The Hague is above Pope, Vatican, Religion. The Hague must prosecute Benedict XVI now to prove secular International Justice reigns over ALL Religions and Despots

Updated March 4, 2014

Read our new blog:  Pope Francis the CON Christ. Pretender & Impostor of Jesus. Merlin hoax CANNOT CLONE JESUS or dogs http://pope-francis-con-christ.blogspot.ca/

Our latest  related article about New Jersey "Bling"  Bishop Myers http://pope-francis-con-christ.blogspot.ca/2014/02/new-jersey-bling-bishop-myers-wants-100.html

Updated June 14, 2013

Shame on The Hague for refusing to investigate on Benedict XVI and the Vatican's crimes agains humanity's children for over HALF A CENTURY OF THE 20TH CENTURY.  As we pointed out, Excerpt:  "Even the International Criminal Court application about such crimes has been stymied by catholic-run legislators and jurists" .  Read more here  Vatican Last Tsar Benedict XVI resigns as Vatican Pontiff of Vatican Catholic Church. It’s deceitful to say “Roman Pontiff” of “Roman Catholic Church”http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/02/vatican-last-tsar-benedict-xvi-resigns_13.html --

But SNAP will persist and continue to give more evidence, see news below.  May those judges at The Hague bring the final justice to children victims of the Vatican of the 20th century - once and for all - before Benedict XVI dies.

The Hague has judges are controlled by the Opus Dei and whose souls are sold to the Devil Mammon at the Vatican.

Read our latest articles

Pope Francis Top 10 Vatican Deceits. Francis cloned @3.13.13 inside Vatican Titanic as Jesuit Mask of Vatican Evils. “Bergoglio. Basura. Vos sos la dictadura.” http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/03/pope-francis-top-10-vatican-deceits_30.html

March 1, 2013

This is the FINAL CALL for The Hague to take Benedict XVI in to the International Court of Law to face – final justice – and only justice – for all hundreds of thousands of Catholic children all over the world who are victims of his crimes against humanity. 

The Hague must not forfeit its - final moral voice - over the Pope and the Vatican because the world’s children and the world’s women and the world’s poor who are the victims of crimes against humanity depend on it.

The Hague must not lose and miss this best –and last - opportunity to prosecute Benedict XVI while he is still alive in order to bring final justice – the only true justice - for the hundreds of thousands of Catholic children worldwide who were sexually abused and sodomized in Biblical Proportions by the JP2 Army - John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army or B16 Army –Benedict XVI-Ratzinger Pedophile Priests Army named aptly after the two popes who systemically covered-up thousands of  filthy Vatican Catholic sex maniac rapists bestial priests for over 27 years http://jp2army.blogspot.ca/ .

If The Hague is to have a viable continuous world authority over all nation’s evil powerful despots who order and/or cover-up religious ethnic cleansing, rapes against women by soldiers, rapes against children by holy priests, and other crimes against humanity, the prosecution of Benedict XVI at The Hague is now the best world stage and attention to all nations out there – that the Pope is NOT above The Hague – that religion specially the Vatican Christian  Catholic Religion is NOT above The Hague, that the Vatican Billions cannot buy the souls of secular judges at The Hague, that all despots even those who claim to be the “Voice of God” or “Vicar of Christ” is NOT above moral justice of International Law at The Hague. 

It is time that the patriarch old man who claims he is the descendant of St. Peter the “Vicar of Christ” (the Son of God) Pope emeritus Benedict XVI -- bow down before the secular moral authority of The Hague -- and that the Pope cannot escape International Police by hiding in an ancient religious castle like Castel Gandolfo or the Vatican, the smallest country on earth - which is really one of the last pathetic joke of the United Nations, see images below.

If The Hague fails to call on Benedict XVI to trial, it will have failed its moral duty for the most vulnerable member of humankind, the children, who were victims for half-a-century of the Vatican’s bestial priests, the JP2 Army - John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army http://jp2m.blogspot.ca/ or

B16 Army –Benedict XVI-Ratzinger Pedophile Priests.  Read our related article Vatican Last Tsar Benedict XVI resigns as Vatican Pontiff of Vatican Catholic Church. It’s deceitful to say “Roman Pontiff” of “Roman Catholic Church” http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/02/vatican-last-tsar-benedict-xvi-resigns_13.html

If The Hague fails to call on Benedict XVI to trial, its future court orders and trials on other religious despots and world rulers will be weakened drastically and will be in vain and much harder to implement.  Despots will simply look on Benedict XVI as their role model to commit crimes against humanity and get away with it either by buying the souls of judges through the Vatican Billions or by the display of hypocritical religious colors of red to faze and segue the focus of moral justice, read our related article, Billion Dollar Christ & Apostles in Red now playing in Vatican. Evil impact of Papal Conclave: epidemic violence against women & perpetuity of poor countries http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/02/billion-dollar-christ-apostles-in-red.html

On February 28, 2013, from New York and Rome –   the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed an alternate report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child documenting the ongoing worldwide sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, see news article below.

 The Center for Constitutional Rights filed a case with the International Criminal Court on behalf of SNAP against the pope and other high-level Vatican officials for crimes against humanity in September 2011, then they provided additional documentation in the case in April 2012. The prosecutor is currently reviewing the evidence, read here The Hague: Full text Criminal Charges against Dr. Joseph Ratzinger, Pope of the Roman Catholic Church http://popecrimes.blogspot.com/2011/05/full-text-of-criminal-charges-against.html

and  Hague Is Asked to Investigate Vatican Over Child Abuse. Bravo to SNAP and the Center for Constitutional Rights!! Court Filing details. http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2011/09/hague-is-asked-to-investigate-vatican.html  

It is time that the (Roman) Vatican “Catholic” lose its clout so that Goliath-bully and Vatican Pied Pipers like Bill Donohue will stop bullying the world in their deceitful “anti-Catholic” rhetoric campaign, read more here about Donohue as it bullies the New York Times, read more here  http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/01/los-angeles-files-mahony-must-be-jailed.html 

Read our related articles

The Vatican is the smallest theocratic, autocracy, ‘it is not a democracy’ country while Rome is the secular city of the democratic state of Italy, read more here http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2012/07/why-vatican-must-end-as-country-vatican.html .

The Nazis of Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church of Benedict XVI are similar: They both burn human beings in Auschwitz and in Hell http://pope-ratz.blogspot.ca/2011/02/nazis-of-hitler-and-roman -

VATICAN INJUSTICE and VATICAN DECEPTIONS 

Why is the Vatican a state or a country? It is only one building and one public square with permanent rooms for 800 persons --- why is it a country like the vast USA, Russia, China which has hundreds  of millions of people???

Read more here  http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2011_05_01_archive.html 

VATICAN TITANIC SINKING in MORAL BANKRUPTCY

So the Cardinals or Apostles in Red are now gathered in the Vatican (not in Rome because the Curia is inside the Vatican), read our related article “Billion Dollar Christ & Apostles in Red now playing in Vatican. Evil impact of Papal Conclave: epidemic violence against women & perpetuity of poor countries"
http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/02/billion-dollar-christ-apostles-in-red.html and they are acting out the Sacrament of Confession wherein they have forgiven all the pedophile priests and Cardinals and Bishops who covered-them up and meanwhile the victims continue to suffer a living Hell as Australia is just awakening to the worst nightmare or reality of their children, see news updates below.

Benedict XVI’s last Angelus speech he said that the church is in stormy waters and like the apostles in the boat when Christ was asleep, he “will not let the church sink”.  But the Vatican Titanic is skinning in moral bankruptcy and it has lost all moral authorities in the world.  because he as Cardinal Ratzinger and Pope John Paul II helmed it with the Eucharistic Priestly Sodomy of Biblical Proportions committed by thousands of pedophile priests named aptly after the fastest tracking saint John Paul II – theJP2 Army John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army – because he said and did nothing to stop this most heinous crimes against children in the 20^th century.

No matter how they make Hollywood style production of the Papal Conclave, Harry Potter can teach more moral good with his magic than all the magic of the Vatican Catholic Church (not Roman Catholic Church anymore), read here http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2011/11/oc-diocese-buys-crystal-cathedral-as.html

 Look at the magic of the Seven Sacraments all debunked.

