Pope Ratzinger, aka. Benedict XVI, named after beloved Pixar mouse “Ratatouille” was recently accused, and could stand trial, for ignoring pleas to punish child abusing priests in 1996. Accusers are frustrated at how slow the Catholic Church has been to deal with issues involving child abuse and more and more all the time there is a fomenting sense that something need ought be done at higher levels in the Church. This is complicated mainly because the Pope, as we all know, is difficult to prosecute. The idea of seeing the Pope sitting in a defendant chair is strange, and alien, but it would be pretty rad.
The Pope has a sort of God given diplomatic immunity called “Papal Infallibility” that he can choose to implement essentially at will saying “Yeah, when it comes to this particular issue, I’m invincible.” I don’t know if Papal Infallibility will technically stand up as an argument in court, but it would be interesting to watch the prosecutor be all like, “So did you ignore letters sent directly to you telling you of serious allegations of sex abuse having to do with priests under your jurisdiction?” and then see the Pope be all like, “Your Honor, I’d like to plead Papal Infallibility.” At which point, the obvious next thing that would happen would be that an angel with a flaming sword would descend from heaven and smite the bailiff.
Comments
Dan
November 4th, 2011 - 3:00:00 PM
Catholicism is stupid IMO, but even given that, I've never understood how you can *vote* someone to be infallible.
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