The French Revolution at the Vatican might start in England with the arrest of Benedict XVI led by the British Dawkins and Hitchens

Catholics may scoff at the medieval British King Henry the VIII who wanted to break free from Rome because the Pope refused to annul his marriages so he can keep on marrying, 8 times. But Catholics today have little to sneer about the 21st century non-royal British Richard Dawkins and his book The God Delusion and Christopher Hitchens and his book God is Not Great, except that they are atheists. When Dan Brown’s book the Da Vinci Code came out as a movie, the Vatican and Opus Dei with devout Catholics led many protests worldwide (including fasting-until-death in India where finally it wasn’t shown), wrote many articles in the Internet and books to counter each aspect of the Da Vinci Code. But we have not seen such Catholic counterattacks in the Internet and Catholic books against Dawkins and Hitchens and their books. That’s because most of the things they point out about the evil aspects of Catholicism especially the papal sins are historically correct.

These good atheists maybe the final frontier advocates and ultimate defenders of the countless victims of the John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army and they may as well be the final step to justice – by arresting and capturing Benedict XVI the Cardinal Ratzinger 5-Star General who condoned and covered-up thousands of pedophile priests for 3 decades see Pope Benedict NEVER defended children abused by priests during his lifetime of 82 years – proofs are in the books written by him and about him http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2010/02/pope-benedict-never-defended-children.html. This won’t be the first time atheists have done the Catholics a good favour. The atheist country of Russia’s Queen Catherine the Great saved the Jesuits from complete extinction when they were expelled from all Catholic countries as ordered by the Pope with his one powerful papal signature. Most of them died at sea with no country to go to except for a handful of Jesuits who landed in Russia. Inspite of all the evil things the Popes have committed against the Jesuits through the centuries, they continue to maintain their special extra ‘vow of obedience’ to the Pope see Jesuits are bad examples as Pope Loyalists; Fr. Federico Lombardi is puppet Public Secretary http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2010/03/jesuits-are-bad-examples-as-pope.html.

The absolutism and despotism of the papacy must come to a final end and the time is ripe in 2010 with Benedict XVI, the criminal-Pope who aided and abetted 6,000 pedophile priests in the USA and countless others in Ireland, Germany, Europe and Catholic countries in the world. The John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army is the most heinous crime against Catholic children and combined with the speedy canonization of John Paul II therefore this papal “Holy Father” fantasy and fiction must come to an end. Benedict XVI with the Opus Dei Bishop of El Salvador silenced the Jesuit Jon Sobrino and many good Jesuits and theologians who work for the poor while the Pope live in the lap of luxury at the Vatican and so now his tyrannical powers to silence them must end - see the list of a hundred of theologians Benedict XVI has silenced in Beware! Benedict XVI-Cardinal Ratzinger and his allies can be violent http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2010/03/benedict-xvi-cardinal-ratzinger-and-his.html The theology of John Paul II, his countless feel-good books on dogmas and doctrines, encyclicals and speeches are for naught because they do not help in creating a more just person or a more just world. John Paul II is the most unjust and most cold-hearted pope in history because he did not even try to protect one single child from one of his pedophile priests see the John Paul II Millstone http://jp2m.blogspot.com/.

Go, Britons, Go! 10,000 in Britain challenge Pope’s immunity and visit http://jp2army.blogspot.com/2010/04/go-britons-go-10000-in-britain.html

It is time for the French Revolution at the Vatican: Benedict XVI must resign, Cardinal Bernard Law et al must resign …Shut-down the Vatican. Napoleon said, "“Religion is what keeps the poor man from murdering the rich. Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet” http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2010/03/it-is-time-for-french-revolution-at.html

see Benedict XVI rejected by Rome's Sapienza University students and professors and he cancelled his visit and speech http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2008/01/benedict-xvi-rejected-by-romes-sapienza.html

John Paul II’s one & only official papal spokesman for his 26+ years papacy reveal the true reasons why there’s The Pope and the Pedophilia Scandal, see the John Paul II Millstone http://jp2m.blogspot.com/