Sacrament of Confession protects criminals and persecutes their victims http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2012/11/sacrament-of-confession-protects.html

Ireland’s lawmakers also are defying the MAGIC-al powers of priests in the Sacrament of Confession, read our related articles here http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2011/11/ireland-leads-nations-to-close-vatican.html

The Sacrament of the Eucharist is Black Magic and Sorcery of the Flesh of Christ because the pope and priests cannot clone Dolly the sheep and therefore they cannot “clone Christ either”, read here and see images below.

The Sacrament of Baptism and Confirmation – did Christ baptise his Apostles?  Did Christ require his disciples to be first confirmed?  Did Christ require all those people he healed to be baptized by a priest?  The fact is, Christ condemned all those High Priests in the Temple and called them Pharisees with all their on-time prayers and priestly robes.  These sacraments were invented by the Vatican in order to make the pope and priests indispensables just like they sold indulgences and threatened people with the fires of Hell unless they bought indulgences.  Not going to Sunday Mass used to be a mortal sin, today it’s only a handful of Days of Obligation that are left and soon there won’t be any more left.

And the Sacrament of the Holy Orders or priesthood is now proven a pedophile culture by the JP2 Army – John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army and it is now proven that priesthood is a gay culture, just look at Cardinal O’Brien’s immediate resignation and read The Homosexual Colonization of the Catholic Church http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2010/05/benedict-xvi-campaigns-against.html

.  Here’s Benedict and his Gorgeous Georg private secretary according to Italian gays and the recent report a few days before Benedict XVI resigns about the “gay network” inside the Vatican and in the City of Rome as Vatican Officials frolic in wild parties with male prostitutes, read news updates below.  Today, Vatican Catholic priests (not Roman Catholic) are like lepers – keep children away from them.  Learn from history.  Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  Learn from the JP2 Army – John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army  http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2012/07/ncaa-penn-state-more-moral-than-vatican.html .Priests have no business touching children anymore.  Children are supposed to be hugged and loved by their parents and siblings, not by celibate men who have renounced all form of sex, and bodily contacts.

What else, the Sacrament of the Last rites?  This is the luxury left for the Opus Dei because their priests cater only to Opus Dei members.  How many priests these days spend time giving the last rites in hospitals?   Look at the Oratory of St. Joseph where those arrogant and cruel priests boast and make Saint Brother Andre as their “poor” model but the reality is he is their golden cash-cow.  Brother Andre may have visited the sick during his heydays, but the Congregation de Sainte-Croix priests today do not visit the sick at all – because they are like the Pope sitting like King Midas of an empire of millions of dollars of candles lit by brainwashed people who are blindly praying to the Zeus statue of impotent St. Joseph who watched 50 years of sodomy on hundreds of students right before his eyes, and like John Paul II, he did nothing to stop them, and those candles only make those arrogant CSC or Holy Cross priests of the Oratory of St. Joseph more rich, read here http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/01/csc-holy-cross-congregation-delay-18.html

And the Sacrament of Marriage, many young people these days opt to avoid the expensive rite of church weddings.

The Vatican Titanic is sinking in moral bankruptcy and nothing can salvage it because the FALSE GOD of the Vatican is the biggest Opus Dei Golden Cow JP2 John Paul II was an immoral pope for children and is the biggest lie about holiness and is the biggest hypocrisy worse than the Pharisees combined. http://stella0maris.blogspot.ca/

What morality can the Vatican preach?  The Theology of the Body by John Paul II – when he refused to speak up and defend children under his longest papacy watch?

What morality has the Vatican for children after more than 100,000 children were abused systemically covered-up by the Vatican hierarchy.

What moral voice does the Vatican has on women?  None!  The Vatican Billions support dictators and therefore through those despots allow the rape of thousands of women and girls.  The only-male hierarchy perpetuate misogyny and male VIOLENT power over women.

Rosary could not defeat JP2 Army John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army in the 20th Century ... unlike the Battle of Lepanto in the 16th Century http://jp2m.blogspot.ca/

John Paul II is the Pope of Injustice because he did absolutely NOTHING during his longest papacy to bring some justice to pedophile victims of Fr. Marcial Maciel and the80 pedophile priests of Cardinal Bernard Law, his Achilles Heels, read more here http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2011/05/heil-satanas-jp2-patron-saint-of.html

Benedict XVI’s Consecration to Mary cannot protect children from pedophile priests http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2010/05/benedict-xvis-consecration-to-mary.html

Benedict XVI and Georg his GAY Private Secretary are GAYS.!. http://pope-ratz.blogspot.ca/2007/06/benedict-xvis-handsome-private.html

Priests and nuns are not holier than us and not better than us

Priests and nuns are not holier-than-you and not better-than-you.  Priests and nuns are not holier or better simply because they recite a formula of holy prayers and have (hypocritical) vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to the Pope, Cardinals and Bishops especially who aided and abetted half a century of JP2 Army – John Paul II Pedophile Priests heinous crimes http://jp2m.blogspot.ca/2011_04_01_archive.html). 

Priests and nuns are not holier or better than lay teachers, nurses, social workers, doctors, lab technicians, the police, firefighters, workers at McDonalds and restaurants, janitors, all professions and laborers. 

No matter what good deeds the priests and nuns are doing, they are not holier-than nor better than -- the Red Cross workers and Doctors without Borders who are instantly everywhere in war zone or disaster areas regardless of race and creed – while those Popes, Cardinals and Bishops sit in the lap of luxury in the Vatican Palace and Bishops’ Palaces counting the Vatican Billions, and priests and nuns live in their comfy rectories and hushed million dollars convents, read here - The fantastic wealth of Irish Catholic religious orders revealed http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2011/07/fantastic-wealth-of-irish-catholic.html,

And Opus Dei million dollar houses of their priests and “numeraries” equivalent to nuns and religious brothers  http://www.odan.org/foundations.htm

“Holiness” is not measured by the holy prayers a person recites because Christ condemned those Holy Priests Pharisees precisely because they recited the most holy prayers from the Bible and He called them white washed sepulchres, read here http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2011/10/boston-to-host-former-swiss-guards.html

“It is acts of mercy” that I desire, God said in the Bible, and “not material or animal holocaust”.   Christ got angry at those merchants selling those holy lambs for sacrifice in the Temple of Solomon, today that would be Holy Mass Tourism, read here http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2011/03/vatican-billions-holy-mass-tourism-for.html  

Read about the impotent Zeus statue of St. Joseph who overlooked 50 years of sodomy in College Notre Dame here, BOYCOTT Oratory of St.Joseph http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/01/boycott-oratory-of-saint-joseph-candles.html

The “Holy Father“ Pope and his copy-cat “holy fathers”  Catholic priests cannot clone Dolly the sheep and therefore they cannot clone Christ either, read our related article, OC Diocese buys Crystal Cathedral as flesh-factory of Christ... for wealthy God-flesh-eating Catholics http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2011/11/oc-diocese-buys-crystal-cathedral-as.html

Well, the black magic holy words of a team of “holy priests” cannot clone Christ the Son God either, read about the Divine Trinity  http://pope-ratz.blogspot.ca/2010/12/gay-trinity-of-father-son-and-holy

Please take a look at the worse Roman Catholic Church pedophile priests attacks against more than 15,500 Americans … compared to the September 11, 2001 attacks against 3,000 Americans at the Twin Towers in New York.

Victims in USA - Attackers - Responsible Leaders

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

WTC & 9/11 attacks - 3,000 victims - 19 Muslims - Osama bin Laden

Priest pedophilia - 15,736 victims - 6,000 pedophile priests covered-up by Bishops, vicars, others...

9/11 victims 3,000. JP2 Army 100,000s. May Day: both Hitler and bin Laden Announced Dead on May 1 on John Paul II Beatification Day B-Day  http://jp2m.blogspot.ca/2011/05/911-victims-5000-jp2-army-100000s-may.html.   

