[Nemesis6]

TWO GERMAN lawyers have initiated charges against Pope Benedict XVI at the International Criminal Court, alleging crimes against humanity.

Christian Sailer and Gert-Joachim Hetzel, based at Marktheidenfeld in the Pope’s home state of Bavaria, last week submitted a 16,500-word document to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court at the Hague, Dr Luis Moreno Ocampo.

Their charges concern “three worldwide crimes which until now have not been denounced . . . (as) the traditional reverence toward ‘ecclesiastical authority’ has clouded the sense of right and wrong”.

They claim the Pope “is responsible for the preservation and leadership of a worldwide totalitarian regime of coercion which subjugates its members with terrifying and health-endangering threats”.

They allege he is also responsible for “the adherence to a fatal forbiddance of the use of condoms, even when the danger of HIV-Aids infection exists” and for “the establishment and maintenance of a worldwide system of cover-up of the sexual crimes committed by Catholic priests and their preferential treatment, which aids and abets ever new crimes”.

They claim the Catholic Church “acquires its members through a compulsory act, namely, through the baptism of infants that do not yet have a will of their own”. This act was “irrevocable” and is buttressed by threats of excommunication and the fires of hell.

It was “a grave impairment of the personal freedom of development and of a person’s emotional and mental integrity”. The Pope was “responsible for its preservation and enforcement and, as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of his Church, he was jointly responsible” with Pope John Paul II.

Catholics “threatened by HIV-AIDS . . . are faced with a terrible alternative: If they protect themselves with condoms during sexual intercourse, they become grave sinners; if they do not protect themselves out of fear of the punishment of sin threatened by the church, they become candidates for death.”

There was also “strong suspicion that Dr Joseph Ratzinger, as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of his church and as Pope, has up to the present day systematically covered up the sexual abuse of children and youths and protected the perpetrators, thereby aiding and abetting further sexual violence toward young people”.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0223/1224290630240.html

 
I wonder if the pope will be granted immunity against prosecution again. In any case, this is a step, if only a baby step, in the right direction.

[Topgun]

this is silly.

[Luis Dias]

this is silly.

This.

[Scourge of Ages]

This is more a political statement than a true accusation.

But even as that, this is veeeery interesting.

[Mongoose]

this is silly.

This.

Very much so.  If nothing else, it makes a mockery of the ICC's actual purpose.

[Nuke]

i was really hoping for:

"the pope killed jews in the holocaust"

and i get:

"the pope is carrying on catholic buisness as usual"

get a life people, i dont want to hear about it until they prove he was a nazi. get back to me when you have some decent slander.

[Lucika]

Does this have anything to do with Richard Dawkins' similar plans?

[Nemesis6]

this is silly.

I disagree, obviously. I think there's a solid case to be made, and as I said, other people have tried, only to have George W. Bush personally intervene and grant him diplomatic immunity when he was within legal reach. The only problem I can see here is that it's a long shot to drag him in front of the same people whose usual business includes war criminals like Radovan Karadzic, but I say anything that puts a dent in their criminal enterprise is good.

Also, nope, doesn't seem related to Dawkins' attempt. By the way, when Dawkins attempted this, the Pope ironically threatened the people behind this with damnation and all that. He's not a very good PR-person, is he?

[Luis Dias]

I think there's a solid case to be made

Based exactly on what? One thing is an opinion of an institution, quite another is to build a legal case against it.

Also, nope, doesn't seem related to Dawkins' attempt.

Except for the inspiration, perhaps.

[karajorma]

I wish they'd stuck to the actual crimes rather than dragging the religious stuff in. Ordering the Catholic Church to cover up sexual abuse is a crime and was actually the current Pope's idea. That's aiding and abetting or accessory after the fact depending on how you want to look at it.

[Topgun]

I wish they'd stuck to the actual crimes rather than dragging the religious stuff in. Ordering the Catholic Church to cover up sexual abuse is a crime and was actually the current Pope's idea. That's aiding and abetting or accessory after the fact depending on how you want to look at it.

this makes more sense.

[StarSlayer]

I'm not even religious and I think this is stupid.  Your not going to bring down religion in a frontal assault, education and social progress will do its work.  Treating people like their morons and aggressively attacking people's faith is no way to win an argument, you'll only turn it into trench warfare. 

[General Battuta]

Agreed. Only the actual criminal charges are worth pursuing. Attacking the tenets of the faith like baptism involves acknowledging them as meaningful which just makes the religion more real.

Attacking something that means something to people will rally them. Undermining it and providing alternatives works better.

[StarSlayer]

If you were really looking to make a serious legal assault on the RCC, you would probably have a much better chance by swamping it with smaller civil cases dealing with specific transgressions, Lord knows over the course of their history there is plenty to go on.  If you inundated them with enough legit lawsuits that have a decent chance at winning you might have a shot at emptying their coffers and drumming up enough bad publicity to make their followers apathetic to the institution.  Attacking the main figurehead with some frakin' grandstanding message of the "Evil Empire" isn't going to do jack squat but make Atheists look like a punch of petulant asshats and fortify the Catholic community against an obvious foe.

[karajorma]

While I agree, the fact is that Ratzinger is accused of pretty serious crimes and shouldn't get away with it just because it looks like atheists are out to get him if the world confronts him on the issue.

[StarSlayer]

While I agree, the fact is that Ratzinger is accused of pretty serious crimes and shouldn't get away with it just because it looks like atheists are out to get him if the world confronts him on the issue.

But that's not apparently what they are doing, they're attempting a extremely broad attack on the entirety of the RCC but specifically targeting him because he's the figurehead.  It's a fool's errand.  If they want to go after Ratzinger it should be based on specific injustices committed by him not trying to shoe horn some giant overarching anti Catholic campaign into it.

[karajorma]

Absolutely, which is why I said in my first post that they should be going after his actual crimes.

[Bobboau]

Ok, so now there will be no way to bring the actual criminal charges up because they were put in with the "Catholicism is a cutl" **** which is going to get this laughed out of court.
I bet this guy is a Catholic agent.

[Hero_Swe]

They should also retro-actively include every other crime every previous pope has commited too, so we just get rid of that position entirely. Cause what the **** has the pope actually done that counts as good towards the world? The crusades? Yeah I don't think so.

[karajorma]

If you start doing that you're going to end up having to get rid of a hell of a lot of heads of state. If not all of them.