Should the Pope be held liable for full knowledge negligence in clergy scandal?

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Doesn’t anyone here think that it’s the height of arrogance to expect that a foreign national (the Pope) should be subject to U.S. law. I seriously doubt that anyone in the United States feels that other countries’ law courts should have jurisdiction over U.S. citizens. The U.S. does not rule the world. Bishops and priests that are U.S. citizens or who committed crimes while in the U.S. should be subject to U.S. law, but that’s where it stops. Why does everyone here seem to think that the universal Church should be subject to what people in the United States want. Sheesh …

PS: I am a citizen of the United States, born and bred here, and I am not a liberal, but rather a traditional Catholic.
 
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Hamilcar:
Doesn’t anyone here think that it’s the height of arrogance to expect that a foreign national (the Pope) should be subject to U.S. law. I seriously doubt that anyone in the United States feels that other countries’ law courts should have jurisdiction over U.S. citizens. The U.S. does not rule the world. Bishops and priests that are U.S. citizens or who committed crimes while in the U.S. should be subject to U.S. law, but that’s where it stops. Why does everyone here seem to think that the universal Church should be subject to what people in the United States want. Sheesh …

PS: I am a citizen of the United States, born and bred here, and I am not a liberal, but rather a traditional Catholic.
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Hello Hamilcar,

Would you agree that Cardinal Leveda should subject himself to American law for what he did in Portland Oregon? Cardinal Leveda is now the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican. This is Cardinal Ratzingers old job. If Cardinal Leveda is sentenced to prison by Amercan courts, do you feel he should submit?

**NO IMMUNITY FOR LEVADA **- A federal judge has agreed to let Archbishop William Levada skip an August court date to answer questions under oath about the Church’s handling of sexual abuse allegations against priests in the Portland Archdiocese from 1986 to 1995, when he was its Archbishop. Levada is the present day Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

In return, Archbishop Levada must personally guarantee that he will appear in January to undergo questioning by attorneys for 250 victims in clergy abuse lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Portland. As part of the agreement, Levada cannot claim diplomatic immunity as a high-ranking official of the Vatican (National Catholic Reporter, August 12, 2005).

Both the Pope and the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are today subject to questioning in American civil courts… No more independence for the Papacy and the Holy See. It seems a quite unexpected consequence of the last 40 years of liberalization of the Church’s morals and discipline.

Quoted from traditioninaction.org/bev/070bev09-07-2005.htm
 
Since I live in San Francisco, I am well aware of the situation with Archbishop Levada. He is a US citizen so he should be subject to US law for what happened while he exercised his office in the US. He should be immune while exercising an office for the Vatican. Either international law is for all nations or it is for none. The Vatican is a sovereign state.
 
Suppose Archbishop Levada does not show up. What would the US do, raid the Vatican?I do not think this would go over too well, do you? His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI would not have picked the Archbishop if he were not a good man.

I am also an american citizen, but am Catholic first.
 
It appears the Cardinal is willing to answer to the Law… As it said: As part of the agreement, Levada cannot claim diplomatic immunity as a high-ranking official of the Vatican.

Though, the site there… Seems kinda :rolleyes:
The letter that B16 sent out had words and apparently held a “secret” meaning to cover up abuse…
Well, Bush’s last speech secretly told me to burn down a gas station… He better be prosecuted.
 
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buffalo:
Abuse was reported to the police.

Form the John Jay Study - 24.2% were reported and 22.3% were investigated by the police. 9.1% were charged with a crime (41% of those investigated) 65% of those charged with a crime were convicted. 73% were sent to prison. 62.2% had 1 incident, 18.4% had 2.

5.1% convicted had acts of sex, 4.9% did not involve an act of sex. (The type of act did not seem to influence whether they were reported)

You really need to look over the facts before you make your charges.
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You need to know how to look at statistics with a critical mind Snoopy. 24.2% reported is a lot considering the superiors likely didn’t hear about many of the cases. This likely means 24.2% of all the current court cases were reported. That number could be 80-90% of the cases the superiors actualy found out about. We don’t know. Also Snoopy, notice that less than half of the ones investigated were even charged with a crime. That means that more than half of the plaintiffs could have been lying. Something like that could ruin a man’s life. Also, acts of sex were only 5.1% of those convicted, and that is extremely low, so we shouldn’t assume that all of these are crimes which truly ruined thousands of lives and merit millions of dollars that could be going to schools, churches, hospitals, and homeless programs.
A compassionate thing to do would be treat sick priests who are homosexual, stop admitting so many into the priesthood in large numbers and move on with faith in the Church. Analyze this mess with prayer and logic. The answers are clear, and the media is making us think this is a widespread problem that can’t be fixed. We can’t talk in dramatic terms that lead us to misstrust priests with our children. To allow scandal to ruin your childlike faith is spiritual suicide.
 
