It emerged this weekend that in 1985 when he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which deals with sex abuse cases, the pope signed a letter arguing that the “good of the universal church” should be considered against the defrocking of an American priest who committed sex offences against two boys.
Dawkin and Hitchens believe he should face criminal proceedings because his "first instinct" was to protect the church rather than the children in its care. They are hoping to exploit the same legal principle used to arrest Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator, on a Spanish warrant when he visited Britain in 1998. The Pope will be visit London, Glasgow and Coventry, during his time in the UK between September 16 and 19.
“This is a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence," Dawkins, who wrote The God Delusion, said.
“This man is not above or outside the law. The institutionalised concealment of child rape is a crime under any law and demands not private ceremonies of repentance or church-funded payoffs, but justice and punishment," Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great, said.
Their lawyers, barrister Geoffrey Robertson and Mark Stephens, a solicitor, believe they can ask the Crown prosecution Service and that Pope Benedict will not be able to claim diplomatic immunity since he is not the head of a state recognised by the United Nations.
19 comments:
lol, typical dawkins...only after the media limelight
The idea is not Dawkins', nor is he the one in charge of trying to make this happen. All I know is he has expressed his support for this effort of getting Ratzinger face the justice, and with that I am in complete agreement. It would be grand indeed if the Pope would be prosecuted for his crimes, but it would be almost equally satisfying if he was just unable to travel to the UK because the police would be waiting for him if he did.
I wonder if Christopher Hitchens is irritated that the media is trying to make this Dawkins' project...
It would be unprecedented for church to actually pay for its, alleged for now, crimes.
Why?
No he doesn't. It was reported that Dawkins planned to arrest the Pope himself, but this was a fabrication.
Ratz, I'm with you. I'm also an atheist who is embarrassed by of Dawkins and his ilk. They are, in many ways, the public face of atheism, and they come across as arrogant, intolerant jerks. I don't see myself as the intellectual superior of others, just because they believe in things that I don't. Everyone believes in things that can't be (or can be but haven't been) empirically tested, and many extremely brilliant people are people of faith. Hawkins' rhetoric, and the rhetoric of other public apologists for atheism, seems to suggest that atheists think they're the intellectual superiors of everyone else, and that all religious people need to be "converted."I don't think most atheists feel this way at all.
That said, I hope all guilty parties in the Church-Sex-Abuse-Coverup Scandal face justice. And if, as it appears, Ratzinger aided in the coverup, I hope he's not given any special treatment.
Interesting. I haven't gotten that impression of Dawkins at all. Also, at least I haven't come across many atheists who consider themselves intellectually superior either, but I guess there must also be those who do.
And by the way, cath, would you please give some examples of those things that you, as an atheist, believe even though you think they cannot be tested? I assume you mean things you suspect can never have evidence for them. I must admit my imagination fails me at the moment.
Im with you Ratz and cath, there are some good atheist apologetics out there which are too a greater degree eager for dialogue and a genuine search for truth, i get the strong impression from dawkins he cares little about either.
Well, I believe a lot of things that are trivially unproven (to me): That I exist; that the world is real and not just a dream; that my life has unfolded approximately as I remember it; that my parents are, in fact, my parents, even though I've never had a DNA test done; that most of the people I know are who they say they are. I don't think one could function as a social being for 5 minutes without assuming or believing in something without complete proof.
Similarly, I believe that the world is billions of years old, spherical, and revolves around the sun. I believe the basic evolutionary model, despite the fact that I don't know every piece evidence for it.
I also believe that when I die, my body will disintegrate and there will be nothing left of me except perhaps memories or things I have created. I don't believe that I have a sould or a spirit that will live on after my body is gone.Yet I can offer no evidence or proof of this.
On a deeper level, though, I believe in a moral code, even though I don't believe there's any way to "prove" what's right and what's wrong, or any sort of god who has created/dictated this moral order. Specifically, I believe that it's wrong to hurt another human being except in self-defense, wrong to mistreat animals (although ok to eat them), wrong to cheat and steal, right to be compassionate and to try to alleviate the suffering of others, right to forgive, right to protect those who are vulnerable. While I recognize that the details of my own moral code are subject to change, are sometimes self-contradictory, and are based mostly on my culture and personality, I still think that there are certain moral inclinations shared by almost everyone. We can disagree on the specifics, the implementation, and how to deal with conflicting moral interests, but the broad strokes are somewhat universal. Even if, as I assume, these are somehow an accident of our evolution, I think they're "right" in some way.
In any case, it should be interesting.
xezzy, the church has paid millions of dollars, and a few (very few) priests have gone to jail.
I personally find Dawkins a bit shrill but am a big Hitchens fan. And, yes, the Pope should be held responsible for his part in facilitating child rape. And every priest who ever touched a child in a sexual way should be sent to prison, just like any other pedophile should...but, if possible, their punishment should be worse since their position as a "holy man" makes their crimes all the more horrific.
Cath, that was quite an impressive list. It was indeed the case of my imagination failing me, I was thinking of things similar to religious belief and the belief in supernatural.
Several of the things you listed, are testable, though, so they shouldn't be included. For example your parentage and identities of your friends. The same goes for the entire second paragraph.
The fact you believe you don't have a soul is indeed an unsupported claim, but you can always take a small step backwards and just claim you don't believe in the existence of a soul, in which case the burden of proof is not on you anymore, as you are not claiming anything.
To me, the existence of a moral code is not a matter of belief. There is strong evidence for it. What individual people consider moral is another question, but I wouldn't call it an example of people believing things entirely without evidence. And for the record, the effects of "good" and "bad" behavior on individuals and societies can be measured. It would be ridiculous to claim that killing your fellow human beings indiscriminately is bad/harmful/not beneficial is just a matter of belief without any evidential support.
And I'm sorry, but comparing the statements "I believe I really exist" to "I believe a god exists" is also quite ridiculous.
Calling a scientist not interested in the truth is quite an accusation.
I'm with you Cath... Good onya.
Insolitus - Over the eons we've seen differences in morality in different civilisations. Therefore I see that moral code is partly a cultural thing and partly a thing of convenience. So if you can find evidence for morality in that, I agree. Otherwise one could call moral code a question of belief.
Same goes for "good"and "bad"- They also largely are dictated by the culture one grows up in and they are not absolute measurable values.
But I do think that the Head of any group can be held accountable if the fallable actions of that group go against it's own codes of good and bad and / or if that group defines itself as sitting at the core of the culture that judges it.
dare i ask if it is blasphemous to say against the 'elder of the one true church of atheists' ? it seems the majority of the readers on the site here dont like him and i am in full agreement with them , if you want to listen to atheist speakers , I would say look else where.
How witty and original. And yet it doesn't change the fact it still is quite an accusation to say a scientist cares little for the truth. Liking the person has nothing to do with it.
He has a point, whether for the right reason or not. It is the Roman Catholic Church which is trying to "cut out" the Century between Pope Benedict XV, who proved himself worthy of being a Christian, who spoke against World War I and when he couldn't prevent it, did everything he could to protect prisoners of war afterwards, and Pope Benedict XVI .... well.
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