Richard Dawkins: I will arrest Pope Benedict XVI
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- ukit0
Screw you guys. My God will beat your God's ass everytime.
- ukit0
- rupedixon0
The point is, this is not a religion debate, it's a legal process debate. The pope should be arrested for aiding and abetting, or for perverting the course of justice.
None of this has anything to do with anyone's beliefs - it's about the sanctity of the rule of law.
- the real crux of the debate is the corrupt partnership between the church and statemrghost
- kingkong0
Utter nonsense.
THE ALLEGATIONS THAT ARE COMING OUT DATE FROM THE 60'S AND 70'S (oops) around the world. Averaged out it works out at about 7-8 allegations in the whole of the catholic church each year globally.
At the moment in the UK there are 4/5 allegations of inappropriate behaviour, on average 2 of which are found to be false. So thats 3 in the whole of the UK per year.
Now im not condoning it by any stretch, and in fact I went to a jesuit boarding school that was caught up in a fairly major scandal in the 90's, but come on a bit of perspective.
As a lapsed Catholic, I think it's been an unmitigated PR disaster but the way Dawkins is talking you'd think that the Catholic church is completely alone in behaviour such as this.
Over the same period care homes, Children's charities like Banardos, the cub scouts for fuck sake have had a way worse record, but for some reason everyones after the catholics. I'm guessing its because of the visit to the UK this year.
In the 60's, 70's etc so many institutions were aweful, the catholics were a part of it for sure, but if you're going to have a go at the Pope, there are a several other people you should haul in from Harold Wilson to heads of care to the elderly and all that.
Dawkins hates religion, but he shouldn't misread this country. There are 6 million practising Catholics in the country, by far the largest church going population. I think it's a PR stunt, and the guy is way off.
- did you watch the BBC documentary? There's plenty of cases and more cover-ups after 2000__TM
- I didnt, but dont always believe what you see on TVkingkong
- the documentary is full of first-hand victim & abusers testimonies, just watch it__TM
- how many cover-ups of child rape does it take before it's serious anyway? 5? 20? 100?__TM
- didnt say it was serious, just wondering when every other institution will be looked at...kingkong
- the cub scouts have a record, no disagreement there... but worse? you've got to be kidding...BuddhaHat
- Doesn't matter when it happened. Polanski was attacked for 30 year old crimes too.monospaced
- kingkong0
Oh and the other thing, you have to have proof to arrest anyone...
- There is proof. That's what prompted the articles that lead to this thread.stewdio
- there is proof that priests abused children, not that the Pope personally covered them uppp. Just conjecture.kingkong
- No. His signature is on documents reassigning these priests after being exposed.stewdio
- http://www.timesonli…stewdio
- mydo0
Didn't the Christian threads get deleted the other day?
- BuddhaHat0
http://www.thestranger.com/seatt…
The "Pedophile's Paradise"
I was already very very atheist thanks to being sent to a religious school that had a number of unpleasant incidents that were all over the papers (and no, I wasn't a victim, but I did have one of the f*cking perverts for an english teacher and I always knew there was something wrong with him), but this just makes me sick. SICK SICK SICK
- and yes I know these aren't Catholics in this article, I'm railing at religion in general. I despise it.BuddhaHat
- kingkong0
Another stat is that 95% of all child abuse happens in the home.
I think there is an issue in society that needs looking at, and painting religion as the bad egg I think is just pretty unhelpful...
If we abolished the church tomorrow do people think that all the bad stuff would go away...
anyway... agree to disagree
- __TM0
I really don't care that this is about the Vatican, sexual child abuse is obviously not limited to religious institutes.
What bothers me is that they (top down) have known it all along, and have failed to act to protect very young children from disgusting sex predators. Instead, they have covered it all up (or at least tried very hard to) and actively protected known child abusers. I don't care if it's my neighbour, the pope or the POTUS - there needs to be justice, preferably in a court.
- itstimefortea0
this clip came from a victim of abuse in Ireland
- BuddhaHat0
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/…
Bishop 'blames Jews' for criticism of Catholic church record on abuse
- kingkong0
from the telegraph:
"m getting bored with this. Loopy Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens want to arrest the Pope for crimes he didn’t commit or cover up; there’s been a particularly clumsy attempt to link the blameless Archbishop Vincent Nichols to a paedophile scandal (Vin’s a bad enemy to make, by the way); and now The Guardian is making a huge deal out of some ancient retired Italian bishop allegedly blaming Jews for the furore, though he says he didn’t and frankly no one should ascribe too much importance to anything one of Italy’s zillion octogenarian prelates says, other than to deplore any proven anti-Semitism. Don’t get me wrong: if the old boy spouted this nonsense (which he denies) then the Vatican should take action; it made it very clear yesterday that it rejects anti-Jewish conspiracy theories. On the other hand, it could be forgiven for wondering why so many very badly researched anti-Benedict stories are surfacing at once. I wonder myself. As I’ve said before, bishops who were responsible for paedophile cover-ups – and there are plenty – can count themselves lucky that major newspapers have assigned reporters to these stories who know as much about the Catholic Church as I do about electrical engineering, and screw up accordingly. Listen, no one is going to arrest the Pope, so can we drop the fantasising, please?
Update: Monstrously silly piece by Libby Purves in The Times in which she “rather thinks” that we should address paedophile crimes by arresting the one man who has done more than anyone else to root them out."
- pillhead0
Look, the real question here is, does the pope use Flash.