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TheRaiders:
You need to know how to look at statistics with a critical mind Snoopy. 24.2% reported is a lot considering the superiors likely didn’t hear about many of the cases. This likely means 24.2% of all the current court cases were reported. That number could be 80-90% of the cases the superiors actualy found out about. We don’t know. Also Snoopy, notice that less than half of the ones investigated were even charged with a crime. That means that more than half of the plaintiffs could have been lying. Something like that could ruin a man’s life. Also, acts of sex were only 5.1% of those convicted, and that is extremely low, so we shouldn’t assume that all of these are crimes which truly ruined thousands of lives and merit millions of dollars that could be going to schools, churches, hospitals, and homeless programs.
A compassionate thing to do would be treat sick priests who are homosexual, stop admitting so many into the priesthood in large numbers and move on with faith in the Church. Analyze this mess with prayer and logic. The answers are clear, and the media is making us think this is a widespread problem that can’t be fixed. We can’t talk in dramatic terms that lead us to misstrust priests with our children. To allow scandal to ruin your childlike faith is spiritual suicide.
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If I misunderstood, I apologize. I understood the report to say that in 100% of the cases reported to the heirarchy of the church, only 24.2% were reported to the police by the heirarchy. In other words, of all the cases they knew about, they only reported 24.2 %. If this is true, then it is scandalous, as they should have reported to the police all the cases they knew about. Even if they didn’t know if the cases had merit or not, they were not qualified to handle it. It should have been sorted out by the professionals within the law. It was always a crime and they knew it.
 
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TheRaiders:
A compassionate thing to do would be treat sick priests who are homosexual, stop admitting so many into the priesthood in large numbers and move on with faith in the Church. We can’t talk in dramatic terms that lead us to misstrust priests with our children. To allow scandal to ruin your childlike faith is spiritual suicide.
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What would the compassionate thing be to do for the victims? What should have been done for my friend before he committed suicide? By the way, he didn’t allow this thing to ruin his childlike faith, it was done to him.
 
I’m not talking about your friend, but about you. Sadly, it is too late for him. We can’t allow these scandals to make us despair. Like I said, the victims deserve an apology, prayer, therapy, and a monetary settlement.
Also, the future victims (those who might be abused in the future)deserve us to look at this with a more critical eye than the media is doing. We must read on the history of the problem. We must pray for a renewal in the Church of faithful priests and trusting lay people. We must prevent it from happening again.
There are all kinds of victims in this mess. There’s also the priests who are innocent but who’s life was ruined by false accusations. There’s the priests who are likely headed for hell that truly did do a horrible thing to a child. There’s the people likely headed to hell for exploiting this mess to lead people away from the Church, or the lawyers getting rich off of it. There’s the faithful priests who have done nothing wrong who are spit upon, both literally and emotionaly. There’s the people who could have been helped by the Church, but the billion dollar settlemtents have crippled her ability to serve .Then there’s the people who allow the scandals to ruin their faith. Jesus never promised us a clean wheat field. He said the weeds would grow amongst us.
 
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TheRaiders:
I’m not talking about your friend, but about you. Sadly, it is too late for him. We can’t allow these scandals to make us despair. Like I said, the victims deserve an apology, prayer, therapy, and a monetary settlement.
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A “monetary settlement”? Why?

Why endorse the Good Old American Materialist answer to everything – “Give 'em money to make 'em happy!” ??

In my opinion, those who see civil lawsuits – the only effect of which is to transfer large amounts of money from the Church (local, Diocesan, most probably NOT universal) to “victims” and their attorneys (with the exact percentages depending on specific contingency fees) – as an appropriate response to criminal behavior by priests are not Christian, not Catholic. Period.

