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[Blacken]

Interpol might have something to say in the matter

Important to remember (you probably know, but most people in the discussion likely don't): Interpol can't arrest people. They have no legal jurisdiction anywhere. All they can do is facilitate communication between member nations' law enforcement systems.

And, who cares what it entails and how they deal with it? People getting away with things like this has gone on for long enough, it needs to be shown that there is one law for everyone.

You don't arrest heads of state for minor (and, again--this is, at the end of the day, minor) crimes.

And the idea that there is "one law for everyone" is dreadfully naive. It sounds nice to say so, and in that nebulous moral-positing "should" way I would even agree that it would be nice, but it is not the case in practice. Sorry. Life sucks.

[fenrif]

I'd love to see some of this evidence that ratzinger was against the coverups, none of that has been mentioned anywhere I've seen this story.

And while generally heads of state aren't arrested for minor crimes, You'd be hard pressed to argue this is a minor crime I think. And the immunity from the law that heads of state seem to enjoy is never going to change if noone ever talks about it, or tries to do anything about it.

[Neonivek]

Actually certain kinds of cover ups are legal such as settling out of court and stopping media attention/reporting.

They arn't illegal.

I think it also isn't illegal to convince the individuals involved to drop the charges depending on what you do.

[Blacken]

I'd love to see some of this evidence that ratzinger was against the coverups, none of that has been mentioned anywhere I've seen this story.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/opinion/12douthat.html?hp - A fairly even-handed presentation of the situation. It requires some actual knowledge of Catholic politics to understand, but a salient bit that buries John Paul pretty well:

The church’s dilatory response to the sex abuse scandals was a testament to these weaknesses. So was John Paul’s friendship with the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ. The last pope loved him and defended him. But we know now that Father Maciel was a sexually voracious sociopath. And thanks to a recent exposé by The National Catholic Reporter’s Jason Berry, we know the secret of Maciel’s Vatican success: He was an extraordinary fund-raiser, and those funds often flowed to members of John Paul’s inner circle.

Only one churchman comes out of Berry’s story looking good: Joseph Ratzinger. Berry recounts how Ratzinger lectured to a group of Legionary priests, and was subsequently handed an envelope of money “for his charitable use.” The cardinal “was tough as nails in a very cordial way,” a witness said, and turned the money down.

This isn’t an isolated case. In the 1990s, it was Ratzinger who pushed for a full investigation of Hans Hermann Groer, the Vienna cardinal accused of pedophilia, only to have his efforts blocked in the Vatican. It was Ratzinger who persuaded John Paul, in 2001, to centralize the church’s haphazard system for handling sex abuse allegations in his office. It was Ratzinger who re-opened the long-dormant investigation into Maciel’s conduct in 2004, just days after John Paul II had honored the Legionaries in a Vatican ceremony. It was Ratzinger, as Pope Benedict, who banished Maciel to a monastery and ordered a comprehensive inquiry into his order.

So the high-flying John Paul let scandals spread beneath his feet, and the uncharismatic Ratzinger was left to clean them up. This pattern extends to other fraught issues that the last pope tended to avoid — the debasement of the Catholic liturgy, or the rise of Islam in once-Christian Europe. And it extends to the caliber of the church’s bishops, where Benedict’s appointments are widely viewed as an improvement over the choices John Paul made. It isn’t a coincidence that some of the most forthright ecclesiastical responses to the abuse scandal have come from friends and protégés of the current pope.

And while generally heads of state aren't arrested for minor crimes, You'd be hard pressed to argue this is a minor crime I think. And the immunity from the law that heads of state seem to enjoy is never going to change if noone ever talks about it, or tries to do anything about it.

I'm not hard-pressed to argue it at all. It is not a crime that any international court can recognize and diplomats--and the Pope is, as a head of state, a diplomat--are immune from all but very select criminal prosecution in any country that recognizes the concept.

Slobodan Milosevic went to The Hague for starting two wars, having about two dozen political rivals and journalists murdered, and ordering the execution of thousands of people in the name of ethnic cleansing. Ratzinger didn't push forward with investigations into kid-diddling. There are orders of magnitude between the two.

[Neonivek]

Well it really is International law

In order to arrest the Pope there would need to be a honest wish for multiple countries to procecute the Pope.

