Pope Allegedly Sought Immunity For Abuse Crimes Just Before Resigning

It seems that with his resignation announced, the Pope had a meeting with the Italian President, Giorgio Napolitano to beg for immunity against prosecution for allegations of child sex abuse.

http%3A//www.addictinginfo.org/2013/02/14/pope-allegedly-sought-immunity-for-abuse-crimes-just-before-resigning/



• It would be awesome if no country on earth would accept him.

• Probably needs medical treatment at a hospital and is afraid he will be arrested when he leaves the Vatican.

• well did he get it?

• It makes sense to me that he was pressured out of the Vatican. Either somebody said, "leave or we'll release the proof" or he knew the release was coming and he wanted to be out of office before being arrested.

• r2, the Spanish judge who went after Pinochet has made noises about the Pope in the past. He should be arrested; they all should. Take all their assets and make them liquidate them.

• I'll believe this when I see results. Let's see if someone actually get arrested. ANYONE higherup at all

• That doesn't make sense. Pope has immunity. He wouldn't have resigned if he thought he could be persecuted.

• According to OP's linked article, it appears that it seems that it's alleged that the Pope will seek immunity, apparently as a result of a supposed note which seemingly was allegedly passed to him. Strangely, though, the article is unable to cite even an unnamed source who appears to have seemingly alleged as much. Why, it's almost as if some wag made it up.

• He's a horrid cunt

• As much as I would like to believe this, I think R7 is correct.

• I know this was probably brought up in another thread but there is a documentary on HBO now Mea Maxima culpa about sexual abuse and how this pope protected the abusing priests. Strange the pope is abdicating now while this documentary is playing on HBO. Wonder if there is more to his participation than just protecting his bretheren.

• [quote]That doesn't make sense. Pope has immunity. Yeah, within the sovereign border of the Vatican City. But not in Italy.

• Ha ha

  http://www.0-60mag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/nelson-muntz-HA-HA-532x329.jpg

• Yikes! He needs to end up in jail!

• Bullshit.

• This is ridiculous. No one will ever prosecute the Pope. No one. And he knows that. The Church still has enormous influence in Italy, whether or not most Italians go to Mass regularly. Get a grip people.

  Italian

• The man is dying. He's not worried about prosecution.

• I'm no fan of pope john paul, but I'd do anything to have him back instead of having this evil hell-bound Ratzinger.

• Pope John Paul paved the way for Ratzinger. He put a benign face on Ratzinger's policies. He was the Reagan of popes.

• Can't believe people get their facts from blogs.

• R18, you forget that Ratzinger was almost completely Wojtyła's creature, and that the latter was a politicizing, manipulative reactionary who allowed corruption to continue on a massive scale, suppressed reform. protected child abusers, coddled schismatic conservatives, permitted administrative abuse, and undermined Vatican II. The myth of Good John Paul II is one of the most noxious P.R. successes of the last century. And as much as I loathe Ratzinger, as soon as he could work around Wojtyla's roadblocks protecting the abusers, he took action against them. In that way he showed at least some recognition of the consequences in store for the Church's cover-ups. (And of course the crap about seeking immunity is absurd. Ratzinger is the most legally immune man on the planet.)

• Ratzinger was well on his way to making John Paul II a saint.

• Just wait 'til he pulls a Reagan. "Oh, my memory is too cloudy, I have some dementia, I must have had earlier symptoms than we realized. I don't remember."

• The OP article links (at the words "beg for immunity") to another website. The direct link is below. It's called "The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State," an independent private organization founded in 2010. Their webpages says: [quote]Pope Benedict, Joseph Ratzinger, has scheduled a meeting with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano for Saturday, February 23 to discuss securing protection and immunity from prosecution from the Italian government, according to Italian media sources. The Google News website for Italy turns up no stories of this magnitude. I did find one story online saying the web is going wild with bullshit, and that this was a hoax. This story said this International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State was somehow using a place called Eurostaete as a government to bring "charges" against the Pope. Eurostaete is a no man's land between Germany and the Netherlands (near Coevorden, Nethelands) that neither country claims. It is a filled-in ditch about 1,600 feet long by 20 feet wide. Eurostaete has a website with a "Prime Minister," a "Secretary of State," a "Secretary for Health, Welfare and Sport," and several others; but, according to Google Maps, it's farmland and no one lives there. It is not recognized by any other country. Because, of course, Eurostaete is not a real country. The owner of the land formed the "country" in 2006 to stop nearby development, and he plans to open a casino.

  http://itccs.org/

• Comments on this article question if the Pope had an option of NOT joining Hitler Youth, if he participated in or just protected pedophile priests and subordinates, or simply ignored the evidence. What say you, DL?

