Richard Dawkins: I will arrest Pope Benedict XVI

The lawyers believe they can ask the Crown Prosecution Service to initiate criminal proceedings against the Pope, launch their own civil action against him or refer his case to the International Criminal Court.

Okay, guys, I found this info after much hard searching and translating and reading criminal law, etc.. So please appreciate this info, as it did not come easy.



Translation: They're going to have British services arrest him.

Also, this apparently worked on Pinochet in the 80s.

Again, you're welcome, ATS. This info WAS NOT EASY TO FIND.

Hope it clears everything up for everyone.

Found out some of the same information on Dawkin's own site.
Posted it a bit ago.

reply to post by seagull

Does the Pope not have diplomatic immunity? As the head of state of the Vatican?

According to Dawkins the pope doesn't have diplomatic immunity in the UK so he could well get arrested if the right buttons are pushed.

The British public are a pretty volatile old lot at the moment in relation to religious privilege, especially so in when it comes to the cover up of institutionalized child rape.

This story could be the icing on the cake for the Tabloids Newspapers and perhaps for many their biggest story ever.

Just imagine it, the pope gets off the plane kisses the ground and gets handcuffed ! Just bloody amazing !

Are Hitch and Dawkins just attention seeking ? I don't think so and I certainly hope not and they may well have enough clout to pull it off.

What we shouldn't forget is that crimes have been committed and those who are responsible or have aided and abetted must be brought to justice.

If the pope protected child rapists then he must be held accountable for his wicked actions

The Pope should be arrested, the Catholic Church dissolved with all top officials being punished, and all religions should lose their tax-exempt status forever.

[edit on 11-4-2010 by Grumble]

Even as an atheist myself, this has to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Arrest the Pope, lol. I mean, it's not like he covered up for child molesters or something.
Oh... wait...

If he were serious about it, it would have been organised and kept extremely hush hush until the second the pope came off the plane. By announcing it beforehand, all he wants is a bit of media attention now, knowing that he's never going to get to follow through with it.

Or, he's secretly a devout catholic, and he discovered a secret plot to arrest the pope, and went to the papers claiming the action as his own in an attempt to warn his beloved Pontiff.

[edit on 12-4-2010 by TheIrvy]

reply to post by ladyinwaiting


exactly, lol.

Dawkins is jumping on a bandwagon.

Funny that his favorite bash against God is that he is narcissistic. Speak for yourself Dawkins! You are one of the most vial, hypocritical, megalomaniacs I have ever heard...and I don't even like that Anti-Christ Pope. It's like one bully threatening to beat up the bully from the other neighborhood...

reply to post by trueperspective


You did read where he did not actually say this, right?
That it was just a reporter spinning a brief interview where Dawkins stated that he supports these fellows actions to attempt to pursue legal action against the Pope following the finding of a letter that implicates the current Pope in hiding the cover up of pedophilic actions by priests back in the 80's.

Dawkins does a lot of good work, I'm beginning to wonder if he might be the second coming.

I have a question. if some priest molested some kid...why is he not in jail? I think that if anyone else were even questioned about molesting a child they would be detained at least for questioning and what not. Why are there no priests being arrested??

First of all, let me be clear, I support the Pope 100%. I think, of anyone in the Church, he has truly undertaken to protect children and root out a lot of the evils that are inside the institution.

On the Dawkins point, the Pope is the sovereign head of state of a recognized nation. He not only has diplomatic immunity, but also all of the privileges granted to a sovereign ruler. He cannot be arrested.

Interestingly, if Dawkins tried to personally arrest the Pope, he, himself, would be arrested. The only way Dawkins could attempt to arrest the Pope would be is Britain severed all ties with the Vatican.

reply to post by bushidomason


There has been efforts by the Church, and this has come about, as there's evidence pertaining to the current Pope having actively concealed the actions of priests who did commit pedophilia acts.

reply to post by Iago18



You support the pope having obstructed evidence of pedophilia actions by Priests?

Besides which, yet again: Dawkins did not state he was going to arrest the Pope!

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


Before he was the Pope he was the Cardinal who sheltered pedophile priests from being defrocked. Here in America a group of Bishops wanted certain pedophile priests to be defrocked. The future Pope said send me the records and I will do something. Then he refused to defrock the Priests. His explanation was that since the church in America had not followed Canon Law with regards to allowing divorced people to be married in the church, that he was not going to defrock the priests just to punish the Cardinals and Bishops who allowed the divorced people to remarry in the church. Imagine....playing politics with the lives and minds of little children, just to teach the Bishops and Cardinals in the United States a lesson.