Your not going to get that sort of support. It was hard enough for China to get the Dhali Llama and at the time they HATED him!

[Godwin]

I'd love to see some of this evidence that ratzinger was against the coverups, none of that has been mentioned anywhere I've seen this story.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/opinion/12douthat.html?hp - A fairly even-handed presentation of the situation. It requires some actual knowledge of Catholic politics to understand, but a salient bit that buries John Paul pretty well:

The church’s dilatory response to the sex abuse scandals was a testament to these weaknesses. So was John Paul’s friendship with the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ. The last pope loved him and defended him. But we know now that Father Maciel was a sexually voracious sociopath. And thanks to a recent exposé by The National Catholic Reporter’s Jason Berry, we know the secret of Maciel’s Vatican success: He was an extraordinary fund-raiser, and those funds often flowed to members of John Paul’s inner circle.

Only one churchman comes out of Berry’s story looking good: Joseph Ratzinger. Berry recounts how Ratzinger lectured to a group of Legionary priests, and was subsequently handed an envelope of money “for his charitable use.” The cardinal “was tough as nails in a very cordial way,” a witness said, and turned the money down.

This isn’t an isolated case. In the 1990s, it was Ratzinger who pushed for a full investigation of Hans Hermann Groer, the Vienna cardinal accused of pedophilia, only to have his efforts blocked in the Vatican. It was Ratzinger who persuaded John Paul, in 2001, to centralize the church’s haphazard system for handling sex abuse allegations in his office. It was Ratzinger who re-opened the long-dormant investigation into Maciel’s conduct in 2004, just days after John Paul II had honored the Legionaries in a Vatican ceremony. It was Ratzinger, as Pope Benedict, who banished Maciel to a monastery and ordered a comprehensive inquiry into his order.

So the high-flying John Paul let scandals spread beneath his feet, and the uncharismatic Ratzinger was left to clean them up. This pattern extends to other fraught issues that the last pope tended to avoid — the debasement of the Catholic liturgy, or the rise of Islam in once-Christian Europe. And it extends to the caliber of the church’s bishops, where Benedict’s appointments are widely viewed as an improvement over the choices John Paul made. It isn’t a coincidence that some of the most forthright ecclesiastical responses to the abuse scandal have come from friends and protégés of the current pope.

And while generally heads of state aren't arrested for minor crimes, You'd be hard pressed to argue this is a minor crime I think. And the immunity from the law that heads of state seem to enjoy is never going to change if noone ever talks about it, or tries to do anything about it.

I'm not hard-pressed to argue it at all. It is not a crime that any international court can recognize and diplomats--and the Pope is, as a head of state, a diplomat--are immune from all but very select criminal prosecution in any country that recognizes the concept.

Slobodan Milosevic went to The Hague for starting two wars, having about two dozen political rivals and journalists murdered, and ordering the execution of thousands of people in the name of ethnic cleansing. Ratzinger didn't push forward with investigations into kid-diddling. There are orders of magnitude between the two.

That seems a very poor defence given that we have numerous accounts of him stating in his own writing that abuse cases should be kept secret, and beyond that we have multiple accounts of him just blatantly ignoring cases brought to his attention.

I don't give a fuck about him turning down money, he protected priests from prosecution on multiple occasions. Nothing you've posted even comes close to outweighing that.

[Blacken]

That seems a very poor defence given that we have numerous accounts of him stating in his own writing that abuse cases should be kept secret, and beyond that we have multiple accounts of him just blatantly ignoring cases brought to his attention.

I don't give a fuck about him turning down money, he protected priests from prosecution on multiple occasions. Nothing you've posted even comes close to outweighing that.

Who the fuck is defending him? Don't put words in my mouth.

I'm not saying he's not a bad guy. I am well convinced he is. I am also convinced he's the least bad of the rogues' gallery that the world could be dealing with. Take your this-is-oh-so-tewwible emotion out of it and look at it coldly. All of the other Papal candidates are worse motherfuckers. So silliness like screaming for him to be arrested is counterproductive if you want to see actual justice, instead of a Leviticus-style scapegoat. But I get the feeling, from much of the butthurt in this thread, that a scapegoat would be just fine by y'all. Not productive.

Rage less, think more.

[Neonivek]

Anyhow Point 2

International Law are not laws.

How are you going to touch the Pope? You cannot enact international law.