• Actually, under this Pope more ghastly priests have been prosecuted than under John Paul 2 who did NOTHING. And shit was coming out then too. Plus didn't JP annul one or more of the Kennedy marriages so he could marry his whore or his dead whore? I'm no fan but more shit has come out since Rat has been there and there are more consequences too. I expect the next pope (the black guy) will be more JP style than German style and will sweep it under the rug.

• The Vatican is a sovereign state. Duh.

• Everyone, Stop! The Pope (this one or any other) is never going to be prosecuted for anything, ever!

• How was the Vatican able to get away with declaring itself a sovereign state?

• International Tribunal calls on Napolitano to "not collude in criminality", and announces global campaign to occupy Vatican property and launch human rights inquiry in Italy Rome (9 am local time): Pope Benedict, Joseph Ratzinger, has scheduled a meeting with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano for Saturday, February 23 to discuss securing protection and immunity from prosecution from the Italian government, according to Italian media sources. Ratzinger's meeting follows upon the apparent receipt by the Vatican of a diplomatic note from an undisclosed European government on February 4, stating its intention to issue an arrest warrant for Ratzinger, who resigned from his pontificate less than a week later. In response to the February 23 meeting, the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS), through its field Secretary, Rev. Kevin Annett, has written to President Napolitano, asking him to refrain from assisting Ratzinger in evading justice. The ITCCS letter states, in part, "I need not remind you, Mr. President, that under international law and treaties that have been ratified by Italy, you and your government are forbidden from granting such protection to those like Joseph Ratzinger who have aided and abetted criminal actions, such as ordering Bishops and Cardinals in America and elsewhere to protect known child rapists among their clergy. "Your obligation to the Vatican through the Lateran Treaty does not negate or nullify the requirements of these higher moral and international laws; nor does it require that you give any protection or immunity to a single individual like Joseph Ratzinger, especially after he has left his papal office." A copy of the complete text of the ITCCS letter follows. In response to the documented crimes of child torture, trafficking and genocide linked to Pope Benedict and Vatican officials, the ITCCS will be sponsoring a series of ongoing protests and occupations of Roman Catholic churches and offices through its affiliates around the world beginning in Easter week, March 24-31, 2013, and continuing indefinitely. These actions will accompany the legal efforts to bring Joseph Ratzinger and other Vatican officials to trial for their proven complicity in crimes against humanity and criminal conspiracy. The Easter Reclamation Campaign will seize church property and assets to prevent their use by child raping priests, who are protected under Catholic canon law. Citizens have this right to defend their communities and children when the authorities refuse to do so, under international law. Rev. Kevin Annett and an official delegation from the ITCCS Central Office will also be convening a formal human rights inquiry in Rome commencing the week of May 13, 2013, to consider further charges against the Vatican and its new Pope for crimes against humanity and obstruction of justice. Rev. Annett and his delegation will be working with organizations across Italy in this investigation. In 2009 and 2010, he held rallies outside the Vatican and met with media and human rights groups across Italy to charge the Vatican with the death of more than 50,000 aboriginal children in Canada

  http://itccs.org/

• R29, it has been sovereign for centuries. Look up the Papal States. The unification of Italy and the declaration of Rome as the capital of a united Italy seriously impaired relations between the newly-created Italian state and the Vatican, which had been sovereign longer than "Italy". It was Mussolini who finally settled matters with the Vatican (see Wikipedia link below to Lateran Treaty).

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateran_Treaty

• R31, I think it's time that the Vatican have its property seized and be absorbed into Italy

• So what country sent the letter? And how is the Pope personally responsible for 50,000 aboriginal children's deaths in Canada???

• Kevin Annett sounds cray cray people

  http://kevinannett.com/

• From my understanding, this has to do with finances. The pope is going to be scapegoated so the Vatican can get back to business.

• Kevin Annett isn't even a priest, and his "grave findings" are bogus...so much for the "letter" he sent. Sorry. This guy is TinHat Central.

  http://www.genuinewitty.com/people/kevin-annett/

  this%20is%20going%20nowhere%20%26%20doesn%27t%20have%20anything%20to%20do%20with

• I'm not even xtian/cath/none of it, wasn't raised in it, but I can see being tired and just wanting a break from it all, and retiring.

• As a pagan, whose ancestors were tortured in various and sundry ways by the RC church and burned alive at the stake, am I feeling a tad bit of hope that if these allegations are true, the hammer of justice will fall on the pope and all of his pederast minions and will I feel more than a tad bit of shadenfreude if they go to jail or worse? Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Perhaps.