‘Forgiveness’ is a gizmo of injustice to victims of the John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army. To Vaticanista chiesa.espresso Sandro Magister, Baloney! http://jp2army.blogspot.com/2010/03/forgiveness-is-gizmo-of-injustice-to.html


American litigation against Benedict XVI-Cardinal Ratzinger the head of a Global Web of Childhood Sexual Abuse http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2010/02/american-litigation-against-benedict.html

Catholics can emulate Jews [who hunted down Nazi officers] by hunting down pedophile priests’ officers Benedict XVI & Bishops into the World Court http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2010/04/anti-semitism-card-vatican-defense.html

Anti-Semitism card & the Vatican defense circus for Benedict XVI the guilty despot of 1.2 billion Catholics the people in denial http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2010/04/anti-semitism-card-vatican-defense.html

You go, Ireland! Make Benedict XVI pay 1 billion euro for his crimes as ‘ General Ratzinger of the John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army in Ireland’ http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2010/02/you-go-ireland-make-benedict-xvi-pay-1.html

When it comes to justice, secularism trumps Catholicism. Sacraments of Penance, Eucharist & Priesthood are worthless in our justice system http://jp2army.blogspot.com/2010/03/when-it-comes-to-justice-secularism.html

Compare the CRIMES and their VICTIMS in America

Victims - Attackers - Responsible Leaders

Pearl Harbor - 3,000 victims - 170 planes - Admiral Yamamoto

WTC & 9/11 attacks - 5,000 victims - 19 Muslims - Osama bin Laden

USA Priest Pedophilia - 12,000 victims - 6,000 priests - Vatican Trinity:John Paul II, Benedict XVI & Opus Dei

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I’d like to see the Pope arrested, says atheist academic Dawkins

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/290388

Apr 11, 2010 by ■ Andrew John -

The atheist academic Professor Richard Dawkins says he supports a legal attempt to have Pope Benedict XVI arrested “for crimes against humanity.”

The Pope is due to visit the UK in September, and that is when what the Sunday Times calls a “legal ambush” is planned.

The pair have asked human-rights lawyers to produce a case for charging the Pope – formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – “over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church,” says the newspaper, adding: “The pair believe they can exploit the same legal principle used to arrest Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator, when he visited Britain in 1998.”

The Pope is at the centre of the biggest scandal to hit the Catholic Church, as hundreds of cases of priestly child molestation have come to light in recent years, some going back decades.

Some of those in the UK who oppose his proposed visit – which could cost the British taxpayer upwards of £20 million, it is believed – have mounted protests, calling for the visit to be scaled down from state visit to pastoral visit, so that the Catholic Church would have to pay the bills.

New controversy surrounded the Pope last week when a letter, signed by him as Joseph Ratzinger, emerged arguing that the “good of the universal church” should be put before the defrocking of a California priests with a record of child abuse.

The Pope will be in Britain between September 16 and 19, and will visit London, Glasgow, and Coventry, where he will beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman, the 19th-century theologian, who, ironically, is thought to have been gay.

Dawkins (author of The God Delusion) and Hitchens (author of God is Not Great) believe Ratzinger would be unable to claim diplomatic immunity because, although his tour is categorized as a state visit, he is not the head of a state recognized by the United Nations. Vatican City is a state, but in the UN it has only “permanent observer” status.

“They have commissioned the barrister Geoffrey Robertson and Mark Stephens, a solicitor, to present a justification for legal action,” says the Sunday Times, which says the legal move is “for crimes against humanity.” “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.”

Dawkins is quoted as saying: “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.”

Hitchens said: “This man is not above or outside the law. The institutionalized 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.”

Since the Sunday Times article, Dawkins clarified on his website what he meant when the newspaper telephoned him:

Needless to say, I did not say “I will arrest Pope Benedict XVI” or anything so personally grandiloquent. You have to remember that the Sunday Times is a Murdoch newspaper, and that all newspapers follow the odd custom of entrusting headlines to a sub-editor, not the author of the article itself.

