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lynx
Guest
If the pope is a suspect, it sounds like the best way to guarantee a fair and balanced trial.
MERGED: (UN Jurist:) Pope must answer for crimes against humanity
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presidentjlh
Guest
And the UN wonders why some people think they have a connection to the Anti-Christ. (I don’t subscribe to that belief, personally)
Seriously though, I love this “judge’s” pride for himself. “Touting his status as a UN judge”? Oh, you’re an United Nations judge? Oh, I am so sorry, let me roll out the red carpet for you, you’re obviously the leader of the world.
This man merely hates the Catholic Church, as shown by his attempts to remove them from the UN. What a joke.
Seriously though, I love this “judge’s” pride for himself. “Touting his status as a UN judge”? Oh, you’re an United Nations judge? Oh, I am so sorry, let me roll out the red carpet for you, you’re obviously the leader of the world.
This man merely hates the Catholic Church, as shown by his attempts to remove them from the UN. What a joke.
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dnu
Guest
yep…**** off 1.3 billion people…that will end well…
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Thoma25
Guest
Politicians who commit real war crimes and crimes against humanity are overlooked, of course, because the real threat here is an elderly Theologian-Pope. That’s obviously true, because I heard it on TV.
I don’t mean to be uncharitable, but anyone who has actually followed the baseless claims leveled against Pope Benedict knows that they are absurd; and anyone who believes that he is guilty of any of the nefarious accusations that incompetent “journalists” spew is either an idiot, or knows very little about the matter. Or perhaps both, with an anti-Catholic agenda.
I don’t mean to be uncharitable, but anyone who has actually followed the baseless claims leveled against Pope Benedict knows that they are absurd; and anyone who believes that he is guilty of any of the nefarious accusations that incompetent “journalists” spew is either an idiot, or knows very little about the matter. Or perhaps both, with an anti-Catholic agenda.
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ThomasToo
Guest
The plot thickens. Richard Dawkins: I will arrest Pope Benedict XVI Times Online, 11 April 2010.
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Monica4316
Guest
yup.
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Monica4316
Guest
what?! that’s absurd…
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ThomasToo
Guest
I know I come at this question from a very different place than all of you and frankly would be delighted to see Dawkins try to arrest the Pope. I don’t think it would work and I’d be surprised if he were allowed within a hundred feet of him but Dawkins would end up looking absurd which, despite my love for them man and his writings, would be pretty hilarious to behold. I don’t want this thread to become a debate about this question but I provide the above for context.
Why is it important that other groups have problems with child molestation/paedophilia? Is it because Catholics feel that the Church is unfairly singled out in the situation (though cases like Mary K. Letourneau seem that teachers make the front page as well)? It is because priests are unjustly and falsely accused for molestation? Is it because the hoi polloi have a mistaken impression about the prevalence of clergy molestation?
I think I would have a much smaller problem with Catholic criticism of the widespread reporting of clergy molestation accusations (as the above seem, all in all, to be reasonable problems to have with mainstream portrayals of the crisis) if I had ever heard about a priest being turned over to civil authorities for wrongdoings of this sort–doubly so for bishops found to be covering their actions up. If I missed stories of this nature I would, frankly, be delighted to read them but I fear they are not nearly as common as one may hope. [edit: I’m not hoping more children were molested but I’m guessing that it is highly uncommon that clergy who are found to have acted wrongly are turned over to civil authorities as opposed to receiving punishment from the USCCB or the Vatican.]
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curlycool89
Guest
Really? Seriously? Really?
Ok. So for one he’s saying that it doesn’t really have to do with criminal prosecution or holding people accountable or anything, it’s all about money. Because obviously throwing piles of money at something is the solution to every problem. I’m not sure how appropriate this is going to sound, but Mr. Robertson should take a listen to Get Over It by The Eagles.
There are so many other steps that could be taken that will do a lot better than money. I read an article just last week in the paper saying that many people who win the lottery pretty much have their lives ruined in the end. Is that really what we want, people who’ve already had their lives scarred to have a chance to do it again, this time on their own? Money is not the answer to all problems.
Secondly, the Vatican is not rich. It’s not some magic mega-corporation that can reach into every diocese in the world and take all the money. They have their own independent funds; most of the stuff they have is material like property and priceless pieces of artwork. What do they want, for the Pope to sell St. Peter’s or sell artwork that is sitting is a public museum to a private collector never to be seen again?
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Guyonthestreet
Guest
He wont get within a mile of the Pope.what?! that’s absurd…
So he certainly wont be arresting anyone.
But it will be interesting to see if the judiciary will issue an arrest warrant, which would legitimise, in fact, require, the police to arrest the Pope if he sets foot in the country.
I can’t see that happening.
And id it did, the Pope would simply cancel his visit.
Just like Livni.