Look deeply into this image of Our Lady of Guadalupe defending and protecting children from the Serpent  ... compared to Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Cardinals, Bishops who coverd-up pedophile priests  

http://jp2m.blogspot.ca/2008/07/letter-to-opus-dei-pope-john-paul-ii.html The names of the transferring or covering up Bishops and Cardinals are: Roll Call Please!

 Pope

The Hague: Full text Criminal Charges against Dr. Joseph Ratzinger, Pope of the Roman Catholic Church http://popecrimes.blogspot.com/2011/05/full-text-of-criminal-charges-against.html

 
The black belt means she is pregnant

\.

The womb of the Immaculate Conception of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe carried Jesus this way

9-months gestation of Jesus the Son of God

READ more here about the pregnancy of Our Lady http://stella0maris.blogspot.ca/2010/01/magisterium-benedict-versus-holy-mary.html

 

DOLLY THE CLONED SHEEP

 The cloning process that produced Dolly 
http://www.youtube.com/embed/39BbcZVCx8I
 


BLACK  MAGIC  OF  EUCHARIST 

1-MINUTE  black magic of the cloning of Christ by sinful Vatican pope and priests

Our comment: Transubstantiation or the Mass is a recent development . St. Peter and St. Paul and the Apostles never celebrated Mass and never “transubstantiation” the bread into the flesh of Christ, what they did was to preach about Christ. The Mass was a slow development from the 12th century through various liturgical reforms until the 20th century. It was only in 1215 at the Fourth Council of the Lateran that the Mass began to take form and in 1551 at the Council of Trent that transubstantiation became what it is today. The Vatican has come to use it as its main crux of power on earth deceiving Catholics and peoples of all faiths that only Popes and men-priests have the exclusive power to transubstantiate God’s flesh. Because of the Mass, the Vatican has gotten away with all kinds of heinous crimes, e.g. the Crusades, the Inquisition, the burning of women and witches http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2006/11/john-paul-ii-revived-inquisition.html “For the sake of the Eucharist” and because of the shortage of priests, John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger-Benedict XVI, the Opus Dei who controls the Vatican, the Cardinals and Bishops shuffled pedophile priests from one parish to another. The rest is history: the John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army committed Holy ES Eucharist-and-Sodomy of Biblical proportions see the John Paul II Millstone http://jp2m.blogspot.com/.

 

In the name of Hail Mary, we dare challenge and defy the Magisterium: No words pronounced by any finite-man can create an infinite-God! No words of the Pope and priests can re-create or re-incarnate Christ’s flesh. The words of sinful popes and priests are powerless and can never create God! Only Mary the Immaculate Conception deserved to bear God in her womb. No evil pope and evil priests is worthy to touch and hold God in their evil hands. The words of popes and Cardinals, Bishops and priests are mere clashing-cymbals of St. Paul see John Paul II the Great clashing cymbal of St. Paul http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2009/11/john-paul-ii-great-clashing-cymbal-of.html. See Benedict XVI to beatify John Paul II is “brought to nothing” by St. Paul http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2009/11/benedict-xvi-to-beatify-john-paul-ii-is.html

 

No matter how we look at it, finite-man cannot create an infinite-God. Man can never create God’s flesh. Not in in-vitro fertilization of the scientific laboratories. Not in the sacred altars of holy Roman Catholic churches which by the way were the same pedophile altars of the John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army See the John Paul II Millstone http://jp2m.blogspot.com/

Rome, call us heretics and we don’t care because in Boston and in America, we have freedom of speech. It was our freedom of speech that got rid of criminal-Cardinal Bernard Law and sent him packing out of our sight and out of our land. But only you, Rome, you the Roman Catholic Church a.k.a. Magisterium would glorify criminals like Cardinal Bernard Law and John Paul II. No other American state has been able to replicate our courage as Bostonians who got rid of the first Cardinal caught guilty of the John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army in America. Yes, we caught the first SS officer of the Third Reich of the Roman Catholic Church … but he went into glorious exile in Rome because only in the Catholic Church are criminals glorified See The John Paul II Millstone John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army expands into Ireland &John Paul is elevated as "Venerable"... only in the Catholic Church are criminals glorified http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2009/12/john-paul-ii-pedophile-priests-army.html

Benedict XVI, from the Chair of Peter, thinks his papal letter will heal the victims and solve the problem of clergy abuse in Ireland. The fact is, Benedict XVI’s words are powerless. NO POPE has ever healed anyone. As this picture shows,

\

They came sick and they left sick.

There is NO "Apostolic" authority or succession here,

for NO Pope has EVER been able to heal like Peter or Paul did.

Opus Dei Goliath-bully Bill want to propagate Catholic Medieval Doctrine that all crimes of JP2 Army of pedophile priests are already forgiven and forgotten under the Sacrament of Confession that protects criminals and persecutes their victims, read here http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2012/11/sacrament-of-confession-protects.html

 

News articles for March 1, 2013

Vatican Summoned Before UN Committee on Rights of the Child

UNITED STATES
The Center for Constitutional Rights
[the report]
Groups Submit Report on Worldwide Sex Abuse Crisis
press@ccrjustice.org
February 28, 2013, New York and Rome – Today, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed an alternate report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child documenting the ongoing worldwide sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. The UN committee has summoned the Vatican to report on its record of ensuring children are protected from sexual violence and safeguarding children’s well-being and dignity, the first time the Holy See will have been called to account for its actions on these issues before an international body with authority. The first meeting will take place in Geneva in June.

The SNAP-CCR report to the Committee lays out the depth and breadth of the problem, the policies and practices within the church that have both enabled and perpetuated the sexual violence, and the principles in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and one of its Optional Protocols which the Vatican has violated.

Said Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Attorney Pam Spees, “When the Committee on the Rights of the Child meets in June and demands answers from the Vatican on its handling of the epidemic of sexual violence in the church, it will be a historic day for survivors. The church has put itself and its reputation above the welfare of children at every step, in many cases knowingly moving a pedophile priest from one congregation to the next to keep things quiet, allowing the priest to continue to operate and have contact with children. This UN body has authority to determine whether the Holy See has violated the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It’s a long overdue calling to account.”

The Center for Constitutional Rights filed a case with the International Criminal Court on behalf of SNAP against the pope and other high-level Vatican officials for crimes against humanity in September 2011 and provided additional documentation in the case in April 2012. The prosecutor is currently reviewing the evidence.

 Fighting for the Future

UNITED STATES
The Center for Constitutional Rights
I. General Considerations: Overview
As a result of the efforts of survivors and advocates who have come forward in different countries over the past few decades, often with considerable personal sacrifice and risk, the widespread and systemic rape and sexual violence of children by priests and others associated with the Roman Catholic Church is now well-documented and incontrovertible.4 The revelations of sexual violence by clergy arising in recent years in Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Malta, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, the United States and elsewhere demonstrate that the rates of abuse in any one country or diocese are not an anomaly but part of a much larger pattern and practice. In light of these revelations, some observers have estimated that the number of victims of sexual violence occurring between the years 1981-2005 is likely approaching 100,000, and will likely be far greater as more situations continue to come to light in Latin America and Africa.5
Commissions of inquiry and grand juries have been convened in Canada,6 Australia,7 and Germany,8 as well as the United States, some of which will be discussed below. Ireland has seen a number of inquiries, resulting in the Ferns Report,9 the Ryan Report,10 the Murphy Report,11 and the Cloyne Report.12 There have also been Church-appointed commissions, as well as non-governmental reports setting forth widespread and systematic sexual violence within the Catholic church, in Belgium,13 Germany,14 The Netherlands,15 and the United States. In September 2011, Amnesty International issued a report finding that the abused of children in Catholic-run institutions in Ireland amounted to torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.16
Every investigative body that has studied these situations has identified the same policies and practices that allowed the sexual violence to proliferate and that furthered the harm to the direct victims. Without exception, each of these inquiries has reached the same inevitable conclusion: The primary concern of Church officials in these cases has been to protect the reputation of the Church and its priests – not the best interest of the child. This conclusion was perhaps most succinctly expressed by a grand jury in the United States when it observed that Church authorities “continued and/or established policies that made the protection of the Church from ‘scandal’ more important than the protection of children from sexual predators.”17 Similarly, the Ryan Commission in Ireland found that: 2 Cases of sexual abuse were managed with a view to minimizing the risk of public disclosure and consequent damage to the institution and the Congregation. This policy resulted in the protection of the perpetrator. When lay people were discovered to have sexually abused, they were generally reported to the Gardai.

