canada offers a particularly clear case of Church cover-up. In 1993 the bishop of Pembroke in Ontario wrote the papal nuncio—the Vatican’s ambassador to Canada—about his willingness to see a child molester’s quiet removal to Rome. Some of his victims were starting to talk; luckily, they were “of Polish descent and their respect for the priesthood and the Church has made them refrain from laying charges.” The priest, Bernard Prince, a long-time friend of John Paul II, was a key Canadian channel to the Polish pope. (In Céline Dion’s autobiography, there is a photo of Prince introducing her to John Paul in 1984.) Church authorities managed to keep their devout Poles quiet until 2005, when police were finally informed. Thee years later, Prince, then 74, was found guilty of molesting 13 boys. He was defrocked in 2009, 15 years after the Vatican first learned of his crimes.
Any other institution, Robertson insists, would have been overwhelmed by civil monetary damages and criminal investigations. Sovereign immunity has so far saved the Catholic Church.
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/09/11/should-the-pope-face-charges/
Should the Pope face charges?
A renowned lawyer makes the case that the Pope should have his day in court for harbouring pedophiles
by Brian Bethune on Saturday, September 11, 2010
Excerpt:
God in the Dock, meaning God on trial, is a familiar concept in Britain, both from the title of a famous collection of essays by C.S. Lewis and as a general term for skepticism about religious belief and doctrine. But Pope in the Dock? Literally? Perhaps not in our lifetimes, as British lawyer Geoffrey Robertson concedes in The Case of the Pope: Vatican Accountability for Human Rights Abuse, a book set to appear just one week before Benedict XVI makes the first-ever papal state visit to Britain. But, Robertson argues, the once unthinkable idea that Benedict or a successor could be charged with obstructing justice or for “harbouring pedophile priests” is now very thinkable, and—given evolving trends in international human rights law—may soon be practical.
The plain facts of the case to be answered are horrific and undeniable. Since the dam crumbled around the turn of the decade, a cascade of child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy has come tumbling into the open. So many cases emerged that the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference commissioned an expert study, which concluded in 2004 that, since 1950, 10,667 individuals had made plausible allegations against 4,392 priests, 4.3 per cent of the entire body of clergy in that period. The total bill in settlements with victims is spiralling toward $2 billion and won’t stop, Forbes predicts, this side of $5 billion. Depressingly similar stories from other First World countries, including Canada, soon emerged; the situation in Latin America and Africa, where no investigations have ever been made, can only be imagined.
All that is but half of Robertson’s case. And for the former president of the UN War Crimes Court in Sierra Leone and author of a landmark judgment on the illegality of recruiting child soldiers, it’s actually the lesser half. Any institution can have criminal employees; what matters is its awareness of and response to their illicit acts. Church legislation against clerical sexual abuse dates back to the fourth century, and in 1952 Gerald Fitzgerald, the American founder of the Paraclete order, which treats erring priests of all sorts, brought a specific warning to Rome. “Leaving pedophile priests on duty or wandering from diocese to diocese,” he said, was a moral evil and a scandal waiting to break.
But for another half century they were usually left on duty or shuffled about, without warning to their flocks, new or old. The Church dealt with its offenders in secret via a parallel system of justice, its own canon law, as overseen by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, itself overseen by cardinal Joseph Ratzinger from 1981 until he became Pope Benedict in 2005. Insofar, that is, that the Church dealt with them at all. Penalties, in comparison with secular law, were negligible, ranging from spiritual exercises (extra prayers mainly) to the canon law’s ultimate “degradation”: being returned to the lay state. A church dedicated—in its best incarnation—to the belief that the worst sinners can be saved, and—in its worst mode—to avoiding scandal, did what came naturally to it, what Fitzgerald had warned against.
From New York, confessed molesters were sent to Africa, as they were from Italy, Germany and Ireland. More often they simply moved next door. The archbishop of Dublin, faced with 46 cases of known pedophile priests, reported none to the police, and instead dispatched them to new parishes in full awareness of the risk to children—an awareness made plain by the 1987 purchase of insurance policies to cover future claims.
Canada offers a particularly clear case of Church cover-up. In 1993 the bishop of Pembroke in Ontario wrote the papal nuncio—the Vatican’s ambassador to Canada—about his willingness to see a child molester’s quiet removal to Rome. Some of his victims were starting to talk; luckily, they were “of Polish descent and their respect for the priesthood and the Church has made them refrain from laying charges.” The priest, Bernard Prince, a long-time friend of John Paul II, was a key Canadian channel to the Polish pope. (In Céline Dion’s autobiography, there is a photo of Prince introducing her to John Paul in 1984.) Church authorities managed to keep their devout Poles quiet until 2005, when police were finally informed. Thee years later, Prince, then 74, was found guilty of molesting 13 boys. He was defrocked in 2009, 15 years after the Vatican first learned of his crimes.
Any other institution, Robertson insists, would have been overwhelmed by civil monetary damages and criminal investigations. Sovereign immunity has so far saved the Catholic Church.