I understand that people have been hurt, in some cases grievously. But attempts to destroy the Church, coupled with attempts to garner large monetary settlements, simply are not Christian – these actions are contrary to pretty much everything Christ taught. Monetary greed and lust? Vengeance?

The idea that money is the antidote to everything that goes wrong, to every hurt or offense – and that any “victim” is entitled to money, preferably a large “monetary settlement” – is very American – and very much the work of the devil.
 
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TheRaiders:
I’m not talking about your friend, but about you. Sadly, it is too late for him. We can’t allow these scandals to make us despair. Like I said, the victims deserve an apology, prayer, therapy, and a monetary settlement.
There’s the people who could have been helped by the Church, but the billion dollar settlemtents have crippled her ability to serve .Then there’s the people who allow the scandals to ruin their faith. Jesus never promised us a clean wheat field. He said the weeds would grow amongst us.
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Do you know what else the victims deserve? They deserve justice. They deserve to be able to know that their molesters went to prison and paid for their crime. They should have the knowledge that that particular priest would never be able to harm anyone again. They should also have the satisfaction of knowing that the people who helped them commit crimes by not reporting them and shuffling perverts from parish to parish are also behind bars. It’s really no different from a parent wanting their child’s murderer to be brought to justice. Literally in my friend’s case. As for your comment that the billion dollar settlements have crippled her ablilty to serve, one must remember that we are talking about not one lawsuit, but many. No one person got a billion dollars. These victims need to be compensated. They have to have money to rebuild their lives. How much? It’s all relative. Don’t forget that they didn’t wish for or do anything to deserve it. As for the people who allow scandals to ruin their faith, then work to restore their faith by listening to them, being compassionate, demanding justice and putting the perverts behind bars. Quit making excuses. Quit blaming the media who thankfully reported the crimes. Quit chastizing victims for their monetary settlements which are needed for therapy and rebuilding their lives. Quit making excuses for the bishops who turned the predators over to the therapists instead of the law. Quit passing the buck, accept responsibilty and vow to never let it happen again even if it causes scandal to the church. I am so unnerved when I hear people trying to excuse the unexcusable and defend the indefensible.It only serves to make the church look more guilty and stupid. Why not just buck up, admit wrongdoing, apologize and quit making excuses. That would be the stand-up thing to do and I guarantee, it would be the most helpful thing to do for the victims.
 
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cathologos:
I understand that people have been hurt, in some cases grievously. But attempts to destroy the Church, coupled with attempts to garner large monetary settlements, simply are not Christian – these actions are contrary to pretty much everything Christ taught. Monetary greed and lust? Vengeance?

The idea that money is the antidote to everything that goes wrong, to every hurt or offense – and that any “victim” is entitled to money, preferably a large “monetary settlement” – is very American – and very much the work of the devil.
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I was going to ignore your post, but I just couldn’t just let this one go. Did Christ teach that perverted priests could rape and hurt children? Did Christ teach that Bishops could shuffle predators from parish to parish thus allowing more and more children to be harmed? Did Christ teach that molesting children was not a crime, and that it was ok to handle it within the church, and not report this crime? Did Christ teach that justice was not to be served, so victims could know that their pain and their very lives were worth something? Did Christ teach that when someone was harmed, that apologies were not necessary? Did Christ teach that monetary settlements were unnecessary and that victims could just figure it out themselves without therapy and the dollars that it would cost to help them rebuild their lives? I think not, The Jesus I know would just hate what was done to innocent children and would applaud the church’s people for helping victims rebuild their lives. That is the Christian thing to do. Help the people who were betrayed and whose lives were destroyed.

Just curious, what would you like to see done to help or compensate the victims, if anything?
 
Please stay on topic, which is the Pope’s diplomatic immunity. There are already threads for discussing other issues relating to the molestation scandals.
 