ITALY - Victims blast Vatican in new United Nations filing

ROME
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
[Fghting for the Future]
Posted by David Clohessy on February 27, 2013
■Victims blast Vatican in new United Nations filing
■In 30 page document, they say church breaks UN convention
■SNAP says top Catholic officials submit one report 14 years later
■Group accuses Holy See of falling short on prevention & extradition

WHAT:
Holding signs and childhood photos at a news conference, two clergy sex abuse victims who are long time leaders of an international support group for victims will disclose and discuss a new 30 page filing calling on a United Nations committee to act against Catholic officials for multiple alleged violations of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (which was ratified by the Vatican).

WHEN:
Thursday, February 28 at 2 p.m.

WHERE:
Orange Hotel, 86, Via Crescenzio, 00193 Roma (St. Peter)

WHO:
Two clergy sex abuse victims who are leaders of the US-based international support group SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org), including a Missouri man who is the organization’s long time director

WHY:
SNAP is filling a new 30 page report with the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) that is highly critical of the Vatican’s past and current handling of clergy sex crimes and cover ups. It’s the first time SNAP is making a formal appeal to the UN for help with the crisis. (The CRC oversees compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1990.)

Later this year, the CRC will question Vatican officials on their compliance/non-compliance with the Convention. The CRC will then report publicly on its concluding observations.

The Vatican ratified the Convention in 1990 (under Pope John Paul II). In 1994, in its first report to the CRC, the Vatican made no mention whatsoever of the issue of clergy sex abuse though even then, top church officials had extensive knowledge about pedophile priests and complicit bishops around the world.

In 1997, the Vatican’s second report to the CRC was due. It was finally submitted about 14 years late. (And the Vatican is ten years late in filing its first required report under a similar agreement called the “Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, which was due in 2003.)

Courts Must Now Apply Laws To Popes & All Cardinals

UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

The current meltdown at the Vatican reveals what so many Catholics shamefully preferred to overlook for years. It is truly a “Wizard of Oz moment”, as the international media has pulled back the papal curtain for all to see. The Pope is trying to keep secret a 300 page report evidentally of massive criminal conduct affecting innocent children, among others, and documenting financial corruption. Papal Rome has just burned down and the Pope fiddles over his new title.

Meanwhile, the Pope’s press officer has now even suggested that the papal elections are so secret that reporters face excommunication if they report any leaks they receive from Cardinals about voting results. The Middle Ages are over! The papal “witch” is dead. Time to end the mystical nonsense and to protect children, women, AIDS victims, gay persons and the many other groups that have suffered much, needlessly, as a result of a self-serving Vatican clique’s lust for power and wealth, with a little sex on the side. We have heard more than enough already.

The papal geo-political strategy following World War I of trading “papal blessings” for papal influence and subsidies received a mortal wound with President Barack Obama’s strong re-election victory over the Pope’s flawed anti-contraceptive and anti-gay marriage strategy. The Pope’s strategy has now breathed its last with the recent election trouncing of the Pope’s preferred candidate, Italy’s Prime Minister Monti by an ex-Clown Prince! It really is a good time for the Pope to leave the Vatican, and hopefully he will not return. He can pray and mediate better at Castel Gandolfo, and still claim sovereign immunity there as well under the Lateran Treaty.

Now secular leaders must act immediately to apply the rule of law to the Pope and the Cardinals. Enough with the winks and nods and special dispensations seeking political support. The International Criminal Court prosecutor must stop procrastinating and national leaders, like President Obama and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, must step-up and follow the admirable lead of Australia’s Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and Ireland’s Prime Minister, Enda Kenny. Subpoena the secret report and the Pope’s butler and put an end to the incessant rape of children by priests!

Is the Roman Holy Empire Folding As Fast As the Soviet Empire Did?

UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
The escalating cracks in the Vatican’s walls are expanding almost at a geometric pace–truly breathtaking. One Cardinal is down, several are on the edge, and a desparate Pope cannot change the Conclave rules fast enough to try to stem the bleeding as he packs to leave town. This surely is the worst crisis since the Reformation, at least for the Catholic hierarchy.
To many of the remaining one billion plus Catholics, it is mainly Good News. The “First” will soon be returned to the “Last”, children will be safer, women will be more respected, family planning will be available to save more children from misery, Catholic scholars will again be able to think freely and aloud, and gay persons will be freed of oppression from too many conflicted and closeted gay hierarchs. Divinely, the Gospels wisely show us Jesus and his early followers rejected evil empires and hypocritical hierarchs; while valuing authenticity and children. Welcome back, Gospels. We missed you when you were gone!
The Pope is treating Cardinals as obedient fools, not as successors to the Apostles. He springs on them suddenly his resignation, then tells them they cannot read the very relevant secret report about Vatican scandals that likely lead to his resignation. He wants to cut down the Cardinal’s pre-voting candidate review period, while the Vatican Cardinal clique has likely had plenty of time to scheme for their candidate. Will Cardinals play dead now or bark back at the departing German Shepherd? Or will the Cardinals just let the prosecutors and courts take control and implement reforms?
Cardinal Dolan already objected to shortening the pre-Conclave candidate review period. Will others now join him and demand more time? By assembling a one-third voting block, they of course can take all the time in the world!
Increasing numbers of Cardinals seem to be facing serious criminal prosecution risks that likely could increase rapidly unless the Vatican is reformed promptly and broadly. Last year, Philly’s Cardinal Bevilacqua avoided almost imminent prosecution by dying first and his top aide is in prison. Prosecutors and jurors will likely no longer give Cardinals the benefit of the doubt and the media is aggressively reporting Cardinals’ sins more often. The next Pope must confront these risks honestly and openly or the risk of imprisonment will almost surely only increase for Cardinals worldwide. The next Pope must require that abuse survivors are treated justly and that children are protected effectively. He must assure that hierarchical wrongdoers are exposed, removed and punished transparently and promptly. He must end the financial scandals; not just ship a key financial player to South America. These pressing imperatives require new leadership and real reforms now, especially to minimize prosecution risks. 

Pope Benedict could face court over sex crimes in the church

AUSTRALIA
The Conversation
Not a day goes by without further allegations of rape and sexual abuse being made against the Catholic Church. The vast majority of accusations relate to abuse perpetrated outside the Vatican’s walls, in dioceses around the world. Evidence suggests, however, that high ranking members of the Church’s hierarchy were well aware of these despicable acts and actively shielded the perpetrators from criminal investigations. This has led to repeatedcalls for Benedict XVI to be held personally accountable for the grave harm inflicted on innumerable children.
To date, attempts to prosecute Benedict have been stymied by his immunity as the Head of State of the Vatican City. His resignation, however, changes the game and opens up the possibility that warrants will now be issued for his arrest.
Prosecuting a former head of state
The status of the Holy See and the Vatican under international law is anomalous. But for all intents and purposes, the Vatican City has been equated to a sovereign state since the Lateran Treaty of 1929, with the Pope as its head. International law accords complete immunity to heads of state from the jurisdiction of other states while they are in office. They retain this immunity with respect to acts performed in an official capacity even after leaving office.

New pope could learn lessons from Aust

UNITED KINGDOM/AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Julian Drape, AAP London Correspondent
From: AAP
February 28, 2013

ONE of the harshest critics of outgoing Pope Benedict XVI says his replacement could learn valuable lessons from Australia's royal commission into child sexual abuse.

Australian human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson hopes the commission will propose children not be confirmed in any religion until they turn 14.

And he thinks the new pope could embrace such a change.

Speaking on the eve of Benedict's resignation Mr Robertson said Joseph Ratzinger would be remembered for ignoring the abuse of over 100,000 young children.

'Benedict left pedophilia unaddressed, victims still suffering'

VATICAN CITY
RT
[with video]
There is little hope that even with Pope Benedict XVI stepping down, the Catholic Church will see an end to high-profile pedophile scandals. All Catholic clergy are culpable, David Lorenz of a priest abuse survivor network told RT.

