Pope Facing Possible Charges For Crimes Against Humanity
It is atypical for a sitting head of state to be charged with a crime outside of their own country, and it is certainly hard to imagine Pope Benedict standing trial for anything that he has done in the last several decades, but it is possible that he might be facing charges in the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.
Last week, Christian Sailer and Gert-Joachim Hetzel submitted a 16,500 word document to Dr. Lois Moreno Ocampo, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in the Hague. The charges are unrelated to the decision by Benedict to engage in a wonton pattern of obfuscation with regards to the crimes committed by priests who sexually molest children. Instead, it is about the fact that Benedict has adamantly denounced the use of a particular item often used to stop the spread of diseases. The way they worded it was that the Pope “is responsible for the preservation and leadership of a worldwide totalitarian regime of coercion which subjugates its members with terrifying and health-endangering threats”
Their charges concern “three worldwide crimes which until now have not been denounced . . . (as) the traditional reverence toward ‘ecclesiastical authority’ has clouded the sense of right and wrong”.….They allege he is also responsible for “the adherence to a fatal forbiddance of the use of condoms, even when the danger of HIV-Aids infection exists” and for “the establishment and maintenance of a worldwide system of cover-up of the sexual crimes committed by Catholic priests and their preferential treatment, which aids and abets ever new crimes”.They claim the Catholic Church “acquires its members through a compulsory act, namely, through the baptism of infants that do not yet have a will of their own”. This act was “irrevocable” and is buttressed by threats of excommunication and the fires of hell.It was “a grave impairment of the personal freedom of development and of a person’s emotional and mental integrity”. The Pope was “responsible for its preservation and enforcement and, as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of his Church, he was jointly responsible” with Pope John Paul II.Catholics “threatened by HIV-AIDS . . . are faced with a terrible alternative: If they protect themselves with condoms during sexual intercourse, they become grave sinners; if they do not protect themselves out of fear of the punishment of sin threatened by the church, they become candidates for death.”There was also “strong suspicion that Dr Joseph Ratzinger, as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of his church and as Pope, has up to the present day systematically covered up the sexual abuse of children and youths and protected the perpetrators, thereby aiding and abetting further sexual violence toward young people”.
Should this case go through, it may end up being a huge test of the sovereignty of the Vatican. The Papal city lies within and surrounded by Rome, and the treaty which gave it sovereignty dates back only into the middle of the last century. As a nationality, it has no native born citizens, and its followers are made up of the citizens of other nations. The Vatican has used their status of being extra-national in order to subvert the national laws of various nations, have their agents (priests, cardinals, bishops, etc) act in a manner that would get the agents of any other nationality removed from the country post haste. They have also used the ambiguity of their status to avoid criminal prosecutions for priests accused of crimes against children.
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