• R37, unlike Pope John Paul II, he didn't even want to be pope, so I agree. But, at this point, nothing would surprise me.

• So the pope is criminal? Who knew?! Except the American Catholics who will roast him.

• The Vatican has gotten away with too many crimes throughout history. It's time they were prosecuted and had all their art treasures confiscated and distributed to the people they owe damages to.

• If it really were 'just' severe health problems I doubt this would have become public knowledge at all. Given the power Opus Dei and the Vatican have it would be no problem for them to just hire the best of the best (doctors, specialists, nurses, etc.) and set up a room or an entire wing for Ratzinger to deal with his health problems in Vatican City. I am sure Ratzinger is stepping down because he caused a serious image problem for the business company that is the Christian Church.

• R42, The Pope is 85 years old - even with the best health care available, they can only do so much. President Bush I has access to the best medical care too, but he only has so much time left himself.

• ….reality is fast approaching. The lightning strike on the Vatican this week was perfectly symbolic. I wonder how much truth there is in this.

• [quote]It makes sense to me that he was pressured out of the Vatican. He's not being pressured to leave the Vatican. On the countrary, he'll remain cloistered with the Vatican City, presumably beyond the reach of Italian jurisdiction. Unless by "the Vatican" you meant the papacy, in which, never mind.

• Wow, we haven't had a papal prisoner in a very long time.

• One step outside V-City and we'll get that boyfucker

• [quote]Can't believe people get their facts from blogs. We should rely on such unimpeachable sources as the New York Times, which would never lie to us about anything important like WMD or the build-up to the Iraq War. Nearly everyone I know has come to doubt major news sources.

• "The man is dying. He's not worried about prosecution." He's "dying" like Kenneth Lay and Osama bin Laden died. He will "die", and be spirited out of the country to Indonesia to live in palatial splendor, catered to the rest of his days by kidnapped boys.

  Johnny Gosch

• What I don't get is why they would be protecting this old nag and anyone else who has been or is going to be exposed . People KNOW the stories world wide. The Catholic Church 's reputation is already wrecked. Why are they going out of their way to make it worse? Unless each and everyone of these pedo-fuckers have threatened to expose even MORE of the upper-echelon, I don't see why they don't just hand them over and show people that they Church wants to set things right. Surely at some point protecting them is costing more in the long run?

• [quote]He's "dying" like Kenneth Lay and Osama bin Laden died. He will "die", and be spirited out of the country to Indonesia to live in palatial splendor, catered to the rest of his days by kidnapped boys. Seek help.

• Once he's out as Pope he'll never leave Vatican City. He'll live what little life he has left out inside the walls rather than risk arrest if he leaves.

• This is a stupid thread. The Vatican is an independent State. It has diplomatic immunity in every nation in which it has an embassy. Ratzi would have diplomatic immunity where ever he happened to be. Hell, every catholic pedophile priest can flee to the Vatican and no one can touch them criminally. The Vatican doesn't have reciprocity with any country I know of.

• [quote]Once he's out as Pope he'll never leave Vatican City. He'll live what little life he has left out inside the walls rather than risk arrest if he leaves. Except that he's going to Castel Gandolfo in a small town south of Rome until his residence is ready at the Vatican. So I guess they'll grab him then.

  Rolling%20eyes

• He's not leaving the Vatican. "And yet, simultaneously, the Benedictine nuns at the Mater Ecclesiae Convent in the gardens of the Vatican were moving out while their building – which will now house Benedict in retirement – was renovated."

  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/the-pope/9873281/Pope-Benedict-XVIs-resignation-A-drama-that-beats-any-Dan-Brown-plot.html

• So in other words he pulled a Spitzer.

• [quote]How was the Vatican able to get away with declaring itself a sovereign state? I think it was declared so in 1926 or around then. That is when it was legally declared the modern sovereign nation/state that we understand today, and not just a special section of Italy.

• The Vatican has been the capital of a sovereign state since around the 6th Century, with the exception of the period from the unification of Italy in 1870 to the reinstatement of sovereignty as the modern state of Vatican City in 1929. Prior to 1870 the name of the sovereignty was The Papal States. At its geographic height it included a great deal of Italy including Rome and the rest of Lazio, Umbria, Marche, Bologna and the rest of Romagna, and for much of the 14th Century, Avignon, which technically remained part of the Papal States for over 500 years until the French Revolution, though under French influence.

• true or not

• Where there are rumors, there are facts.