Nothing has been done by the current pope to support the victims of pedophile priests, and nothing will be done in the next papacy, Lorenz said.
David Lorenz: We are working to raise awareness for sexual abuse crimes crisis that's plagued the church a minimum of 25 years, if not hundreds of years longer. We want the church to take real action. There's been a lot of words and a lot of apologies, but there hasn't been a lot of action and we want those people who have sexually abused children to be held accountable.
RT: According to Pope Benedict, he decided to resign for health reasons. How much do you think his decision is actually connected to the numerous scandals surrounding the Vatican?
DL: There certainly are a lot of rumors and I hate to speculate on their truthfulness. I will say that clearly the sexual abuse crisis during his pontificate has probably weighted heavy on his mind. It's been difficult for him, it continually comes up. And it continually comes up primarily out of his own failings. He has not fully addressed it, he said some nice words but it hasn't been a lot of really true action. It has distracted him, it was something he had to deal with during his entire time. And it probably has caused him to wear out. If he'd only addressed it, I think it would have been a lot better.

Catholic Church harassed sex abuse victims, inquiry finds

AUSTRALIA
NEWS.com.au
THE Catholic Church harassed victims of sexual abuse and coerced them into signing legal settlements, a Victorian inquiry has heard.
The parliamentary inquiry into sexual abuse within religious organisations heard personal accounts from a number of victims in Ballarat today.

One victim who was bashed and molested by two Christian brothers in the 1970s, said private detectives hired by the church had called victims asking them if they were continuing with their complaints.

He told the inquiry he had received such a call himself.

He said he threatened the caller before telling police.

"This is what happens when you go against an organisation such as the church. They harass you," he said.

Another victim said he had felt coerced into accepting a settlement under the church's Towards Healing program.

Abuse can only happen with the unspoken agreement that it will be covered up

UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Suzanne Moore
The Guardian, Wednesday 27 February 2013
'Sexual intercourse began/ In nineteen sixty-three," wrote Philip Larkin. And to judge by recent coverage, sexual abuse began last year, in 2012. Well, it had been going before, apparently, but no one knew too much about it. Except those actually being abused, who were on the whole young, female, damaged, unreliable and not "credible" witnesses. This is what anyone who has watched the media coverage of the past few months might ascertain. From Savile to the Socialist Workers Party, from the resignation of Cardinals to the allegations about Lord Rennard. No one knew much at the time at all! Raping a child is not the same as putting your hand on the leg of an adult woman, but what is this but a spectrum of systematic abuse being uncovered?
And what is our response? Still, the victims are mute, dispensable, irrelevant. Speaking out has not empowered them as it should: they remain a lumpen mass of unfortunate people to whom unfortunate things were done. The focus remains on the powerful as they scurry between media outlets changing their stories.
Abuse is shocking. Its covering up even more so, and a culture that is prepared to do this is rotten to the core. So where is this hidden culture? Oh look, it's in Westminster, at the BBC, in the SWP, in the Catholic church, in the police force, in care homes and even in the godforsaken Lib Dem party. Sex scandals in the Catholic church are decades old. After Cardinal O'Brien resigned over the allegations against him, one of the men who had made them talked about his own decision to leave the priesthood: he said it had been presumed he did so to get married, but this was not the case. "I knew he would always have power over me." This is key to understanding how abuse wrecks lives. Those detectives trying to meet their targets by persuading women to drop rape charges in Operation Sapphire are not much concerned with this. Those who covered up Cyril Smith's grooming and abuse of institutionalised boys can't be either. Those who knew the "difficulties" about Lord Rennard have known about them for some time, though, like O'Brien, he denies them. Likewise those in the BBC and the police who heard the Savile rumours ignored them.

Drunken parties at the seminary...

SCOTLAND
Daily Mail
Drunken parties at the seminary, crushes on young 'pups' and a gay mafia accused of bringing down Britain's top Catholic
By Guy Adams

Almost invariably, it was late at night by the time the parties started. After dinner and prayers, the residents of St Andrew’s College would gather around candlelit tables in the refectory or head upstairs to the billiard room to talk, drink and laugh into the wee hours.

The tight-knit group, mostly in their early 20s, had been drawn to the 19th-century baronial mansion near the village of Drygrange, a stone’s throw from the River Tweed, on the Scottish borders, by a calling. They wanted to devote their lives to serving God as priests in the Catholic Church.

St Andrew’s was a seminary 30 miles south-east of Edinburgh, where at any time several dozen young men were being prepared for the priesthood. They spent their days studying, praying, meditating, debating theology and learning how to run a parish.

In their six years at the secluded institution, the future priests made lifelong friendships and formed intimate cliques.

They even shared a common language: dinner was ‘rat pie’, communal bathrooms were ‘jakes’ and younger colleagues ‘pups’. On religious holidays, copious amounts of beer and wine (but never spirits) were served from lunchtime onwards. The raucous parties that ensued, bringing merriment to every tower and turret of the redbrick building, were known as ‘ragers’.

Sometimes, as with many an event involving too much alcohol, a ‘rager’ would end badly. And it’s one such occasion, said to have occurred at St Andrew’s 33 years ago, that this week brought scandal to the highest echelons of the Catholic Church.

On Monday, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, 74-year-old Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh and Britain’s most senior cleric, shocked the nation’s five million Catholics by announcing his sudden resignation.

The news came 24 hours after a Sunday newspaper revealed that three priests and a former priest have filed an official complaint accusing him of various counts of ‘inappropriate’ behaviour, stretching back more than three decades. Perhaps the most colourful alleged incident occurred at St Andrew’s in the spring of 1980.

A 20-year-old, who had joined the seminary two years earlier, claims that O’Brien, then 42, made a drunken attempt to seduce him.

Next Pope Can Keep Cardinals Out Of Jail Only If … ?

UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
Increasing numbers of Cardinals seem to be facing serious criminal prosecution risks that likely will increase rapidly. Pope John Paul II mainly avoided acknowledging these risks and Pope Benedict XVI duplicitously tried to Tweet them away. They both failed and made matters worse, certainly from a criminal defense perspective. Prosecutors and jurors will no longer give Cardinals the benefit of the doubt and the media is aggressively reporting Cardinals’ sins more often. The next Pope must confront these risks honestly and openly or the risk of imprisonment will only increase for Cardinals worldwide. Abuse survivors must be treated justly and children must be protected effectively. Hierarchical wrongdoers must be exposed, removed and punished transparently and promptly. This requires papal leadership and real reforms now.
In the past week, Catholic scholar, Hans Kung, Dominican priest, Matthew Fox, and Oxford historian, Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch, have weighed in on the current crisis. Their assessments must be listened to, or some Cardinals will very likely be prosecuted in the near term.

Fr. Kung just spoke of his former university colleague, Joseph Ratzinger, this week as reported here at:
[Spiegel]

The seemingly unending and substantially unaddressed Vatican scandals of child abuse cover-ups, sexual blackmail, financial corruption and managerial incompetence have reached a tipping point making resignation the only option apparently. Shortly, on March 1, Cardinals reportedly will be told secretly what is in the confidential report of the three octogenerian Cardinal survivors of Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin and Franco. They have seen it all before, no doubt.
The next Pope will surely be bogged down for years in ongoing worldwide governmental investigations, civil litigation and criminal prosecutions of the Church’s hierarchy that are now beginning to mushroom. These challenges are already burdened by the overall dark legacy left by ex-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and his Polish predecessor, so concisely summarized by Dominican priest, Matthew Fox, a student of key theologian, M.-D. Chenu, who theologically guided Joseph Ratzinger and Karol Wotyla at Vatican II, accessible here:
[Huffington Post]

Sad tactics from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 25, 2013

Jim Stang is a bankruptcy expert. He’s been involved in nine Catholic institutional bankruptcies-more than any other attorney. In 2010, he was named “Bankruptcy Lawyer of the Year.” He knows this stuff.

And according to the National Catholic Reporter, Stang says that he has “not faced anywhere near the number of challenges to claims” as in Milwaukee.

