The problem with the pope

by Mark

Recently the pope attended a high-profile ’state’ visit to Britain. You might have heard about it. He did a lot of pontificating and criticising British culture, including outrageously comparing atheists to Nazis, but was still warmly welcomed by thousands of people.

Not by me however. I went to the organised protest against the visit and I will endeavour to explain the reasons why I object to the visit, and to the pontiff himself, with special attention paid to his role in the continuing child sex abuse scandal.

Let’s get the Nazi stuff out of the way straight away. It’s a despicable, cynical lie1:

“Even in our own lifetimes we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live.

“As we reflect on the sobering lessons of atheist extremism of the 20th century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus a reductive vision of a person and his destiny.”

The Nazis did not want to eradicate God from society. In fact they saw atheism as synonymous with communism, and as such were deeply suspicious of it. Most Nazis were undoubtedly Christians, many Catholic, and Hitler wasted no time in establishing an entente2 with the Vatican. Hitler himself was raised as a Roman Catholic and said on the subject:

“We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.”

Regarding denying our common humanity to many, “especially the Jews”, this is precisely what the Catholic church did for over a thousand years3, forcing them to live in segregated neighbourhoods from which we inherit the Italian word ghetto4, and teaching that all Jews bear the collective responsibility for killing Christ. Although they have made peace with the Jews (albeit only beginning the process as recently as 1965 with the advent of the Second Vatican Council), they still deny the rights of others — of which, more later.

This is not to deny that atheists have committed great crimes against humanity, they certainly have. The likes of Stalin and Mao were responsible for more deaths than Hitler5, and were both avowed atheists, but to refer to their wicked acts as examples of “atheist extremism” is as wrong-headed as attributing Hitler’s atrocities to his Catholic upbringing.

He goes on to attack Britain’s nearly-secular society in a similar, albeit more nuanced, way to his colleague Cardinal Kasper, who likened landing at Heathrow Airport to finding oneself in a third world country on account of Britain’s tolerance of ethnic minorities, and was subsequently stricken with diplomatic gout6.

Frankly, every part of this attack is laughable, and it’s difficult to imagine an intelligent person (which I have no doubt the pope is) delivering these words sincerely. I suspect, rather, that it is intended deliberately to whip up anti-atheist sentiment amongst his followers, and draw the attention of his detractors away from the real issues. In this respect it has been somewhat successful.

So, without further ado, the real issues.

The Catholic church has a long history of prejudice and discrimination against various groups of people. As previously alluded to, this seems to have been, despite the criticisms levelled against “Nazi” atheists, predominantly Jews7, though in recent times the victims of its teachings are more likely to be found amongst its own congregation — notably homosexuals8 and women. In fact, the church considers not a single woman on Earth fit enough to be a priest, drawing this sarcastic jab from Richard Dawkins:

“He is an enemy of women – barring them from the priesthood as though a penis were an essential tool for pastoral duties.”

In line with this peculiar preoccupation with sex is a concerted campaign against the use of contraception, forcing many of the world’s poorest people to raise families that are larger than they are able to support, and contributing to the two million deaths9 annually due to AIDS10. So apparently committed are they to the spread of this affliction that they have consistently pronounced that even a married man may not wear a condom to protect his wife from contracting HIV11.

But perhaps most emotive of all the charges are those of child sex abuse that seem to have been bombarding the ramparts of the Catholic church since time immemorial. The evidence (summarily dismissed as “petty gossip” by Pope Benedict) continues to mount, and it has become abundantly clear that the church has had — and still has — serious problems with how it treats these cases. The full extent of the scandal is beyond the scope of this essay, but naturally the buck stops with the patriarch himself and I’d like to take a brief look at his role specifically.

In his previous life as Cardinal Ratzinger, serving under Pope Jean Paul II almost thirty years ago in 1981, he was made head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly known as the Roman Inquisition, no less), which counted among its responsibilities investigating the part of priests in the sexual abuse of children.

In 1985, in this capacity as head of the CDF, Ratzinger wrote in response to Bishop John Cummings, resisting his request to defrock US priest Stephen Kiesle in spite of a 1981 conviction (not an allegation, a conviction) for tying up and molesting two boys. His letter suggests he was more concerned with the perception of the church in the media than the welfare of Kiesle’s congregation12:

“Consider the good of the Universal Church. It is necessary for this Congregation to submit incidents of this sort to very careful consideration, which necessitates a longer period of time.”

Kiesle remained in his position until 1987, six years after he was convicted of sexually abusing children.

