Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Dawkins: The pope should stand trial

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/apr/13/pope-prosecution-dawkins
The pope should stand trial
Why is anyone surprised when Christopher Hitchens and I call for the
prosecution of the pope? There is a clear case to answer
Sexual abuse of children is not unique to the Roman Catholic church, and
Joseph Ratzinger is not one of those priests who raped altar boys while
in a position of dominance and trust. But as so often it is the
subsequent cover-ups, even more than the original crimes, that do most
to discredit an institution, and here the pope is in real trouble.
Pope Benedict XVI is the head of the institution as a whole, but we
can't blame the present head for what was done before his watch. Except
that in his particular case, as archbishop of Munich and as Cardinal
Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (what
used to be called the Inquisition), the very least you can say is that
there is a case for him to answer. See, for example, three articles by
my colleague Christopher Hitchens here, here, and here. The latest
smoking gun is the 1985 letter obtained by the Associated Press, signed
by the then Cardinal Ratzinger to the diocese of Oakland about the case
of Father Stephen Kiesle, mercilessly analysed by Andrew Sullivan here.
Lashing out in desperation, church spokesmen are now blaming everybody
but themselves for their current dire plight, which one official
spokesman likens to the worst aspects of antisemitism (what are the best
ones, I wonder?). Suggested culprits include the media, the Jews, and
even Satan. The church is hiding behind a seemingly endless stream of
excuses for having failed in its legal and moral obligation to report
serious crimes to the appropriate civil authorities. But it was Cardinal
Ratzinger's official responsibility to determine the church's response
to allegations of child sex abuse, and his letter in the Kiesle case
makes the real motivation devastatingly explicit. Here are his actual
words, translated from the Latin in the AP report:
     "This court, although it regards the arguments presented in favour
of removal in this case to be of grave significance, nevertheless deems
it necessary to consider the good of the universal church together with
that of the petitioner, and it is also unable to make light of the
detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke with the community
of Christ's faithful, particularly regarding the young age of the
petitioner."
"The young age of the petitioner" refers to Kiesle, then aged 38, not
the age of any of the boys he tied up and raped (11 and 13). It is
completely clear that, together with a nod to the welfare of the "young"
priest, Ratzinger's primary concern, and the reason he refused to
unfrock Kiesle (who went on to re-offend) was "the good of the universal
church".
This pattern of putting church PR over and above the welfare of the
children in its care (and what an understatement that is) is repeated
over and over again in the cover-ups that are now coming to light, all
over the world. And Ratzinger himself expressed it with damning clarity
in this smoking gun letter.
In this case he was refusing the strong request of the local bishop that
Kiesle should be unfrocked. Vatican standing orders were to refer such
cases not to the civil authorities but to the church itself. The current
campaign to call the church to account can take credit for the fact that
this standing order has just changed, as of Monday 12 April 2010. Better
late than never, as Galileo might have remarked in 1979, when the
Vatican finally got around to a posthumous pardon.
Suppose the British secretary of state for schools received, from a
local education authority, a reliable report of a teacher tying up his
pupils and raping them. Imagine that, instead of turning the matter over
to the police, he had simply moved the offender from school to school,
where he repeatedly raped other children. That would be bad enough. But
now suppose that he justified his decision in terms such as these:
"Although I regard the arguments in favour of prosecution, presented by
the local education authority, as of grave significance, I nevertheless
deem it necessary to consider the good of the government and the party,
together with that of the offending teacher. And I am also unable to
make light of the detriment that prosecuting the offender can provoke
among voters, particularly regarding the young age of the offender."
The analogy breaks down, only in that we aren't talking about a single
offending priest, but many thousands, all over the world.
Why is the church allowed to get away with it, when any government
minister who was caught writing such a letter would immediately have to
resign in ignominy, and face prosecution himself? A religious leader,
such as the pope, should be no different. That is why, along with
Christopher Hitchens, I am supporting the current investigation of the
pope's criminal complicity by Geoffrey Robertson QC and Mark Stephens.
These excellent lawyers believe that, for a start, they have a
persuasive case against the Vatican's status as a sovereign state, on
the basis that it was just an ad hoc concoction driven by internal
Italian politics under Mussolini, and was never given full status at the
UN. If they succeed in this initial argument, the pope could not claim
diplomatic immunity as a head of state, and could be arrested if he
steps on British soil.
Why is anyone surprised, much less shocked, when Christopher Hitchens
and I call for the prosecution of the pope, if he goes ahead with his
proposed visit to Britain? The only strange thing about our proposal is
that it had to come from us: where have the world's governments been all
this time? Where is their moral fibre? Where is their commitment to
treating everyone equally under the law? The UK government, far from
standing up for justice for the innocent victims of the Roman Catholic
church, is preparing to welcome this grotesquely tainted man on an
official visit to the UK so that he can "dispense moral guidance". Read
that again: dispense moral guidance!
Unfortunately I must end in bathos, with a necessary correction of a
damaging error in another newspaper. The Sunday Times of 11 April, on
its front page, printed the headline, "Richard Dawkins: I will arrest
Pope Benedict XVI." This conjures up – as was doubtless intended – a
ludicrous image of me ambushing the pontiff with a pair of handcuffs and
marching him off in a half Nelson. Blood out of a stone, but I finally
managed to persuade that Murdoch paper to change the headline in the
online edition.
Never mind headlines invented by foolish sub-editors, we are serious. It
should be for a court to decide – a civil court, not a whitewashing
ecclesiastical court – whether the case against Ratzinger is as damning
as it looks. If he is innocent, let him have the opportunity to
demonstrate it in court. If he is guilty, let him face justice. Just
like anybody else.

 Why is anyone surprised when Christopher Hitchens
che ammette apertamente il suo favore per i cattolici:
"Devo dire, per amor di discussione, che quando in questo Paese la
religione viene messa sotto accusa la Chiesa cattolica viene coinvolta
in misura maggiore della sua quota-parte di responsabilità. Forse in
questo c'è anche il mio contributo, ma non me ne vergogno affatto "
neanch'io, per altro. Anche perchè a differenza di Hitchens vivo in
uno stato cattofascista, e quindi ho il pieno diritto di rompere i
coglioni in primis a chi di più li rompe agli italiani.
Piacerebbe vedere anche in Nahum una tale onestà intellettuale
PS: ma Nahum ha letto per caso "DIo non è grande?". No, perchè la
sostanza è che le religioni monoteistiche sono merda, la sua inclusa.
Ma per fare polemica anticattolica Nahum ingoia qualsiasi sbobba.

 Ma per fare polemica anticattolica Nahum ingoia qualsiasi sbobba.
Figurati...
http://delendanet.blogspot.com/2009/11/bah-hanukkah.html

 wrote:
"Hitchens probabilmente passerà l'eternità in un sepolcro infuocato"
"l'inferno esiste solo
per chi ne ha paura." (cit.)
preparati le chiappe.