Dawkins and Hitchens: Arrest the Pope, by Tom Craven, The Catholic League of Australia, April 11, 2010

Dawkins and Hitchens: Arrest the Pope

By Tom Craven
The Catholic League of Australia
April 11, 2010

http://ozcatholicleague.com/wordpress/?p=185

Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have launched their latest attack on religion, specifically Catholicism by suggesting that the Pope should be arrested for crimes against humanity for his handling of the child abuse scandal. The infamous atheist pair along with International Human rights Lawyers Mark Stephens and Australian Geoffrey Robertson QC , plan to mount a legal case to have the Pope arrested on his planned pastoral visit to Britain later this year.

They claim that the Pope, both in his time as Pope as well as in his time as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine to the Faith mishandled numerous cases of abuse. The two cases that Dawkins and Hitchens refer to are those of Fr.Lawrence Murphy in 1996 and that of the proposed defrocking of the Reverend Stephen Kiesle in 1985. In both these cases the Pope has been cleared. In the case of Fr.Lawrence Murphy, his actions were perfectly in line with canonical law structures as well as the civil and criminal law structures of the US. In the case of Reverend Stephen Kiesle, the Pope is critcised for not defrocking the priest, what is forgotten is Kiesle was defrocked by Benedict but only after he had received a canonical hearing. Everyone is entitled to legal processes, Benedict can not be critcised for this.

The Pope did nothing wrong in his time as Head of the CDF, this is blaring obvious. To suggest the Pope is somehow responsible for any abuse is baseless and wrong. Dawkins and Hitchens have failed on the first step, charges cannot be brought against individuals when there is no evidence. They have put their emotion, and hate of religion and especially Catholics ahead of their judgement. Remember it was Hitchens who wrote a non referenced essay attacking Nobel Peace Prize winner, Mother Teresa and labeling her 'a whore'. Both have a track record of putting bigotry ahead of reason.

Geoffrey Robertson is another man who deserve criticism for his role in this case of farce. Robertson is a QC and a well known Human Rights lawyer, he should know better than to suggest that charges of crime should be leveled without any evidence. Unfortunately for Mr. Robertson his desire to create controversy and his own gossip does not constitute as a source of law. Mr. Robertson in his legal reasoning for charging the Pope bizarrely suggests that the Vatican is not a country, and thus its Head of State is not immune to criminal charges. He however conveniently "forgets" that 179 countries recognise the Vatican as a sovereign state. Mr. Robertson's effort to create controversy and create publicity for himself has blinded his own judgement.

Pope Benedict has done more for protecting children from abusers than any other Pope or Bishop . Remember it was the Pope in 2001 though the CDF that took direct charge of Abuse Cases, taking the cases out of the hands of the local Bishops. It was the Pope who apologised to victims the world over for the Church's mistakes in dealing with child abuse. Pope Benedict also put in much tougher training measures for seminarians, to stop pedophiles from becoming priests in the first place. Finally it was the Pope who just before his election as Pope in 2005, described priestly pedophiles as 'the filth of the Church'.

Pope Benedict is putting in place measures that will stop abuse, he should be applauded for this. Not attacked by those desperate to push a publicity driven agenda.