The problem of paedophile priests probably prompted the Pope to vacate the Vatican

With many thanks to TrasguTravieso for accepting this challenge, I hardly think that legitimate references to the Pope's personal history and past record as pontiff can be considered a "character assassination", especially when his background may have a bearing on why he quit. And let's not forget, by the way, that the pontiff's departure is almost unprecedented: the last time a pope resigned was almost 600 years ago, when Pope Gregory XII was coerced to step down amid a civil war in the Roman Catholic Church known as the Great Western Schism. [1] Let's put that in perspective: in the same year the last pope resigned, 1415, King Henry V of England defeated the French at the Battle of Agincourt, Christopher Columbus had yet to sail for the Americas, Inca rule had not yet begun in Peru, southern Spain was under Muslim rule and the Pacific Ocean was yet to be named the "Pacific Ocean", in other words, a very, very long time ago and this makes the current Pope's decision to resign was absolutely momentous - and it cannot be reasonably explained away by claims of frailty of mind or body because all his predecessors would have suffered deteriorating mental or physical health prior to their deaths while they were still in office. So, did the Pope's membership of the youth wing of the Nazi party have any bearing on his career in the Church? Membership of the Hitler Youth may have been mandatory, but that is not to say the future Pope was not an enthusiastic member or didn"t embrace the Nazi doctrines with open arms. You see, just like Hitler, Pope Benedict is a conservative hardliner whose beliefs, like Hitler's, are based on bigotry and prejudice, and like just the Nazi Fuehrer, the Pope despises the Jews - as he illustrated in 2009 when he overruled the excommunication of the Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson, as my opponent noted. [2] Also in 2009, Pope Benedict XVI officially signed the order to begin the beatification process of Pope Pius XII, who served from 1939 to 1958 and who many Jews believe turned a blind eye to the Holocaust. [2] Furthermore, his anti-Semitic views have not made him popular with Jewish people: in an article entitled "The Pope was Not a Friend of the Jews" published this week on the Israel National News website the author noted that "...the Pope resorted to anti-Jewish theology when he said that 'I have seen with anguish the situation of the refugees who like the Holy Family were obliged to leave their houses,' which recalls the Gospel of Matthew (2,13): 'Get up, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt.... Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him". [3] But the Pope doesn't just hate the Jews, he also reviles Muslims, and famously quoted a 14th Century Christian emperor who said the Prophet Muhammad had brought the world only "evil and inhuman" things. [4] Also, like his old Nazi boss, the Pope is a raging homophobe and when he came to power the pontiff lost no time in denouncing gays and accusing them of "manipulating nature" and "destroying the very essence of the human creature". [5] However, this is the point where the Pope's modus operandi departs from Hitler's because in there was no place for homosexuals in Nazi Germany [6] but the Pope made sure that gay men received the protection of the Catholic Church - not all gay men, obviously - just gay Catholic Priests who had abused their position of trust and access to children to sexually molest young boys. There are thousands of child sex abuse cases involving catholic Priests worldwide but, instead of denouncing the clergy concerned and handing over any evidence to the police, the Pope either denied the abuse had taken place or tried to buy the victims' silence as this report illustrates: "Denef, 64, from the Baltic coast of north Germany, was abused as a boy by his local priest for six years. In 2003, Denef took his case to the bishop of Magdeburg. He was offered EUR25,000 in return for a signed pledge of silence about what he suffered as a six-year-old boy. He then raised the issue with the Vatican and received a letter that said Pope John Paul II would pray for him so that Denef could forgive his molester." [7] I contend that it was the mishandling of the sex abuse scandal that led to the Pope's resignation for the following reasons: Firstly, I suspect the vast majority of Catholics are appalled by the rape and sexual molestation of children, no matter who the perpetrator of these crimes might be, and they would expect Priests suspected of such crimes to be brought to justice, not sheltered from prosecution by the Church. Secondly, the Catholic Church teaches that homosexual behaviour is sinful [8] and I suspect that most Catholics would argue that those Catholic priests who engaged in homosexual acts, consensual or otherwise, should not have been given support and protection from prosecution by the Pope. The discontent of many of the world's 1.18 Catholics with the manner in which the Pope covered up the homosexual abuse of children will, no doubt, have been communicated up through the Bishops to the Cardinals and the Pope will have reached the conclusion, quite rightly, that he had lost the respect of his followers. Finally, the Pope's handling of the paedophile priest scandal, first denying there was a problem then being forced to make a humiliating apology for it, has made the Catholic Church the subject of ridicule and derision around the world and, as a result, the Pope's position would have become untenable. Because the internal business of the Catholic Church is shrouded in secrecy (and, as my opponent noted, because people like Paolo Gabriele who attempt to expose the corruption that is understood to pervade throughout the Vatican are prosecuted), we may never know whether the Cardinals coerced Pope Benedict XVI to resign, just as Pope Gregory XII was in 1415, or whether the pontiff decided himself that it was in the best interests of the Church to stand down, but it is highly probable that the problem of paedophile priests prompted the Pope to vacate the Vatican. Thank you. [1] http://www.nydailynews.com... [2] http://www.france24.com... [3] http://www.israelnationalnews.com... [4] http://news.bbc.co.uk... [5] http://www.dailymail.co.uk... [6] http://www.ushmm.org... [7] http://www.guardian.co.uk... [8] http://www.catholic.com...