The UN does not.
This is irrelevent. The Holy See is not of issue. It is not ocnsidered a state by anyone.
It does not surprise me that Vatican courts would argue that the pope has diplomatic immunnity.
Once again. The Holy See is not a state. Even if you think that Vatican City is a state, the fact that countries such as Italy recognize diplomatic relations with the Holy See is irrelevent.
Did you have some point here or are you just making clear that you now understand that the Holy See (while an observer at the UN) is not a state and that the so-called state of Vatican City is not recognized by the UN?
You’re a patient guy/gal, Thing.
The UN, every country in the General Assembly 192?, confirmed the Holy See as an Observer State when somebody had challenged its status as a State.
Are you kidding? You know full well, Dave, that the Holy See is not a state. Why would you compliment the patience of the one who is obstinently arguing that it is? Whether or not Vatican City is a state is a different question. Perhaps if you explained that important distinction to Thing this conversation could move forward.
I agree that nothing is likely to come of this legal maneuver, though I’m not sure how stupid it is. The most they could achieve is to prevent the visit, and I strongly doubt that they will achieve even that.
Why is it important to make the distinction for the purposes of this conversation? You seem to be straining out gnats and swallowing camels here.
…so, yeah, it’s a smear campaign, but it’s a valiant effort all the same?
I was referring to the fact that there was no international legal authority that could sit in judgment of Saddam Hussein precisely because NO country recognizes that authority precisely because it would be a surrender of sovereign power. Whether your a democracy, a dictatorship, or some sort of oligarchy as - no politician of any stripe is willing to put themselves under the legal authority of a foreign body UNLESS there is something to be gained by it. OR they’re a country not powerful enough to resist being ganged up on.
If you can acknowledge that much of what occurs during an ICC trial is actually politically motivated, then the question has to arise as to what good (and now i’m not speaking of the victims, but those hearing the trial) could be gained from this action?
FYI the Lateran Treaty was not only a 1929 thing. It is part of the art. 7 of the Italian Constitution (1948), and it was ratified again in 1984 as an international treaty.
Stupidity, IMHO, has very little to do with mistaken pieces of information or gaffes. It also has very little to do with Philosophical or De Jure claims as to what is right.
Take note of this people who are still reading the thread. Bdelykleon actually hit the nail on the head.
unfortunately you miss that point Bdelyk.
The issue for discussion was whether or not the pope has diplomatic immunity as a head of state. Thing kept cutting and pasting from unknown sources about how the Holy See is recognized by the UN. I was hoping you could sort out the issue of whether the Holy See has anything to so with the pope’s status as head of state so we can focus on the question of the legitimacy of the claim on other grounds.
Well, I certainly hope it is not just a smear campaign. At best, it may help achieve justice for the victims of abuse if the Church is convinced to release secret documents and admits, apologizes for, and corrects systemic problems. The Vatican keeps coming out with statements saying that there was no wrong-doing, yet available documentation says there was. The Church apparently put the interests of the Church ahead of the interests of the victims. I’d like to know the truth of the matter. Perhaps you can shed some light.
1- How would it help achieve justice for the victims?
Understood, however that is what is going to be up for contention.
Well as I understand it (I’m certainly no expert on the matter), the pope is the head of a sovereign entity, the Holy See, as well as a sovereign state, Vatican City, and the former basically owns the latter, using it as an instrument. So I certainly think the two are related, and it seems irrelevant to me whether we talk about the pope as head of the oldest sovereign entity in the world (the Holy See) or as head of a relatively young sovereign state (the State of the Vatican City - which apparently does have a soccer team!).
Well I really don’t know what you’re talking about here. The Church has admitted, apologized for, and is working to correct systemic problems. But the Church has systemic problems no more than (and actually less than) the human race has systemic problems, and the man under attack has been key in working to fix those problems, not in creating them. If you have anything specific to criticize, problems specific to the Church or Benedict, please give me some details. If you’ve simply swallowed the BS from the NYT et al., I can suggest some corrective reading for you.
There is a big difference between how the UN considers the Vatican Sate and how Italy does. Independently of the UN approach Italy will still consider it an independent and sovereign state unless it decides to invade it. In order to do that they have to amend parts of the Italian Constitution. Italy cannot put the Vatican under a NGO status, it goes against Italian law, it is independent from international law.Understood, however that is what is going to be up for contention.
Don’t you Catholics realize that this is bigger than simply “defrocking” (Is that the right word?) your Pope?
They’re going after your organization’s status as a sovereign power. Up until this time, it has been treated as a De Facto state and with some minor De Jure concessions.
If enough support is garnered, say buh-bye to the De Jure. They’re about to do to you what they did to the Dalai Lama ~ without the army of course.
Again, this isn’t the end of the world or catholicism or anything. italy is a catholic-enough country that i’m sure the Italian government will just shift everything legally and place the Lateran palace and all its holdings under NGO status. And I highly doubt you’ll lose UN observer status.
Life will go on, your masses will be said, except that the ceremonial position of your institution will be downgraded.
The articles I read about the attempt to raise a human rights case against Benedict don’t give any specifics. I assumed that the questions about the pope centered around his activity before he became pope. My understanding is that he was one of those bishops who shuffled offending priests to new parishes to offend again in Germany and also wrote some semi-secret document addressed to the world’s bishops instructing them to put the interests of the Church ahead of those of the victims while working for the Vatican. Do you have some reading to suggest on the issue?