This Pope is responsible for hundreds of children being molested by pedophile priests.

Logic?

The Catholic Church is a hierarchy with millions of employees.

The audacity to claim the "the Pope knew" about everything going on in every diocese around the world is ridiculous. In the same way that you cannot blame the CEO of a company for the conduct of his most base employees, you cannot indict the leader, or the institution, for the actions of a few.

To say that the Church knew about "the pedophiles" is a gross generalization. To some, the crimes of the few were not fully reported to Church officials until years after the alleged abuses took place. Moreover, if you think that Rome works quickly to do anything, you are sadly mistaken. Typically, government of a diocese falls to the prelate tasked with its oversight.

Cardinals in Rome are not police officers and are not principally in charge of priests. Rather, as I have stated, that falls to the local Bishops.

When Cardinal Ratzinger was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, his principle concern was not witch-hunting suspects of pedophilia. As we have seen in America, many of these cases are frauds to begin with. While I admit, a staggering number are true, the Church's chief goal was to deal with the problem on a case-by-case basis. This was not Joseph Ratzinger's decision, it was the conventional logic that had served the Church for a very long time.

Now, look at Pope Benedict XVI's pontificate. He has gone out of his way to assert that the Church's position has changed. Rather than taking a remedial approach to abuses by members of the clergy, the Pope is going after sources of the infestation and rooting it out. He has done all he can to reconcile the abused and get rid of the perpetrators.

To assert that the Pope in his pontificate or whilst a Cardinal was a protector of the sinful does not meet with the facts of the man's life or any of his speeches and writings.

Let me add, while this discussion abounds, that the abuse rates in the Church are fairly tied to the abuse rates everywhere else in the world. Reference

Not to condone the actions of the evil priests, but I think a blanket condemnation of a fundamentally good man and the Church is wrong. Likewise, to lump all together because of the actions of a few is the foundation of stereotyping and bigotry that most who would condemn the Church find repulsive in every other situation.

reply to post by SeeingBlue


Hopefully the Pope has the Vatican Knights assassinate him lol jk.

The Catholic church is evil from top to bottom. The Pope might have brainwashed sheep in his own homeland, he'll receive nothing of the sort in Britain.

I look forward to his pope-mobile being attacked with eggs. Paedophile protecting scumbag. The man is vile. Catholisiscm is vile.

reply to post by groingrinder


I like your title thingy. I usually speak in tungs.

Sorry

I'd like to say that I am 100 % against the whole diplomatic imunity concept.

It's really scrathing away my idea of morality. This 'rule' places someone above others.
I even think this law is a perfect example about why there are conspiracies.

On a few cultural differences and the possibilty to brake local law is no reason to apply imunity to all.

IMO the only people who came up with this were protecting them selves.
Now why would you do such a thing when you do not do anything wrong ?

I did not know that about Ratzinger. Maybe it would be a good example for all child molesting idiots if he wil be executed in public.

I'm sorry I do not mean that but I get furious by this.
I'm against a death penalty. I would give him a rope if would ask for one.

I the case of a sex crime I will even go for removel of certain limbs or other areas. It's a good thing I'm no judge.

[edit on 12-4-2010 by Sinter Klaas]

Originally posted by trueperspective
Funny that his favorite bash against God is that he is narcissistic. Speak for yourself Dawkins! You are one of the most vial, hypocritical, megalomaniacs I have ever heard...and I don't even like that Anti-Christ Pope. It's like one bully threatening to beat up the bully from the other neighborhood...

Have you actually read his books, his articles, listened to him talk?

He comes across as very reasonable.

I, for one, wish him all the best.

[edit on 12-4-2010 by aorAki]

I am tired of publicity whores like Dawkins. Attacking the Catholic Church is written into the post-Protestant psyche of the English. They've given up on God, but they haven't given up on hating the Pope or the Catholic Church. You'd think after four hundred plus years the English would give up on the hate, but as the Muslims have shown 'hate' endures when everything else is lost.

The Pope is not a monster; in fact, he is a brilliant professor and a cautious scholar. A monster? NO. However, there are monsters in the Curia, but this Pope is not one of them. Cardinal Sodano (who is not a friend of the pope) is one of those monster's IMHO, and his 'defence' of the Pope was a cold calculated effort to stir the pot against the Pope.

Generalised hate is a destroyer of the innocent with the guilty and is to be avoided by all reasonable people.