Will the Vatican shield the Pope from potential arrest over the Catholic church sexual abuse scandal?

Will the Vatican shield the Pope from potential arrest over the Catholic church sexual abuse scandal?

By Dark Politricks

Question: Why is the Pope going to stay living in the Vatican after he retires?

Answer: Because he is wanted for questioning over his role in covering up the huge sexual abuse of children by Catholic Priests during his time before becoming Pope and could be arrested and charged with crimes regarding these events if he leaves the safety of the Vatican.

According to Reuters it seems that the Vatican is allowing the Pope to remain living inside the Vatican City because of the risk that he will be arrested by any one of the many independent investigative magistrates in Europe over allegations that he deliberately covered up the massive paedophilia scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church for the past decade.

In Europe many countries have a system of law which allows magistrates and judges to bring their own charges against people from any nation if they have broken international law or committed crimes that break the law of their country even if the crime was committed from within another country.

This is why Dick Cheney and many Israeli politicians cannot visit various places around the world. They face the threat of arrest for war crimes and other breaches of international law such as torture or the illegal renditioning of citizens from the streets of european cities.

Therefore once the pope leaves the comfort of the Vatican City, which is basically it’s own country in the centre of Rome (also called the Holy See), he could face arrest and even imprisonment by any number of activist judges and lawyers who want to bring justice to the thousands of children that were raped and sexually assaulted by Roman Catholic priests across the world.

The child abuse scandal in the Catholic church covers 65 countries, with the amount of victims estimated to be in the tens of thousands. That is only the amount that have gone public so far.

In fact just one survivors’ group has over 12,000 members! Imagine all the people who have been sexually assaulted or raped by their local Priest who are yet to make that huge step and go public with their own tale of tragedy and injustice.

The Catholic Church has not been exactly forthcoming when it has come to this scandal even attacking those who have accussed it of a cover up. When the Belgian police started digging around the sexual abuse in their own country the Vatican attacked the tactics used by the Belgian police as “deplorable methods” when they raided a bishops’ meeting.

They also dared to compare the investigation of child sex abuse with the practices of communist regimes and called the raid “serious and unbelievable”. The Vatican dared trying to play the victim in one of the most widespread sex scandals to hit the modern world.

Pope Benedict XVI was named as a defendant in a 2010 law suit alleging that he failed to take action as a cardinal in 1995 when he was allegedly told about a priest who had abused boys at a U.S. school for the deaf decades earlier.

The lawyers withdrew the case last year and the Vatican said it was a major victory that proved the pope could not be held liable for the actions of abusive priests. However whilst he remains Pope he also remains a head of state as well as the head of the Catholic church which offers protection in the eyes of many countries.

Once he steps down from this position it leaves him vulnerable to any law suit that may be filled against him.

Could this be the reason that the Pope plans to remain living within the Vatican after stepping down?

Although the pope is not currently named in other cases the Vatican is not ruling out the possibility that new charges could be brought once he leaves his position as head of the Church.

The Vatican said:

“If he lived anywhere else then we might have those crazies who are filing lawsuits, or some magistrate might arrest him like other (former) heads of state have been for alleged acts while he was head of state.”

Even if he leaves the Vatican he is still safe within Italy as the 1929 Lateran Pacts between Italy and the Holy See created the Vatican City as it’s own sovereign state and has said the smallest country in the world would be “invariably and in every event considered as neutral and inviolable territory”. Therefore the only risk seems to be if the Pope, once de-throned, leaves the safety of the Italian shores.

Since the revelations of a massive cover up of sexual abuse and paedophilia across the world by roman Catholic priests, from the massive amounts of abuse in Ireland to the claims from America and other European nations, there have been constant calls for the Popes arrest over his involvement in a cover up which involved moving priests accused of sex crimes to new dioceses instead of having them arrested.

In fact before he became the current Pope, he was serving as an archbishop in Germany and as the Vatican’s chief doctrinal enforcer he is accused of covering up for Priests accused of sex crimes and that not only did those Priests not face internal discipline the relevant information was not passed to civilian authorities so that they could deal with the accusations properly.

These claims are not exactly based on flimsy evidence. In fact before taking the role of the Pope, Benedict Ratzinger was head of the Vatican’s main doctrinal arm called “the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”. This was the department within the Vatican which was in charge of all investigations by the church into claims of abuse by Priests worldwide.

Senior church official’s have already admitted in 2010 that a German archdiocese had made “serious mistakes” in handling an abuse case whilst the current Pope was serving as its archbishop.

A priest who was accused of molesting boys was given therapy instead of being arrested and later was allowed to resume pastoral duties before committing further abuse and finally being prosecuted for his sexual crimes.

He is also accused of failing to act over complaints during the 1990s about a priest in the USA who is thought to have abused almost 200 deaf boys!

According to Church and Vatican documents an archbishop wrote letters to Cardinal Ratzinger in 1996 calling for disciplinary proceedings against Fr Lawrence Murphy who is believed to have molested some 200 boys at St John’s School for the Deaf in St Francis, Wisconsin, between 1950 and 1974.

Apparently he assaulted the boys whilst hearing their confessions, in his office, in his car, in their dormitory beds and even at his mother’s house!

An internal trial authorised by Cardinal Ratzinger’s deputy was halted after the accused priest asked the future pope to halt proceedings and to allow him live out the remainder of his time in the “dignity of my priesthood”. Despite objections from a second archbishop the head of the Catholic church agreed and the priest was moved to the Diocese of Superior in northern Wisconsin in 1974, where he spent his last 24 years working freely with children in parishes and schools.

He apparently cared more for the sexual  pervesions of his priests than the torn souls of his flock!

Then there was also the massive cover up of sexual abuse by Irish priests over decades which has recently come to light. The Pope condemned these abuses as a “heinous crime” as well as a “grave sin” however one Irish priest has admitted to abusing more than 100 children, while another confessed that he had abused minors systematically and regularly over a period of 25 years.

Therefore the Pope has a lot to answer for and he currently heads the worlds most organised and powerful paedophilia ring which seems to be able to sit above international law through the Vatican basically being it’s own country.

So it doesn’t take too much brain power to work out that the aging Pope might be scared of being arrested by an activist judge somewhere in Europe. An activist who could already be sitting at an airport waiting for George W Bush to land so he can pounce on him and arrest him for the war in Iraq which many people still consider an illegal crime.

If international law is to mean anything then just as the heads of state from Bosnia are currently facing criminal charges in the International Criminal Court for war crimes during the break up of Yugoslavia. And the ex President of Liberia, Charles Taylor, has proved that being a head of state does not grant you immunity from international justice.

It is only logical that once the Pope resumes life as a normal citizen he will become a target for those looking to add international sex rings to the list of crimes that leaders of states can be charged with at the Hague.

View the original article “Why is the Vatican shielding the Pope from arrests over sexual abuse?” at www.darkpolitricks.com.

Tags: Cardinal Ratzinger, International Criminal Court, International Law, Ireland, Italy, Paedophile Ring, Paedophilia, Pope, Pope Benedict XVI, Religion, Rome, Sex Crimes, Sexual Assault, the Catholic church, the Holy See, the Vatican, USA, Vatican