Don’t be daft — you can’t put the Pope on trial

Wednesday, 14th April 2010

Benedict XVI’s handling of sex abuse cases is not above criticism, says John L. Allen Jr. But the campaign for him to be hauled before an international court is ill informed

Sovereignty is designed to protect the papacy from undue influence by any one nation, allowing the pope and his diplomatic corps to act as a neutral voice of conscience on the global stage. The Vatican successfully stopped Argentina and Chile from going to war in the late 1970s over the Beagle Islands, for example, and also helped negotiate a peace accord in Mozambique. Despite Robertson’s attempt to link the Holy See with the Bush administration because a Bush lawyer once confirmed its sovereign status in an American court, the Vatican’s legal independence also allowed Pope John Paul II and his envoys to emerge as the most important moral critics of the US-led war in Iraq in 2003.

By any reasonable standard, Pope Benedict XVI is the head of a sovereign entity and entitled to immunity under international law.

Ultimately, however, that’s not the reason why attempts to indict Benedict as the mastermind of a global conspiracy to protect paedophile priests miss the mark. If he truly were guilty as charged, then an effort to bulldoze through centuries of legal precedent to bring him to heel might be warranted.

In reality, those who have paid attention to this story over the past decade — as opposed to waking up to it only now — realise that no senior figure in the Catholic Church has done more to combat priestly sex abuse than the current pope.

In 2001, Pope John Paul II placed the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the man who is now Benedict XVI, in charge of the Vatican’s response to the crisis. Ratzinger was compelled carefully to study the case files of every priest credibly accused of sexual abuse anywhere in the world. That experience gave him a grasp of the depth and gravity of the problem that almost no one else, inside the Catholic Church or out, can claim.

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Ricky

April 15th, 2010 2:49pm Report this comment

Of course, Dawkins and his set of secular fundamentalists wouldn't dare to take on any homophobic or judeophobic Muslim hate preachers.

Where were they when Quradawi was being welcomed by the former, not much lamented Mayor of London, Livingstone?

They are content only to attack relatively passive faiths like Judaism or Christianity.

Perhaps these zealots prefer the weak anger of the bishopry to the deadly consequences of a fatwa - like so many other members of the fatuous Liberal Elite commentariat.

David Bouvier

April 15th, 2010 3:35pm Report this comment

A rather pointless article since the author is confusing international tribunals with a Hamas-style 'lawfare' operation as used on Tzipi Livni.

I assume the goal is to arrest the Jo Ratzinger on a warrant granted under UK human rights laws with universal (or should that be catholic) jurisdiction.

, beloved of the human-rights-law left, and seek to prosecute the Pope under UK laws of universal (or should that be catholic) jurisdiction.

If the Pope comes with diplomatic credentials then there is no problem.

David Bouvier

April 15th, 2010 3:36pm Report this comment

Oops - please ignore 3rd paragraph...

John Patrick

April 19th, 2010 9:50pm Report this comment

At last, a sensible and balanced article from a journalist. I was beginning to despair that such journalists existed after reading the sensationalist and over-the-top reports from such as Rod Liddle or Libby Purves both writing in The Times. The problem is that newspapers such as The Times, the New York Times and the Irish Times have spewed forth a dust cloud of incriminations againt Benedict without any real proof of their accusations that it is difficult now to see the man in a true light.

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