taken from
here.
Maybe that´s what qayak meant. Disgusting.
This pope sometimes makes me feel ashamed to be Bavarian.
First of all, I hope that's not what qayak was referring to, because it has no connection to the apparently fanciful allegation that Pope Benedict was involved in "hiding the priests who were charged and being sought by various authorities" (is anyone aware of such a case?).
That letter deals with the application of pontifical secret to certain canon law cases; at the end of the list are allegations of sexual offenses committed by a cleric against a minor, although this is not the focus of the letter. This is not dissimilar to the phenomenon of sealed proceedings in civil (non-canonical) legal practice, and the reasons for confidentiality are recognizable to any jurist (to encourage testimony and collection of evidence from witnesses and other parties, to shield victims - particularly minors - from publicity, to protect the presumption of innocence, to protect the confessional seal and so forth). Despite the overt suggestion of the journalist writing that article, it has nothing to do with obstructing justice (quite the contrary) nor indeed with the subject of reporting to or cooperating with civil authorities, as it applies only within the context of canonical proceedings. The plaintiff's lawyer quoted in the piece is - not surprisingly, if you know the plaintiffs' bar the way I do - simply overreaching in his interpretation. I would be rather interested to know if anyone is aware of even a single instance in which this letter or Pope Benedict can be credibly connected to qayak's specific allegation.
sackett said:
Right there is where we must disagree. There isn't a difference; that's in the nature of any executive office, especially as absolute an office as that of the pope.
That's an interesting notion, but I'm afraid it does not accord with traditional notions of justice as they have evolved in either our civil or criminal systems, or for that matter in conventional conceptions of institutional governance. If you were right, and there were no difference between accepting executive responsibility (in a "buck-stops-here" sense) and bearing individual executive culpability, then we would expect that any time an employee of a body corporate - or indeed the body corporate itself - were found culpable of, for example, a criminal offense, the chief executive would share the culpability. Yet that is clearly not the case. Almost everyone can recognize the difference between an executive accepting responsibility for something that occurs while he is in office and the same person actually bearing personal culpability (or incurring individual liability) for that thing.
sackett said:
I don't think we can set it aside.
You misunderstand. Your argument about executive responsibility is not going to matter to qayak's allegation unless on this pope's watch some part of the Church hierarchy has hidden priests charged with crimes and sought by the authorities (which is what qayak has alleged the pope was involved in). If that hasn't happened, there's no buck
to be passed, so I was suggesting that we set the executive issue aside
pending some kind of showing that a subordinate of the pope's actually engaged in exactly the behavior imputed to the pope by qayak.
sackett said:
Howsomever, I don't want to get all over grimly Protestant about this. Priests have been molesting altar-boys since celebacy was invented, hell, long before. The Catholic Church has always known about it, adapted to it, and countenanced it just enough to keep the laity resigned. Right now we're living in times that won't tolerate such stuff. I hope the current climate of outrage and denunciation will endure; it might just possibly force the RCC to change its ways.
I think the evidence is overwhelming that the RCC did substantially change its ways, and for that matter beginning early in the papacy of John Paul II; allegations of abuse relating to periods after that drop off dramatically, and have been very close to nonexistent in relation to the current papacy, which postdates a number of further policy reforms which the current pope has continued to implement. It will be interesting to see if other institutions where such abuse remains a more serious problem (such as school systems) will catch up.
ImaginalDisc said:
I knew there was a reason I put ceo on ignore.
That truly had nothing to do with embarrassment over my pointing out your frequent mistakes and inaccuracies?
ImaginalDisc said:
Absolving Rat-nazi of culpability in the child abuse scandal within the Catholic Church is beyond incomprehensible.
No one's absolving anyone of anything. Naturally, like any of us, he benefits (or should benefit) from a very strong presumption that he is
not culpable, and that presumption is not defeated by the letter to which Georg refers. Whether he bears culpability in the child abuse scandal is technically a separate matter from qayak's specific allegation, of course, which remains to be substantiated.
ImaginalDisc said:
How else can his instructions to keep mum and let the whole thing blow over until the statute of limits runs out be construed?
That is not an accurate summation of the May 2001 letter, for reasons I already explained. If there is another source in which he may have given instructions along the lines of what you're suggesting, obviously we should consider it.
ImaginalDisc said:
Rat - no explanation needed. Nazi - he was a Nazi youth. The argument that he had to be is simply false. He had to be if wasn't willing to be expelled from school or bear the consequences of having a sense of decency. Plenty of young men did refuse to join and thus showed they had a sense of morality, unlike Rat-Nazi.
You are veering into the familiar territory of the ridiculous and vile. Even Jewish leaders and thinkers generally agree that no one should hold the boy Ratzinger's conscription into the Hitler Youth against the pope, and condemn attacks like the one you've made. Your judgment here is driven by your hatred not of Nazism but of Catholicism.
qayak said:
He was involved, there is no doubt. You just need read the evidence. He absolutely bears responsibility. He was the person to decide what would be done and he chose to silence people and hide everything. He aided and abetted rapists and pedophiles.
I daresay I have a greater than average familiarity with the evidence. I have a professional's eye on the cases. I know what it takes to substantiate a charge of aiding and abetting. Show me something I haven't seen. And in particular, show me a case where the pope participated in "hiding priests charged with crimes and sought by the authorities", as you've alleged. I have no stake in whether it is true or false.
qayak said:
What is it about this that you find admirable?
You made an allegation of a legal nature. I expressed no admiration, just a lawyer's hard view of the case you're trying to make here.
