Stop the Pope in Britain?
Piergiorgio Odifreddi
Yesterday
Benedict XVI arrived in Britain, and was able to start his visit at the airport without being arrested. The thing was not so obvious, given that the request for his arrest for crimes against humanity " was announced last April 11 by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, author of two best-selling anti-religious The God Delusion (Mondadori, 2007) and God Is Not Great (Einaudi, 2007).
The idea was to use the same principle that allowed the arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in London in October 1998, based on the general principle of universal jurisdiction, and particularly a ruling issued by English Judge Baltasar Garzon. In the case of the dictator, was accused of violation of human rights. In one of the pope, the Church pedophilia cover.
Obviously, get your hands on the powerful of the earth is not easy. Pinochet remained under house arrest for sixteen months, but was freed in March 2000. Back in Chile, after lengthy legal battles back under house arrest in December 2004 and remained there until his death two years later. As you can imagine, one of the objections that his lawyers had opposed his arrest was due to the immunity of heads of states and the senators for life.
For the uninitiated, this same argument was why the U.S. Department of Justice sought and obtained, September 26, 2005, to close the case opened against the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger by the District Court of Harris County in Texas, at the beginning of that year, for complicity in the crimes of child abuse and obstruction of investigations. The rationale for the ministry was that because in the meantime the cardinal became pope, the process was "incompatible with the interests of U.S. foreign policy."
As you can see, the claim that Berlusconi immunity from prosecution claims for itself, has high-flown before. But while its legal wrangling was discussed ad nauseum, over those of the Church and the pope kept silent as long as we could. In Italy, at least, did not feel that murmurs and whispers to the famous episode of Year Zero of ecclesiastical pedophilia on May 31, 2007, which aired in all the ways they tried to prevent, and to whom I had the good fortune to attend.
In fact, the scandal was decades old. Already in 1995 he had to resign, Cardinal Hans Hermann Groër of Vienna, to repeated allegations of sexual harassment. Last May Cardinal Schönborn Cristhoph, Groër successor and pupil of Ratzinger, has tried to shift the blame of the coverage of this case to Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Secretary of State under John Paul II, Ratzinger himself rather than at the time Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. But, in a beautiful fly vestments, was silenced by the same Sodano and Ratzinger.
properly, because it is the latter, May 18, 2001, addressed to bishops around the world a letter officially confirmed that the secret disposition Crimen Sollicitationis , issued in 1962 by his predecessor in what was then still called the Congregation of the Holy Office, was still in force. This provision is ordered to maintain total secrecy about sexual abuse by priests, including the names of the victims, on pain of excommunication.
E 'with this letter that Ratzinger was investigated in Texas in 2005 for his coverage of clergy sex crimes. Now that the scandal erupted around the world, and has already bankrupt several U.S. dioceses for compensation to victims, Benedict XVI is running late and timidly to the shelters. He himself confessed, newly arrived in Britain, that "we have not watched the pedophile priests."
These words will be like the British, who adore the ' understatement. But the truth is that the Vatican and the Church there was a massive cover up operation and complicity, in which Ratzinger himself has played his fair (or rather, bad) part. Of course, there is hope it will really shut down. But it is time that the mighty of the earth, and the powerless of our nation, stopped genufletterglisi at least in front, and hanging from his lips when pontificates of ethics and spirituality.
09/17/2010
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