Posted on 04/04/2010 6:30:41 PM PDT by myknowledge
Protests are growing against Pope Benedict XVI's planned trip to Britain, where some lawyers question whether the Vatican's implicit statehood status should shield the Pope from prosecution over sex crimes by pedophile priests.
More than 10,000 people have signed a petition on Downing Street's website against the pope's four-day visit to England and Scotland in September, which will cost UK taxpayers an estimated STG15 million ($A25 million). The campaign has gained momentum as more Catholic sex abuse scandals have swept across Europe.
Although Benedict has not been accused of any crime, senior British lawyers are now examining whether the pontiff should have immunity as a head of state and whether he could be prosecuted under the principle of universal jurisdiction for an alleged systematic cover-up of sexual abuses by priests.
Universal jurisdiction - a concept in international law - allows judges to issue warrants for nearly any visitor accused of grievous crimes, no matter where they live. British judges are more open to the concept than those elsewhere.
Lawyers are divided over the immunity issue. Some say the Vatican isn't a true state, while others note the Vatican has national relations with about 170 countries, including Britain. The Vatican is also the only non-member to have permanent observer status at the UN.
Then again, no other top religious leaders enjoy the same UN privileges or immunity, so why should the pope?
David Crane, former chief prosecutor at the Sierra Leone war crimes tribunal, said it would be difficult to implicate the pope in anything criminal.
"It's a fascinating kind of academic, theoretical discussion," said Crane, who prosecuted Sierra Leone's Charles Taylor when he was head of state. "At this point, there's no liability at all."
But Geoffrey Robertson, who as a UN appeals judge delivered key decisions on the illegality of conscripting child soldiers and the invalidity of amnesties for war crimes, believes it could be time to challenge the immunity of the pope. He wrote a legal opinion on the topic that was published on Friday by the US news site The Daily Beast and on Saturday in the British newspaper the Guardian.
"Unlike in the United States, where the judges commonly uphold what the executive says, the British courts don't accept these things at face value," Robertson told AP. "The Vatican is not a state - it was a construct of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini."
But Jeffrey Lena, the California lawyer who argued - and won - head of state immunity for Benedict in US sex abuse cases, told AP: "Those who would claim that 'universal jurisdiction' could be asserted over the Pope appear to completely misunderstand the sorts of violations, such as genocide, which are required to assert such jurisdiction."
The law principle is rooted in the belief that certain crimes - such as genocide, war crimes, torture and crimes against humanity - are so serious that they are an offence against humanity and must be addressed.
If British judges do challenge the pope's immunity, there are a handful of possible legal scenarios - all of them speculative.
The pope could be served for a writ for civil damages, a complaint could be lodged with the International Criminal Court, or abuse victims could try to have Benedict arrested for crimes against humanity - perhaps the least likely scenario.
Robertson is more in favour of challenging the immunity question.
"Head of state immunity provides no protection in the International Criminal Court," said Robertson. "If acts of sexual abuse by priests are not isolated or sporadic events but part of a wide practice both known to and unpunished by their de facto-authority - ie the Catholic church... then the commander can be held criminally liable," Robertson said.
The pope plans to visit Malta, Portugal and Cyprus before travelling to Britain on September 16. A trip to Spain is planned for later in the autumn.
If my perception of the drift I am seeing from the faithful side is correct, it wouldn’t seem out of place for Benedict to make a personal statement that he did not knowingly enable any pedophile priest at any point in his career in the church, but that if what is known today was known then, the scrutiny would have been heightened. And that the scrutiny level is very high today. He might add, just to tweak the liberals, that most of this is due to gay priests which he is working hard to purge.
No there isnt. This is just anti-religious propoganda from “progressive” organisations like outrage and WRP.
There have been instances of priests abusing children, but the msm are orchestrating those occurences into a concerted attack on the catholic church (and faith generally).
Remarks that he has since apologised for, dont forget.
It is total nonsense. If you commit a crime in a foreign country, it has the jurisdiction and authority to punish you. Your US citizenship will not protect you.
But how can a Spanish court try a US soldier for an alleged crime in a third country? Total absurdity.
If Benny knew about the paedophile priests AND did nothing about it, then he is the one that has defiled the papacy.
I think he’s made several statements (one very shortly after his election, IIRC) and he’s certainly done a lot to improve procedures. I honestly don’t know what he can do more.
Every time he says anything, the press leaps on it, takes one or two words out of context to use as a headline, and makes the entire statement mean something completely different from what the Pope actually said. The press has found that most people read only the headlines, so a couple of carefully arranged words will be sufficient to do a lot of damage, regardless of what the Pope’s actual statement says.
Yet when he’s silent, they complain that he’s not saying anything. He’s really between a rock and a hard place.
I don’t think they could really get the Pope personally on anything, because he was not Pope and not even in a position to do anything more than he did about these things at the time. But this invocation of “universal jurisdiction” (first used by the Spanish to go after Pinochet, I believe) is very alarming simply from a legal and human rights point of view.
Shirked his duties?
Educate yourself:
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/cardinal/
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/cardinal/
This gets into detail re: the timeline and the actors. It’s ‘skimmable’ too.
The NYTimes wins in the UK, because of people’s gullibility and knee-jerk reactions.
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