Will UK Probe of Teresa May Compel Ex-Pope Benedict To Testify?

By Jerry Slevin
Christian Catholicism
February 4, 2015

http://christiancatholicism.com/will-uk-probe-of-teresa-may-compel-ex-pope-benedict-to-testify/

The UK’s Home Secretary, Teresa May, has finally acted to establish an independent child sex abuse commission with power to compel testimony, as reported here, [Mirror] and here, [BBC News] .

Will it call ex-Pope Benedict to testify, as it appears it should, and as it can, in my view as an experienced international lawyer? Please see my “Pope Continues Priest Child Abuse Cover-up Policy” , here, [Christian Catholicism] .

New Zealand High Court Judge Lowell Goddard has been chosen to oversee the UK investigation. She had served earlier reportedly as a expert to the UN Commission on Torture. The Vatican last year basically dismissed this UN Committee’s extensive criticism of the Vatican’s failure to protect children sufficiently. Perhaps the UK commission can provoke a more responsible approach at the Vatican? For more on Judge Goddard, please see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_Goddard

Teresa May’s boss, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, recently on US CBS’ “Face the Nation” challenged the pope on the pope’s position that would limit free speech about religious matters. Has the English common law finally caught up to the Vatican? Stay tuned, please!

Again, it took Teresa May, a brave woman, to act, following the bold example of Julia Gillard (also UK born), who set up the outstanding and ongoing Australian Royal Commission.

Will Hillary Clinton, who studied the common law at Yale and worked on the Watergate Commission that transparently and independently investigated US President Nixon’s criminal cover-up conspiracy, be next to call for a national investigation commission in the USA. President Obama seems to lack the fortitude to do so. Is this a women’s thing only? Why is Michelle Obama. a Harvard lawyer, so silent here?

Peter Saunders, chief executive of the UK National Association for People Abused in Childhood, reportedly has said Judge Goddard would “enhance the whole credibility of the inquiry”. Will Saunders, a UK abuse survivor and advocate, this weekend, as he meets with the long stalled first full meeting of the pope’s abuse commission, now also demand that the pope add to his commission some experienced, independent and proven members, like Fr. Thomas Doyle, Illinois Justice Anne Burke and former Irish President, Mary McAleese? If not, why not?

Are cover-ups of child sexual abuse by the Vatican any different really than cover-ups in the UK? Are Catholic children worldwide, including in the USA, any less vulnerable to predatory priests than children in the UK?

As US whistle blowers justifiably take their bows, why are they not blowing their whistles on President Obama’s inexcusable inaction? Australia has shown that a well funded national commission is the best way to curtail institutional child sex abuse and also to get justice for abuse survivors. The whistle blowers’ failure to press Obama to set up a presidential commission is puzzling at best.

Please see prominent Australian abuse advocate, Aletha Blayse’s persuasive case for a US presidential investigation commission like Australia already has. here at:

“Child Abuse, War, and the Need for a National Commission of Inquiry into Child Abuse”, here at:

http://christiancatholicism.com/post-elections-obama-kids-the-catholic-church-the-salvation-army-et-al-child-abuse-war-and-the-need-for-a-national-co