Snoopy, the Pope should not be held liable because of many reasons. If he should be held liable then every organization could be held liable because molestation, sadly, is widespread.
The Pope curbed molestation in the Church following its high in the 1970s (which was also right after gay priests flooded the Church). Who should be held liable are pople like you who propose anger, but no real solution. You create only despair.
I’m sorry you’ve been hurt by this whole thing. But you haven’t been hurt directly, and we can’t let what happens to others change *our * childlike faith. When you get to heaven are you going to say “Well it felt OK to hate and doubt and mope. Look what happened to people all around me! I heard it on the news, and I even knew someone who suffered!”
Well, we’ve all known someone who suffered. Mother Theresa saw it every day.
God gives us what we need to overcome tragedies that directly affect us, but we will become quickly overwhelmed if we constantly harp on negative things happening to someone else with no true intention of doing anything about it or praying about it. We must rely on God first.
What are you accomplishing by being so negative Snoopy?
How do you resolve ending all injustice in the world, thus giving you no reason to mope? You don’t. How do you resolve curbing molestations? The Church already has dramaticaly.
Lets look on the bright side of things. The Church has curbed molestations dramatically ever since the peak in the 1970’s. Molestations are horrible. They happen everywhere, and the secular world has done little to stem the tide as the Church has in Her midst. They let molesters out of jail all the time only to molest again.
The problem with the media is they make this problem seem like one that is very recent, and massive and insurmountable. The reason they make it seem insurmountable is that they offer no explanantion for why there were so many predators in the Priesthood starting in the 1960s. If the Pope is to blame, it is Pope John Paul II’s refusal to conceded that allowing massive numbers of gay priests into the priesthood would be disastrous. His blindness was borne of misguided compassion. The media make it seem as if this always was and always will be a huge problem in the Church.
That said, we all feel bad for victims. But Jesus is about reconciliation and moving on. The Church should reconcile, but I doubt the secular world even wants Her to move on. It seems, Snoopy, that you are proposing that the Church, and the people she helps with Her member’s donations should pay for this for the next 100 years.
I know God has perfect Justice waiting for everyone. I don’t worry about it as much as you do Snoopy. I do what I can on this earth when it is something in my control.
 
It has been asked to stay on topic about extradition. It was also suggested that the court in The Hague that has jurisdiction. While, I would hate to see a move to haul the Pope into this international tribunal, it may only be a matter of time until some combination does this. Especially if a European government was to do so, as Bush’s administration could not upset his political base, and do this. There are enough NATO type countries that may very well take the USA out of the argument. Such intrigue would resemble the middle age problems in the papacy. It is the flip side of presenting the Vatican as a “state”: In that this pope may have to answer to a tribunal in the Netherlands. I guess we should suppose that evidence and facts would play a significant role in any move by multi-national jurisprudence adjudication againt the world wide Church, or more likely the pope as an individual, as Milosovich was tried as an individual at the Hague.

The American trial lawyers we have written about want to have at the Pope on this side of the Atlantic so they can use RICO anti- gangster statutes. This is because they would seek an indictment, and extradition. They would use the analogy of Norriega and corrupt state leadership. Of course this is harsh. A political change here could make this popular, the capture Norriega approach. All of this is very sad. I am sorry everyone is very angry with one another.

Just a quick opinion about numbers, even if it is dozens instead of hundreds of “real” incidents I believe telling victims to forgive, pray and get better approach" very unrealistic, perhaps even hurtful. We have mentioned suing as if it were an evil. How did the man who gave the Gettysburg Address pull himself out of poverty? Hint it wasn’t splitting rails, it was being the best tort law attorney in the west. It seems He knew a bit about justice himself. There is nothing wrong about using the law to right wrongs.

Sadowa
 
If the Pope gets dragged into this, every President of the US for the last 40 years should too. How many times has the Justice system let sexual predators go free, only to have them commit another crime. That said, I know they have taken measures against that, just as the Catholic Church has also.
The extent of how many of these crimes are legit is important.
 
I do not see how they could attempt to hold the current Pope as being negligent in any way as he was not the pope when this stuff occured.

That was Pope John Paul II and I believe that congress refused to do anything to remove his immunity as a Head of State.

To do so would start a dangerous precedent. If we did this then how long until other countries decided that our Head of State did not deserve his immunity?
 
The first thing to remember is that the bishops are not the pope’s subordinates. The pope is the first among equals.

The bishops who submitted to government courts were entirely wrong to do so. The Catholic Church is not answerable to any government. Government officials do not let government be tried in Church courts, why should the Church be tried in government courts?

If the pope did not have diplomatic immunity, he would have to have a military force to protect himself. And the best military force he could have would be a good nuclear arsenal. If any country tried to arrest the pope, the pope would be fully justified in waging a full scale nuclear war against that country in order to defend himself and the Catholic Church.
 
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