[Godwin]

I don't give a fuck about him turning down money, he protected priests from prosecution on multiple occasions. Nothing you've posted even comes close to outweighing that.

I'm not saying he's not a bad guy. I am well convinced he is. I am also convinced he's the least bad of the rogues' gallery that the world could be dealing with. Take your oh-so-tewwible emotion out of it and look at it coldly. There are four likely candidates for the Papacy after Ratzinger, whether he resigns, whether he dies, or whether he is forced to abdicate (as arrest would essentially cause). All of them are worse motherfuckers. So silliness like screaming for him to be arrested is counterproductive.

Rage less, think more.

So what you're saying is, we shouldn't arrest the pope because we should hold out for people even worse than he is?

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.


I'm not putting words in your mouth, regardless of what your opinion is on the pope, that was a defense.

[fenrif]

I'm thinking about it, and I think that knocking the office of pope down a peg or two, and showing that it isnt bulletproof and immune to laws and morals would have a knock on effect for all people following  in ratzingers place. Just because he isnt as much a dick as the people who might come after him doesn't mean he should be allowed to do whatver he wants. The pope can only influence Catholics anyway. And if this sort of thing is brought to light more often, theres a chance the members of the catholic faith will stop viewing the pope as a living embodiment of their gods will, and thus diminish his power.

Also: now I know why I've not heard anything about him being relativly blameless... An opinion editorial from the NYT the exclusivly references the national catholic reporter? I'm sensing there might be a bias involved in their defence of the current pope.

I've not read the NCR article yet, I'll check it out when i get in tonight. But the NYT opinion editorial is, well, an opinion editorial. I'll take it with a grain of salt.

[Neonivek]

I'm thinking about it, and I think that knocking the office of pope down a peg or two, and showing that it isnt bulletproof and immune to laws

Once again your dealing with INTERNATIONAL LAW! not Criminal law.

You cannot enact international law yourself.

[fenrif]

I'm thinking about it, and I think that knocking the office of pope down a peg or two, and showing that it isnt bulletproof and immune to laws

Once again your dealing with INTERNATIONAL LAW! not Criminal law.

You cannot enact international law yourself.

Once again: noone realistically epects him to get arrested, this whole thing is mostly to shed light on the situation and stop a visit from the pope at the UK tax payers expense.

But if he were arrested it wouldnt be INTERNATIONAL LAW it would be UK LAW. But noone actually expects him to get arrested.

[Blacken]

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.

[sonerohi]

The Popes crimes are trying to reform priests and giving them the chance to reform. He wasn't saying to the priests "There is a safe haven full of children here" he was telling them to cut it the fuck out. At some point, does he become a naive and not perfectly responsible person for continuing to try? In some cases. Did he do illegal things on purpose with malicious intent? No. I'm not trying to glorify his actions, but please do not demonize him for it either. 

[fenrif]

The Popes crimes are trying to reform priests and giving them the chance to reform. He wasn't saying to the priests "There is a safe haven full of children here" he was telling them to cut it the fuck out. At some point, does he become a naive and not perfectly responsible person for continuing to try? In some cases. Did he do illegal things on purpose with malicious intent? No. I'm not trying to glorify his actions, but please do not demonize him for it either. 

The popes crimes are not informing the local authorities that children were being abused, moving the priests in question to other places, and not informing the local authorities there that the priest in question might, y'know, molest their kids. People dont reform if you let them get off scot free and give them the opportunity to carry on doing what they were doing. He demonized himself.

Also blacken:

your expertise on all laws, everywhere in the world, national and international not withstanding...

I really doubt that he is the one most likely to change the catholic hierarchy. Your defense of him comes entirely from an op ed piece that references some publication called the national catholic reporter. This doesn't change my opinion of him at all (I've still not read the NCR article yet though, so that might have some new stuff in it, though it seems to just be one guy going "ratzinger is totally cool dudes!"). He has no reason to go against his faith, his fellow clergymen, or his own self interests to change the way the church works at all. Aside from that I dont think any pope is likely to enact meaningfull change in the catholic hierarchy. I have no idea what you think meaningfull beneficial change would be, to be fair, but i don't see it happening at all.

I don't know who Robert Byrd was, but you're gonna have to throw some proof out there on Winston Churchill being a bad man.