What I did say to [journalist] Marc Horne when he telephoned me out of the blue, and I repeat it here, is that I am whole-heartedly behind the initiative by Geoffrey Robertson and Mark Stephens to mount a legal challenge to the Pope’s proposed visit to Britain . . .

Here is what really happened. Christopher Hitchens first proposed the legal challenge idea to me on March 14th. I responded enthusiastically, and suggested the name of a high profile human rights lawyer whom I know. I had lost her address, however, and set about tracking her down. Meanwhile, Christopher made the brilliant suggestion of Geoffrey Robertson.

Related link: Opinion: Priestly abuse – where does it all go from here?
Background information: Clinton Richard Dawkins (69) was the Professor of Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University and, as a biologist, has written several books, including the seminal The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker. He was also one of those behind the UK Atheist Bus Campaign, which saw posters on buses claiming there’s “probably no God” and spread to other countries. He’s married to actress Lalla Ward, who played Romana in Doctor Who in the seventies, opposite Tom Baker as the Doctor. Dawkins appeared as himself in Doctor Who in Russell T. Davies’s 2008 story The Stolen Planet, with David Tennant as the Doctor.

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Atheist Richard Dawkins backs campaign to arrest Pope

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8614232.stm

Tuesday, 13 April 2010 09:49 UK

Professor Dawkins said the UK should not pay for the Pope's visit

Leading atheist Richard Dawkins has backed a campaign to have the Pope arrested for "crimes against humanity" when he visits the UK later this year.

Professor Dawkins said he "whole-heartedly" backed the initiative led by atheist Christopher Hitchens.

UK human rights lawyers are preparing a case to charge Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church.

Dr William Oddie, former editor of The Catholic Herald, labelled it "lunatic".

Campaigners hope to cast a shadow over the Pope's planned visit to the UK in September - the first visit by a Pope since 1982.

Prof Dawkins wrote on his blog: "I am optimistic that we shall raise public consciousness to the point where the British government will find it very awkward indeed to go ahead with the Pope's visit."

And writing in the Guardian on Tuesday, columnist George Monbiot wrote: "Picture the pope awaiting trial in British prison, and you begin to grasp the implications of the radical idea that has never been applied: equality before the law."

The BBC's religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott said the anti-Pope campaign could be seen as a mischievous attempt to create an "air of criminality" around the Pope.

"The controversy over alleged Papal involvement in the cover-up of child sex abuse is providing atheists with a stick with which to beat religion," he said.

The Pope's visit was announced shortly before allegations surfaced that he had signed a letter which delayed the punishment of a paedophile priest in the US.

Legal state?

This followed a series of child abuse scandals involving the Catholic church in the US, the Irish Republic, Germany and Norway.

The Vatican has defended the Pope, saying the Pope is willing to meet more victims of clerical abuse, while the Church has published an internet guide as to how bishops deal with accusations of sexual abuse.

Barrister Geoffrey Robertson and solicitor Mark Stephens are considering whether they could either ask the Crown Prosecution Service to initiate criminal proceedings against the Pope; launch their own civil action or refer his case to the International Criminal Court.

Author Christopher Hitchens said he does not believe the Vatican to be a legal state which raises questions as to whether the Pope, as head of state, could claim diplomatic immunity.

He said: "The UN at its inception refused membership to the Vatican but has allowed it a unique "observer status", permitting it to become signatory to treaties such as the Law of the Sea and (ironically) the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and to speak and vote at UN conferences where it promotes its controversial dogmas on abortion, contraception and homosexuality."

The group have cited as precedent the recent case of Israel's former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who cancelled a visit to London after a British judge issued an arrest warrant over her alleged involvement with the conflict in Gaza.

But Dr Oddie, former editor of The Catholic Herald, said the campaign demonstrated how "wonderfully lunatic" both Christopher Hitchens and Professor Dawkins were.

"What's lawful is what is lawfully agreed by lawful authorities, in this case Italian law - the government of Italy - and secondly, international law, determined by the United Nations. Both legal authorities accept the Vatican is a legal state.