- I think it's fair to say he promotes, or at least protects, those who Flash.monospaced
- kingkong0
^ im in a good position to answer that, and the answer is yes :)
- georgesIII0
"Though grave and terrible sins have been committed, our Lord teaches us to turn the other cheek and forgive those who sin against us," said the pope, reading a prepared statement from a balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square. "That is why, despite the terrible wrongs they have committed, the church must move on and forgive these children for their misdeeds."
http://www.theonion.com/articles…
- ukit0
kingkong, I'm amazed you think there's nothing to implicate the Pope? Really drinking the Catholic kool aid here??
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol…
Signature on letter implicates Pope in abuse cover-up
Pope Benedict XVI was dragged directly into the scandal engulfing the Roman Catholic Church when a letter with his signature emerged implicating him in the failure to defrock a known paedophile priest.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger resisted pleas from a Californian diocese to defrock a priest with a record of molesting children, putting “the good of the universal Church”, above other considerations, according to the 1985 letter.
The correspondence, obtained by the Associated Press, undermines the repeated insistence from the Holy See that Benedict XVI has had no personal involvement in covering up the sins of paedophiles.
....
Forget the pedophile protecting bit, what happened to "Thou shalt not lie?" You expect bullshit PR ass-covering rhetoric from politicians, but the Pope?
http://www.slate.com/id/2247861/…
Very much more serious is the role of Joseph Ratzinger, before the church decided to make him supreme leader, in obstructing justice on a global scale. After his promotion to cardinal, he was put in charge of the so-called "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" (formerly known as the Inquisition). In 2001, Pope John Paul II placed this department in charge of the investigation of child rape and torture by Catholic priests. In May of that year, Ratzinger issued a confidential letter to every bishop. In it, he reminded them of the extreme gravity of a certain crime. But that crime was the reporting of the rape and torture. The accusations, intoned Ratzinger, were only treatable within the church's own exclusive jurisdiction. Any sharing of the evidence with legal authorities or the press was utterly forbidden. Charges were to be investigated "in the most secretive way ... restrained by a perpetual silence ... and everyone ... is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office ... under the penalty of excommunication." (My italics). Nobody has yet been excommunicated for the rape and torture of children, but exposing the offense could get you into serious trouble. And this is the church that warns us against moral relativism! (See, for more on this appalling document, two reports in the London Observer of April 24, 2005, by Jamie Doward.)
Not content with shielding its own priests from the law, Ratzinger's office even wrote its own private statute of limitations. The church's jurisdiction, claimed Ratzinger, "begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age" and then lasts for 10 more years. Daniel Shea, the attorney for two victims who sued Ratzinger and a church in Texas, correctly describes that latter stipulation as an obstruction of justice. "You can't investigate a case if you never find out about it. If you can manage to keep it secret for 18 years plus 10, the priest will get away with it."
- kingkong0
Just to clarify ukit...
I think where there is wrong doing, then people should be tried and prosecuted. To be fair to the vatican; priests have been dragged through the courts and jailed and clearly some havent. So there hasn't been endemic cover up imo, but clearly there have been inconsistencies in how things are handled.
My overarching point is not to say that the Catholic Church has done no wrong, but more I don't understand why they are singled out. Muslim arranged marriage, Elderly care homes, nursery education, etc etc have all had major abuse problems by the very nature of how they recruit and manage people.
So when the Dawkins thing came out I see it as him using it for his own political ends, whilst I think as a society we struggle to deal with abuse as Baby P etc has shown.
To single out the Pope seems to not address the issue. Also to compare the world in the 70's and 80's where in many countries the Church had carte blanche to act as it wished is far removed from the country I live in now.
Being totally upfront, I am not particularly religious, but I am working with the Vatican as it happens, and many of the players mentioned in these stories I work with. So I see the story from both sides.
It's a bit like when they said the police force was endemically racist in the UK. I find broad brush strokes unpalatable. There is clearly fault and those people should answer to the law of the land, but to say Catholicism is bad is too much for me. You get rid of one Pope, another will come in, and it will still carry on being the worlds largest religion doing a lot of good works. There will always be people within it that are bad people, but....the whole thing? no I dont believe thats the case.
Not to conspirisize (?) but why are these stories all coming out now all in one go when were talking about 40 years worth of news? I can't help thinking it has a lot to do with the Pope actively going for the Anglican church and the fact that he's coming here on the first state visit for 400 years.
Anyway, we can all pull out links from the internet that back our positions. I appreciate it's not an argument i'm going to win here or in fact anywhere.
- ukit0
OK, fine, but like the article I quoted from above states, the Pope was the guy directly in charge of "investigating" (which in practice meant white washing) the abuse charges earlier in his career. So there is plenty to personally implicate the Pope. Imagine any other organization, like a government or business ordered their employees across the world not to contact the authorities at risk of being fired when an abuse case came up. That would be considered criminal in most normal cases, I have no idea why it should be treated differently for a religion.
Why they elevated this guy to Pope is very troubling when you consider that. And they show no sign of changing at all. Not sure if you have heard of Bernard Law, he's a Boston priest who was implicated years ago with ignoring dozens of abuse cases in his diocese. Where is he now, in jail? Nope, he's hanging out at the Vatican with Ratzinger.
- In fact, he was one of the people who voted Ratzinger in as Popeukit
- *applaudsarmsbottomer
- mrghost0
isn't the statute of limitations up on this anyhow? I don't know the law on that.