In recent years, 574 alleged victims have come forward in response to the Milwaukee archdiocese bankruptcy filing. Catholic officials are trying to toss out 400 of them.

What a particularly cruel "bait and switch" maneuver. Church officials repeatedly claim “We’re seeking bankruptcy so we can be sure we’re able to help ALL victims.” Then, after running mandatory notification ads across Wisconsin urging victims to come forward, church officials now try to disqualify 400 of them.

The Skeletons in Benedict's Closet: A guide to the sex abuse scandals under Pope Benedict XVI's watch

UNITED STATES
Syracuse.com

By Elias Groll, Foreign Policy magazine

If a report on Thursday, Feb. 21, in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica is to be believed, Pope Benedict XVI's recent decision to resign just got a whole lot more interesting. The paper claims that around the time that Pope Benedict decided to step down, the pontiff learned of a faction of gay prelates in the Vatican who may have been exposed to blackmail by a group of male prostitutes in Rome. The revelations allegedly appeared in a 300-page report by three cardinals that the pope commissioned to investigate the release of internal documents by his butler, the so-called "Vatileaks" scandal. (A Vatican spokesman has refused to confirm or deny La Repubblica's claims, and the internal Vatican report is reportedly stowed away in a papal safe for Pope Benedict's successor to peruse.)

Seen in the context of Pope Benedict's career in the Catholic Church, it is difficult to understand why revelations of yet another sex scandal would push him to resign. For over a decade, he has served as the church's point person for responding to allegations of abuse. From 1985 until his election to the papacy in 2005, Benedict served as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a powerful Vatican body charged with policing church doctrine. In 2001, Pope John Paul II transferred responsibility for dealing with the sex scandals enveloping the institution to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's office. In that role, Ratzinger received tens of thousands of complaints alleging sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests. Those documents often went into lurid detail, and Ratzinger is said to have been deeply affected by the experience.

As a theologian and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Benedict gained the not-so-flattering nickname "God's Rottweiler" for his rigid interpretations of doctrine and his stringent enforcement of church rules. In practice, he has frequently displayed a preference -- both as a pope and as a cardinal -- for confronting predatory priests behind closed doors and protecting the church's reputation at the expense of public accountability.

Are Cardinals Merely the German Shepherd’s Obedient Pups?

UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

The Pope is treating Cardinals as obedient pups, even trained seals, not as successors to the Apostles. He springs on them suddenly his move to a nearby convent with Georgeous Georg, then tells them they cannot read the very relevant secret report about Vatican scandals, then tells the UK’s sole representative he cannot vote and finally (so far) tells the rest of the voting Cardinals he is cutting down the voting period. Of course, the Vatican Cardinal clique has likely had plenty of time to scheme for their candidate, as they watched the papal convent being reconstructed over several months. Collegiality or servitude? The effects of the early lessons the German Shepherd learned in his formation as a young recruit in Hitler’s Wehrmacht are becoming more evident daily. Will Cardinals play dead or bark back? Or will they just let the prosecutors take conrol? Cardinal Dolan already objected to shortening the pre-Conclave period. Will others now join him?

Increasing numbers of Cardinals seem to be facing serious criminal prosecution risks that likely could increase rapidly unless the Vatican is reformed promptly and broadly. Last year, Philly’s Cardinal Bevilacqua avoided almost imminent prosecution by dying first and his top aide is in prison. Prosecutors and jurors will likely no longer give Cardinals the benefit of the doubt and the media is aggressively reporting Cardinals’ sins more often. The next Pope must confront these risks honestly and openly or the risk of imprisonment will almost surely only increase for Cardinals worldwide. The next Pope must require that abuse survivors are treated justly and that children are protected effectively. He must assure that hierarchical wrongdoers are exposed, removed and punished transparently and promptly. He must end the financial scandals; not just ship a key financial player to South America. These pressing imperatives require new leadership and real reforms now, especially to minimize prosecution risks..

In the past week, Catholic scholar, Hans Kung, Dominican priest, Matthew Fox, and Oxford historian, Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch, have weighed in on the current crisis. Their brief assessments must be listened to, or some Cardinals will likely be prosecuted sooner rather than later.

SNAP LEADERS ARRIVE IN ROME...

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger's Beat

SNAP leaders Barbara Dorris and David Clohessy landed in Rome this morning and just five hours later held their first news conference challenging Pope Benedict to “take dramatic action” during his final days in office to “punish those who conceal child sex crimes.” Among those in attendance: Mary Ann Ahern of the Chicago NBC affiliate, the inimitable Sylvia Poggioli of NPR and two reporters – Dennis Coday and Josh McElwee – of the KC-based National Catholic Reporter. . .

ITALY - Victims push Pope for action on his last day

ROME
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 25, 2013

■Victims push Pope for action on his last day
■They list 5 things he should do before leaving
■“Take decisive action now,” self help group urges

WHAT:
Holding signs and childhood photos at a news conference, US clergy sex abuse victims will

-- Publicly push for 5 specific actions for Pope Benedict to take before he resigns, and
-- Urge papal electors to push Cardinal Brady and Cardinal Mahony to not participate in the conclave, and
--Urge all who have seen, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes and cover ups to come forward get help, call police, expose wrongdoing, protect others and start healing

WHEN:
Tuesday, February 26 at 2:00 pm

WHERE:
Orange Hotel, 86 Via Crescenzio 00193, Roma +39.06.6868969

WHO:
Two leaders of the US-based international support group SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, including a Missouri man who is the organization’s long time director

A New Pope—African, Latin American, Woman, Nice Guy—Will Change Nothing

UNITED STATES
The Nation

Frances Kissling

February 19, 2013

“In Benedict, the Catholic Church got the pope it deserved,” writes John Patrick Shanley in The New York Times. Shanley, author of the play Doubt, pulls no punches. Pope Benedict, he correctly charges, is “a protector of priests who abused children. He’d been a member of the Hitler Youth. In addition to this woeful résumé, he had no use for women.”
 
This pope led a multinational corporation mired in financial scandals and unable to fire the most egregious criminals in its midst. There is almost no country he can visit where Catholics have not suffered b ecause of the Church. In Africa, the church’s opposition to birth control and to condoms to prevent AIDS transmission contributes to high rates of maternal death and AIDS. In Mexico, site of one of Benedict’s recent trips, Catholics were still outraged over the case of Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, the ultra-conservative order of priests, who raped young seminarians, fathered several children, abused drugs and misspent church funds. In 1998, eight Mexican priests charged Maciel with sexually abusing them. A year later, the priests were told the case had been shelved by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (who, for the uninitiated, later became Pope Benedict). In the US, the investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, whom the Vatican claimed paid too much attention to poverty and not enough to fighting against abortion, was widely derided by Catholics and others as a further example of the Vatican’s foolishness, and gave rise to a popular “Nuns on the Bus” anti-poverty tour. No wonder he’s tired and his doctors say no more travel.

New Pope and Church Can Be Saved Only By 2 Protestants, Merkel/Obama

UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin

Cardinals are about to begin the spectacular sideshow in Rome to try to save many in the Catholic Church’s hierarchy from criminal prosecution and/or financial bankruptcy. The Catholic Church’s current salvation is, however, really in the invisible hands of Protestant political leaders in Berlin and Washington DC, as the Church’s salvation during the Reformation was principally in the hands, not of the Council of Trent, but of the Catholic Holy Roman Emperor, then ruler of much of Europe and the Americas.

The Vatican Cardinals’ sinful ways have been publicly exposed, but other subservient and unorganized Cardinals acting alone, even with a new Pope, are not expected to have the clout to change these Vatican Cardinals’ unChristian ways, notwithstanding the mystical webs that will be spun to the contrary over the next few weeks.

Some Cardinals desperate recent ploys, such as mentioning permitting married priests and the “morning after pill” and calling for the election of almost any Cardinal but a European, especially an Italian, may have helped some uninformed journalists meet a daily deadline, but are really just insignificant distractions. The audacious attempts of imminent ex-Pope, Joseph Ratzinger, and others like Cardinals Mahony (LA), O’Brien (Scotland) and Egan (NY), to portray themselves as victims are both pathetic and predictable. Similarly, Cardinal Pell’s surprising criticism of the new ex-Pope for mismanagement and resigning are too little too late and likely just some defensive posturing as Pell faces soon an extensive royal commission investigation in Australia.

Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal

UNITED STATES
Publishers Weekly

Michael D'Antonio. St. Martin’s/Dunne, $26.99 (432p) ISBN 978-0-312-59489-3

Pulitzer Prize–winning journo D’Antonio (Atomic Harvest) pens what will be widely regarded as the definitive history of the Catholic Church’s “most severe crisis since the Reformation”: the revelations of endemic sexual abuse of minors by priests in the United States and Europe. Employing his considerable gift for sifting through mountains of facts, the author carves out a coherent and enthralling narrative, and brings the long-running tragedy to life by focusing on the handful of individuals responsible for bravely exposing the pain and horror of the abused children. In 1984, American priest Thomas Doyle learned of a lawsuit brought by parents of a victim, and was deeply troubled by his superiors’ callous nonchalance toward the suit, and more alarmingly, toward the suffering child. (When Doyle asked a monsignor, “What are you doing for the boys?,” he responded, “As far as I know, nothing.”) Along with plaintiffs’ attorney Jeffrey Anderson, Doyle and a few others worked tirelessly to get the church, the media, and the public to pay attention; their persistence eventually paid off.

Catholic Scandals: The Ultimate in Reality TV

UNITED STATES
Fort Worth Weekly
Posted February 26, 2013 by JIMMY FOWLER
Some Catholic commentators have lamented the latest round of tabloid-quality scandals besetting the Vatican. Tragic that so much vanity and human error should impede the serious business of selecting a new pope, they opine. And isn’t the church’s professed mission of helping the poor and the marginalized compromised by all the salacious gossip? It’s a sad time to be a Catholic, they sigh.

Oh, bollocks! As I wait for another CNN “breaking news” report about some errant bishop or shadowy gay cabal in Rome, my response is: “Pass the popcorn!” The current intrigue is one of the many reasons some of us chose to join this particular flock: Nobody does drama like the Catholic Church hierarchy. A very cool priest once told me that the history of the church is “more like a soap opera than a religious institution.” That’s an understatement.

As a Catholic, I don’t worry about “the moral authority of the church,” because that ship sailed a long time ago. Even before the worldwide pedophilia scandals broke, the church’s stance against birth control sealed the Vatican’s reputation among most Westerners –– including, perhaps especially, most Western Catholics –– as an overly pampered, out-of-touch club of old men.

COMMENTARY: Pope Benedict XVI’s missing mea culpa

UNITED STATES
Religion News Service
Tom Ehrich | Feb 12, 2013
(RNS) I wish I could see Pope Benedict XVI’s surprise decision to resign on Feb. 28 as a mea culpa for having led the world’s largest Christian body backward for eight years.

Alas, he has made no apology for cementing Roman Catholicism’s reputation as male-centric, homophobic and uninterested in sex abuse scandals beyond their litigation costs.

In an eerie tone-deafness, he announced his retirement in Latin and had it translated into seven languages of Europe, where the church is close to extinct, and not into any of the African, Asian or Middle Eastern languages spoken by emerging Catholics.

The 85-year-old pope simply said he was physically too frail to do the job. That was a humble admission, and there are countless old men around the world’s power structures who might take a cue from him about the wisdom of letting go.

Pope Benedict was unable to lead church----Thelogian Leonard Boff

BRAZIL
Business Ghana
Pope Benedict XVI's resignation is an act of desperation in the face of the "moral disaster" that has swamped the Roman Catholic Church and the "internal intrigues" in the Roman curia, Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff told dpa in an interview.
According to Boff, a leading exponent of Liberation Theology, which holds that the church should be closer to the poor, Benedict XVI is to leave to his successor a negative legacy. The outgoing pontiff has been "a pope with no charisma who was unable to lead the Church."
"He resigned out of desperation, because he could no longer control the Roman curia and bear the moral disaster of pedophilia and of cardinals' internal intrigues," said Boff, a former Franciscan friar.
Boff met Joseph Ratzinger before he became Pope Benedict XVI in the 1960s as they both enjoyed discussing theological issues with each other in Germany.

A New Pope, Without Reforms, Will Surely Fail

UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
The media nonsense has already gotten out of hand, especially on TV. Uninformed pundits, aided by opportunistic so-called “experts”, are already reporting the Vatican power struggles as if it were the Papal Kentucky Derby. The important matter is not the horserace; it is the Vatican structure. If that is not addressed by the Cardinals seriously now, the Pope who makes the “Winner’s Circle” will surely rule as a Papal Loser. It is just common sense.
Within a short period recently, (1) the ex-Pope, Joseph Ratzinger, left all the Cardinals his “final” marching signals, (2) his oldest colleague, Hans Kung, gave his informative assessment and a final warning , (3) a senior German diplomat, solely on a personal basis and not in any official capacity, indicated perceptively that the deteriorating situation in the Catholic Church was adversely affecting desirable cooperation among Christian denominations and benefiting indirectly some militant Islamic factions, and (4) a major human rights group filed a comprehensive report with the well regarded UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on the Vatican’s worldwide cover-up of priest rape of children supporting the Committee’s pending summons to the Vatican to account shortly. The Vatican is subject by international treaty to the Committee’s juridiction and has for over a decade failed to comply fully with its treaty oligations

Give Up Your Pew for Lent

UNITED STATES
The New York Times
By PAUL ELIE

Published: February 28, 2013

The conventional wisdom has it that Benedict’s resignation sharply reduced the aura of the papal office, showed a tender realism about old age, and made clear that even ancient Catholic practices could be changed.

That is all true, but the event’s significance is more visceral than that. It has caught the mood of the church, especially in North America.

Resignation: that’s what American Catholics are feeling about our faith. We are resigned to the fact that so much in the Roman Catholic Church is broken and won’t be fixed anytime soon.

So if the pope can resign, we can, too. We should give up Catholicism en masse, if only for a time.

We are in the third week of Lent, a six-week season of reflection and personal sacrifice when Christians prepare for Easter by taking stock of their religious lives. In recent centuries Roman Catholics have observed Lent by giving up a habit or pleasure, whether red meat, chocolate, soap operas or Facebook, to simplify their lives and regain their independence from worldly attractions — their religious freedom, if you like.

Two years ago, Stephen Colbert gave up Catholicism itself. As the comedian told it, he swore off Catholicism on Ash Wednesday and made it as far as Good Friday, when he went on a “Catholic bender.” His riff inverted the old saying that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. Mr. Colbert beat the pope to the punch.

In traditional parlance, Benedict’s resignation leaves the Chair of St. Peter “vacant.” So I propose that American Catholics vacate the pews this weekend.

We should seize this opportunity to ask what is true in our faith, what it costs us in obfuscation and moral compromise, and what its telos, or end purpose, really is. And we should explore other religious traditions, which we understand poorly.

For the Catholic Church, it has been “all bad news, all the time” since Benedict took office in 2005: a papal insult to Muslims; a papal embrace of a Holocaust denier; molesting by priests and cover-ups by their superiors. When the Scottish cardinal Keith O’Brien resigned on Monday amid reports of “inappropriate” conduct toward priests in the 1980s, the routine was wearingly familiar. It’s enough to make any Catholic yearn to leave the whole mess for someone else to clean up.

Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, is a theologian. He would not have stepped down if he did not think he was setting a sound precedent: a resignation prompted by physical, not institutional, weakness. That he felt free to resign suggests that he thinks the church is doing fine. But countless ordinary Catholics know otherwise.

That is why this Sunday, I won’t be at the Oratory Church of St. Boniface in Downtown Brooklyn, even though I love it there — a welcoming, open-minded, authentically religious place.

Instead, I’ll be at the Brooklyn Meeting of the Quakers, who have long invited volunteers from our church to serve food to the poor.

Or I’ll be at the Church of St. Luke and St. Matthew, an Episcopal congregation that hosted the Occupy movement’s relief efforts after Hurricane Sandy.