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presidentjlh
Guest
That…“man” (I must restrain myself) could not give any less of a d*mn about those children. All he’s interested in is destroying religion entirely. As a scientist, he is one of the best, but as a theologian he has no idea what’s going on.
I would love to see him try to arrest Pope Benedict XVI, and get his smarmy butt tackled.
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Seamus_L
Guest
One positive aspect of an attempted arrest of the Pope would be that hopefully more people would realise it’s time we permanently abolish the UN.
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Santi2
Guest
Even if they were successful with an arrest warrant, I am certain that many Catholics in this country would not let them serve the warrant and treat the Holy Father as they did Pinochet. It could be a case of “Malchus, beware!”.
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Adeodatus
Guest
When do we get to abolish abolish perfidious Albion along with it?
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dnu
Guest
Some people seem to forget that he will be surrounded by an armed security detail. If anyone comes within 50 feet of him all hell will break loose. Not a wise move.
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Non_Serviam
Guest
This man being referenced above both nauseates and terrifies me at the same time. I’m amazed at what he has said in these 2 articles.
Looking at the first atrticle which begins:
The article goes on to list abuse and molestation taking places in other organizations and through a combination of emphasis and comments he gets positively enthusiastic that more children are being molested so that it’s not just a Catholic issue. This man seems to be totally callous to the fact that children are being molested to create this “good news”.
If that wasn’t bad enough, he goes on in the other article to castigate whomever “leaked” the letter in question which Cardinal Ratzinger’s signature on it, conveniently omitting the fact that it only had to be leaked because it wasn’t provided to investigators by the church. Likewise he attempts to absolve Cardinal Ratzinger by pointing out that he was only dealing with arequest for laicization, convenitent omitting that the facts related to the abise were provided as part of the laicization request. So the Cardinal was fully aware of the situation when the decision to postpone laicization was made.
Why was laicization important? Because back then, someone dressed as a priest still had some credibility as a “safe adult”. By permitting the abuser to continue to identify as a priest, he was able to play on that trust. Trust which is no longer there due to situations such as this.
Lastly, in the second article, this priest wrote:
People don’t forget this, they just believe children must be protected before the concern for the priest’s soul is addressed.
What this man is saying is: We’ll protect your children unless it conflicts with the soul of one of our priests. If that happens your children are on their own because his soul is our priority.
It is the fear that this sentiment is widespread among clergy that has led to the current situation. That’s why the secrecy and non-responsiveness and justifications are meeting such negative responses.
If Father Z thinks this is such a great sentiment, why doesn’t he paste at the top of his web site and see how his readers respond to it? This would also allow parents to decide if they want to permit their children to be in the care of anyone who believes such nonsense.
I would hope that Catholics would repudiate such a sentiment and repudiate any member of the clergy who supports it.
So the Pope will shoot his way out of the UK? This will demonstrate that he’s innocent and things are now good in the church?
Better to clear things up using some sensible spokespeople, unlike the man quoted above, and demonstrate just what happened and what is being done about it or stay home and avoid any possible international incident.
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homoreus
Guest
I’m afraid I came too late to read the pre-edit version of your post. Perhaps the reasons you might not read too often about the punishments in these cases include:
- Non-reportage or sub-reportage. In the Murphy case, the civil courts knew of the matter but nothing appears to have happened. Hence, you don’t read about it. In the case of the priest whose laicization was requested by Bishop Cummins, the priest in question was indeed tried by the civil courts. And received probation. Hardly spectacular enough to be newsworthy on its own, although one should ask why this did not also provoke outrage at the light sentence. Perhaps the mores of the place and time (Bay Area, 1970s) was that such a sentence was already quite harsh. Or, perhaps people then and there simply respected the law enough to not risk contempt of court.
- Wrong or no penal jurisdiction. The canon courts don’t have power to punish in the sense of putting someone into jail. Laicisation is not a punishment. It’s a release from a restraint, i.e., the vow of celibacy. Defrocking, as commonly (mis)understood as expulsion from priesthood, is not possible under Catholic doctrine (I won’t address the point here further).
- Wrong or no subject matter jurisdiction. Removing a priest from active ministry was at the time the sovereign prerogative of the Bishop. This is the same with a great many things, as they have always been ever since the Twelve Apostles. The pope is merely primus inter pares, and the Vatican establishment with its portrayedly gigantic centralised totalitarian control mechanism is really the tip of the iceberg, the rest of the iceberg being situations where the Pope is really no more than one more Bishop in the synod. The primacy of the Bishop of Rome is limited to certain things which, in the larger picture of the general scheme of things Catholic, is really the minority of matters.
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Teelynn
Guest
Yeah, well, I guess we can dream. As the UN is virtually useless, regardless, you will NEVER see that happen especially with the radicals in power. Trust me, it will never happen, unfortunately.
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