So what you're saying is, we shouldn't arrest the pope because we should hold out for people even worse than he is?
I am saying that Ratzinger is the one
most likely to enact meaningful beneficial change in the upper echelons of the Catholic hierarchy. So, yeah, I am. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Bad men from Winston Churchill to Robert Byrd all have their uses.
That's not how it works. When you have an opportunity to arrest a criminal, you don't pass it up because he's not the worst person in his organization.
That most fucking assuredly
is how it works. Ever read up on a drug bust? Or any sort of orgcrime, really? The situation is inverted here, in that it is usually the topmost who are the core movers of the problem in organized crime when it is the bottommost here, but the principle still stands: you let the people who
know people hang and dangle and, if you find solid evidence that they actually did something (and spare me the predictable next comment, you have nothing that would be compelling under international, Vatican, or even English [the least applicable] law), then you can bring him in at any time, after his usefulness is up. Seeing as how
there is currently nothing applicable, this would be the only tactic to take anyway.
But there is no basis for arresting him anyway, so it's pretty fucking moot.
I'm not putting words in your mouth, regardless of what your opinion is on the pope, that was a defense.
In no way is it a defense. Retract your willful mischaracterization.