"Christopher Hitchens is entitled to say it shouldn't be one, but he can't say it isn't one - it's like people in a lunatic society saying they are Napoleon," he said.

The Vatican has ruled out any possibility of a papal resignation over the scandal.



The Vatican said the Pope would not resign over the scandal

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Richard Dawkins planning to have Pope Benedict arrested over 'crimes against humanity'

Richard Dawkins, the atheist campaigner and evolutionist, is planning to have Pope Benedict XVI arrested when he comes to Britain later this year for "crimes against humanity".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7578024/Richard-Dawkins-planning-to-have-Pope-Benedict-arrested-over-crimes-against-humanity.html



The Pope will be visit London, Glasgow and Coventry during his time in the UK between September 16 and 19 Photo: REUTERS

Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, are seeking advice from human rights lawyers as to what legal action can be taken against the pope over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church.

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.

“There is every possibility of legal action against the Pope occurring,” said Stephens. “Geoffrey and I have both come to the view that the Vatican is not actually a state in international law. It is not recognised by the UN, it does not have borders that are policed and its relations are not of a full diplomatic nature.”

RElated articles
*
Church failed to unfrock UK priest who abused deaf boys
*
Pope accused of delaying unfrocking of priest
*
Vatican cardinals claim sex abuse claims have been orchestrated by enemies of the Pope
*
Philip Pullman on Jesus Christ
*
Pope Benedict XVI condemns 'corruption and illegality' of politicians and businesses on eve of G8
*
Pope Benedict XVI calls for two-state solution on visit to Israel

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Why it’s poetic justice to denounce Catholic abuse

Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/why-itrsquos-poetic-justice-to-denounce-catholic-abuse-14761430.html#ixzz0l0edcQrW

Poet Paul Muldoon is right in saying unionists must be free to confront Catholic Church, argues Malachi O’Doherty

Friday, 9 April 2010

The Orange Order has received support for its protest against the Pope's visit to Britain from an unlikely source.

While other unionists, including Ulster Unionist leader Reg Empey, have been urging the Order to reconsider plans to protest against the visit of Pope Benedict in September, a major Irish poet from a Catholic background has said the protest should go ahead.

Paul Muldoon, from Moy, Co Armagh, told recently how his sister was sexually exploited by a Catholic priest in Dublin after she'd left home when her marriage broke up. She pleaded with a priest for support but he moved her into his house and imposed himself on her when she felt she'd nowhere else to turn for help.

Muldoon says now that he believes that it would be a sign of maturity in Northern Ireland politics if unionists could confront the Catholic Church over its abuses and not fear that they would be accused of being sectarian for doing that.

He argues that when unionists opposed Home Rule on the grounds that it was Rome Rule "in some profound sense they were not at all wrong".

The starkest evidence of that is the extent of child abuse by the Church, the cover-up and the weak response of the Pope, whose first practical suggestion was that all Catholics should go to Confession every week for a year.

Muldoon says: "I think it is a moment at which the citizens of the country, North and South, should come together and put it to the Catholic Church that their time in this country is over. The Orange Order is perfectly within its rights, at the moment, to make a comment about the behaviour of the Catholic Church. It is not necessarily attributable to bigotry at all."

Paul Muldoon says it would be a sign of maturity in the political structures here if the new Justice Department could investigate the Catholic Church and the application of Canon Law without fear of being thought sectarian.

Muldoon says he understands that unionists who have taken a journey into the middle ground will be afraid of being perceived to be sectarian if they attack the Catholic Church. He says: "The trauma that has been visited on this country by the Roman Catholic church is no less than has been visited upon us by the famous English incursions since the Elizabethan era in terms of what it has done to the national psyche." He says that in essence he regards organised religion as comparable to organised crime.

These will be read as some of the most vituperous anti-Catholic remarks recorded from a former Catholic schoolboy. But they are not from a political activist. Paul Muldoon is a Pulitzer Prize winning poet.