In 2001, shortly after being tasked specifically with investigating cases of the sexual abuse of children, he signed a letter sent to every bishop in the church, worldwide, explaining:

“It must be noted that the criminal action on delicts reserved to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is extinguished by a prescription of 10 years. The prescription runs according to the universal and common law; however, in the delict perpetrated with a minor by a cleric, the prescription begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age.”

“Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret”

In other words, if any case of sexual abuse is reported, it is to be dealt with internally within the church, and under no circumstances should the details be made public, or revealed to, for example, the police, until the victim of abuse has reached twenty-eight years of age (or, in practical terms, never).

The dubious statehood of the Vatican grants the Holy See the ability to deal with these delicts under its own legal system, known as canon law. Canon law, which prescribes that alleged child abusers are dealt with in secrecy and with apparent disregard for the seriousness of the ’sin’13, is the preferred method of disciplining paedophile priests. According to human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC14:

“[Canon law] has no public hearings, no DNA test facilities, no enforcement mechanism, and the most severe punishments – excommunication or an order to return to the laity (without entry on a sex offenders’ register) – bears no comparison with the sentences of imprisonment or community service that can be expected under criminal law.”

It is simply not a legitimate substitute for the judicial system of any developed country. If Pope Benedict was really intent on cleaning the church of this “filth”, as he has described it, he would hand the records of all these cases over to the police and allow them to be dealt with by the proper legal processes. His continued failure to do this is inexcusable, and can only be described as a wilful and concerted effort to conceal full extent of the abuse and obstruct the course of justice — a crime of complicity in perhaps thousands of cases of abuse — surely a greater offence than any single instance of abuse.

An international criminal of his standing should be immediately arrested on attempting to enter Britain, but the invitation to a “state visit” renders him immune from prosecution. Reason enough, surely, to protest the invitation. A lot has been said about the protest, however, and little of it has been supportive. Comments, evidently by people who did not attend, have frequently including the words “militant”, “aggressive” and “anti-Catholic”, but this does not chime with my experience of the event, however. My experience was peaceful and generally good-natured, with only a couple of shouts of “shame on you” from Catholic interlopers sullying the positive atmosphere.

I just cannot comprehend how campaigning for justice for abused Catholics, and for the safety of potential future victims, can be perceived as “anti-Catholic”, and I continue to be surprised and disappointed by the antipathy, and even outright hostility, towards those whose intentions, unlike the church, are pure.

Such, I suppose, is the mindset fostered by years of unquestioning obedience to authority. Despite the vast majority disagreeing with him on many of the points I have raised15, British Catholics still revere the pope to such a degree that they could perhaps be fairly regarded to have broken the first commandment16.

People of Britain — and Catholics in particular — you do yourselves a great disservice when you extend such obsequious hospitality to this tyrant.

  1. And a real-life invocation of Godwin’s Law to boot! ↩
  2. The Reichskonkordat — an agreement giving guarantees to the Catholic church in Germany. You can find out more on Wikipedia. ↩
  3. The period of the Papal States in Italy, from 752–1870. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_States ↩
  4. Source: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=ghetto ↩
  5. Source, this fascinating list of 20th century death tolls: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm ↩
  6. Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11325699 ↩
  7. In lifting the excommunication of Bishop Richard Williamson, a vociferous holocaust-denier, Pope Benedict has been accused of insensitivity towards Jews himself. ↩
  8. In fact, just about anyone who doesn’t fit into the Adam and Eve mould. ↩
  9. Many of the victims are children, the vast majority of whom, notwithstanding the intentions of Catholic priests, must be presumed to have never committed the grave sin of having sex. Source: http://www.avert.org/worldstats.htm ↩
  10. Ben Goldacre’s excellent Bad Science blog has dissected this issue with considerable poise. ↩
  11. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_teachings_on_sexual_morality#Contraception ↩
  12. Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8612457.stm ↩
  13. In fact, ordaining a woman as a priest is considered as serious a transgression as sodomising a child. ↩
  14. Source, this article covering canon law in more detail: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/07/canon-law-abuse-priests-escape-punishment ↩
  15. 90% object to the doctrine on abortion, 96% on contraception and 89% on homosexuality, Source: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-m-ssHbL-egJ:uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20100912/tuk-catholics-at-odds-with-church-6323e80.html+british+catholics+disagree+with+pope&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=safari ↩
  16. “I am the Lord thy God…  Thou shalt not have any other gods besides me… thou shalt not bow down to them or serve them” ↩