He made these remarks recently at the Poetry Now Festival in Dun Laoghaire, where he revealed the story of his sister's exploitation. He concluded by calling on the Irish Government to make it plain to the Catholic Church that the days of Canon Law are over.

Seamus Heaney later said: "You don't expect Muldoon to lay down the law but he has laid down the law and it is thrilling. I thought it was a great moment of moral authority on the part of Paul Muldoon."

Currently both the Chief Constable, Matt Baggott, and the Health Minister, Michael McGimpsey, have said that there will be investigations into abuse in Northern Ireland by Catholic priests.

There is an impression that the Catholic Church expects not to be rebuked by other religious communities. Muldoon's point is that the Church is entitled to no such protection.


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Vatican scoffs at idea of arresting pope in Britain

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican said on Tuesday Pope Benedict was willing to meet more sexual abuse victims but not under media pressure and scoffed at calls for the pope to be arrested when he visits Britain in September.

A lawyer for British author and atheist campaigner Richard Dawkins said in London at the weekend he would try to have Pope Benedict arrested to face questions over accusations the Church covered up cases of sexual abuse of children by priests.

Asked about this at a briefing on the pope's trip to Malta this weekend, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi scoffed.

"This is a bizarre idea to say the least. It looks like the intent is to make a public opinion splash. I think they should look for something more serious and concrete before we can respond to it," he said.

"The pope's visit (to Britain) is a visit of state, and so it would be very strange if during a state visit the person who is invited to make a state visit is arrested," he said.

Dawkins, a scientist and outspoken critic of religion, has asked human rights lawyers to examine whether charges could be brought against the pope during the September 16-19 trip.

The Vatican has rejected accusations the pope helped to cover up abuse by priests in jobs he held before his election in 2005 and has accused the media of waging a "despicable campaign of defamation" against him.

In Washington, the American Humanist Association, which advocates the rights of non-believers, backed Dawkins' view that the pope should not have diplomatic immunity as a head of state and called for a "criminal investigation" of the church.

"Religious institutions should not be exempt from such scrutiny just because they are religious, and they should be held accountable for any criminal wrongdoing," the AHA said in a statement.

The Vatican said last week that Benedict, who travels to Malta on Saturday, would be willing to meet more victims, as he had during his trips to the United States and Australia.

The pope feels that meetings with victims should take place "in a climate that is intentionally one of reflection, discreet, and not under pressure of the glare of the media, so he can have a real possibility to listen and communicate personally," Lombardi said.

MALTESE MEN SUING PRIESTS

Ten Maltese men who are suing three priests for alleged child abuse have requested a private meeting with the pope [ID:nLDE63B271].

Lombardi said he could not say if a meeting would take place. "I am not the one who decides what the pope does during his trips," Lombardi said, adding that such meetings were not announced in advance but confirmed only after they take place.

A spokesman for the Maltese men said they wanted a meeting "to help us heal and to overcome this trauma".

So far, the pope has not spoken out directly on the new wave of sexual abuse allegations that is besetting the Church in a number of countries, including the United States, Italy and his native Germany. He last spoke about it in a letter to the Irish people on March 20.

In Malta, which is about 95 percent Catholic, billboards publicizing the papal visit were daubed last week with images related to sexual abuse.

The crisis over abuse of children by priests shows no sign of abating, with new revelations emerging almost daily and the Vatican scrambling to find a response strategy.

On Monday the Vatican published an online guide to rules for handling sex abuse charges against priests. It made clear high up that bishops must report crimes to the police, saying that "civil law concerning reporting of crimes to the appropriate authorities should always be followed".

Also on Monday, a new report commissioned by the Church in Germany said children were "sadistically tormented and also sexually abused" at a Catholic monastery in the heavily Catholic Bavaria region.

(Writing by Philip Pullella; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Paul Taylor)



Pope Benedict XVI - who lives out of touch with reality in his ivory tower - watches the movie 'Pio XII, under the Rome's sky' at his residence of Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome, April 13, 2010.