Or I’ll go to the Zen Mountain Monastery at Mount Tremper, in the Catskills.

Or I’ll be in Washington, with colleagues who attend Shabbat services at Georgetown, the first American Catholic university and the first (four decades ago) to engage a full-time rabbi.

Or I’ll knock on the door of the Masjid Ibadul-Rahman, a mosque on my block, or the Zion Shiloh Baptist Church, across the street, or L’Église Baptiste d’Expression Française, on the corner.

I hope and expect to return to the Oratory church the following Sunday. But I can’t be sure. To some degree, it’s out of my hands, a response to a calling.

A temporary resignation would be a fitting Lenten observance. It would help believers to purify and deepen our faith in the light of our neighbors’ — “to examine our own religious notions, to sound them for genuineness,” as the American writer Flannery O’Connor put it. It would let us begin to figure out what in Catholicism we can take and what we can and ought to leave. It might even get the attention of the cardinals who will meet behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel and elect a pope in circumstances that one hopes would augur a time of change.

And it might dispel the resignation we feel. Most ordinary believers have given up hope that the church will change its ways. But Benedict’s resignation reminds us of a truth we have known all along: change in the church can happen, even dramatically. If so hidebound an institution as the papacy can be changed, what can’t be?


==================
News Update for June 14, 2013

"Regarding the ICC, chin up!"

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY DAVID CLOHESSY ON JUNE 13, 2013

Two words of advice to anyone who might feel down about the news about our International Criminal Court complaint: “Chin up.”

This is a bump in the road. It’s far, far, far from the end of the road.

The ICC isn’t like US courts. We can, have and will go back to the ICC, submitting more and more proof, for however long it takes. At any point, the prosecutor can say “Now, we’re opening an investigation.” We are still very confident that, at some point, this will happen.

At the beginning of this historic, uphill struggle, when we filed the case (along with the superb attorneys from the Center for Constitutional Rights), we said over and over again that this would be a long-term effort, that we’d be back time and time again with more and more evidence, that the court couldn’t take action on crimes before 2002, that much of our documentation is designed to show a long-standing pattern of protecting predators and hurting children. . . .

We would add, however, three things

--that the harm being done by the Catholic hierarchy is also “enormous” and
--that the ICC has likely never been asked to investigate a global monarchy like the church, and
--that the history of this movement has been riddled with developments that were often preceded with the word “never.” (Never before 2002 was a set of bishops compelled to adopt a nationwide abuse policy.

 Never before 1997 did jurors award $119 million in a clergy sex abuse and cover up case. Never before 2012 was a US bishop criminally convicted of concealing child sex crimes. Never before 2002 was a bishop forced to post names of credibly accused child molesting clerics on his website. Never before 2003 was a civil ‘window’ opened that let victims abused at any time expose their perpetrators in court. Never before 2011 did a nation’s prime minister publicly denounce top Catholic officials. Never before yesterday did a pope admit “corruption” in the highest levels of the Vatican.)

Twenty one year old Megan Peterson of Minnesota is one brave survivor whose experiences are recounted in our ICC complaint. (Her perpetrator fled overseas to escape prosecution and is now wanted by Interpol. When he made it back to India, his bishop put him in charge of overseeing schools.)

Here’s what she said in 2001 when we filed the ICC complaint and when Megan spoke publicly of her abuse for the first time:

"When at age 15 I called the diocese to report the rapes they hung up on me."
She called on the ICC to "take this case seriously and do the right thing.
"I don’t want any more kids to go through what I went through," she said.

Here’s what Megan says today about the ICC case:

“We survivors are resilient. We take the long view. We know the institution that enables and conceals these horrors is ancient and well-entrenched while the institutions that can investigate and expose these horrors are relatively new and somewhat overwhelmed. And that’s why we will keep pushing.”

So again, this is just “round one” of a long fight. And there are other arenas, nationally and internationally, where we can pursue justice, prevent crimes and expose cover ups. We’ll certainly pursue those as well.
Finally, please be reminded that through this effort, we

--are reaching hundreds of survivors across the globe, most of whom previously felt dreadfully alone.
--have started and are starting support groups in more countries.
--have held and are holding Skype support meetings for isolated survivors scattered across the planet.
--are reaching millions of Catholics, many of whom are slowly beginning to “re-frame” this on-going crisis in a more accurate way – as a truly “from the top down” pattern of recklessness, callousness and deceit (and not as the work of “a few bad apples”).
--are stimulating a real, long-overdue debate among lawyers, judges, journalists, experts and others, a debate over how best to stop clergy sex crimes and cover ups in the world’s largest and oldest and historically most immune monarchy.
--are educating governmental authorities and NGOs across the world about the continuing committing and concealing of heinous sex? crimes by clerics.
And ultimately, more truth will be exposed, more justice will be achieved, and more children will be spared.
____    
                                                                                                                                       
(Want other examples of successes that started out looking like losses? Check out these examples from our blog in January:

More often than we can count, smart church officials and observers pooh-poohed our push for a national church abuse policy. “That will never happen,” we were repeatedly told. “That can’t happen. The church isn’t structured that way.”

Now, there is one.

More often than we can count, smart people laughed at us when we began, years ago, insisting that bishops post the names of proven admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics on their websites.

Now, 30 bishops have done this.

More often than we can count, smart people scoffed when we began, years ago, pushing the suspension of statute of limitations deadlines for a year or two.

Now, four states have done this.

We could go on and on and on.

Our point is simple: if you’re serious about protecting kids, you won’t accept the horrific status quo.

On the state and local level, we’ve seen similar progress and achievements that few would have ever thought possible:
--In Massachusetts, a predator priest was prosecuted under a law passed in the 1800s.
--In Ohio, a predator priest was nailed on one count of providing alcohol to minors.
--Dozens of predator priests have been captured in remote places and extradited to face justice back in the nation where they assaulted kids.
--A number of predator priests were given probation and are now behind bars because they violated the restrictions they were to honor.

Yes, these are predator priests, not complicit bishops. But even some members of the Catholic hierarchy have been prosecuted for concealing child sex crimes – Bishop Robert Finn in Kansas City, Msgr. William Lynn in Philadelphia, and Bishop Pierre Pican in France.

As kids, many of us were told by our perpetrators, “If you speak up, nothing will happen.”

Yet as adults, many of us have spoken and are speaking. As a result, thousands of predator priests have been exposed, suspended, charged, convicted, jailed and defrocked.

The Associated Press notes that “the odds against the court opening an investigation have been enormous.

(The ICC) prosecutor has received more than 9,700 independent proposals for inquiries since 2002, when the court was created as the world's only permanent war crimes tribunal, and has never opened a formal investigation based solely on such a request.

Hague Court Declines Inquiry Into Church Abuse Cover-Up

UNITED STATES
The New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: June 13, 2013

The International Criminal Court in The Hague has decided not to investigate or prosecute the former pope and other leaders of the Roman Catholic Church on allegations of covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests.

Victims of sexual abuse filed a complaint in 2011 asking the court to prosecute Benedict XVI, then the pope, and three other Vatican officials for what they called an international and systemic cover-up of sexual abuse that amounted to “crimes against humanity.”

The court responded in a letter dated May 31 that after analyzing the complaint, it determined that the matters “do not appear to fall within the jurisdiction of the Court.” The letter said that “some of the allegations” fell outside the court’s jurisdiction, which is to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

In addition, the case did not appear to meet the court’s time limits. For the most part, the court may prosecute only crimes committed after it was constituted in July 2002, and even though the cases submitted by the victims involved more recent allegations, some of the supporting material the victims submitted predated 2002.

International Criminal Court ...

VATICAN CITY
Washington Post
International Criminal Court dismisses abuse claims against the Vatican
By Alessandro Speciale| Religion News Service, Updated: Friday, June 14
VATICAN CITY — A campaign to hold former Pope Benedict XVI responsible for crimes against humanity floundered on Thursday (June 13) as the International Criminal Court in The Hague threw out a case filed by victims of clergy sex abuse.
The case had been presented in September 2011 by SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, accusing the pope and other senior Vatican officials of failing to stop abusive priests.
According to a SNAP statement, the court’s prosecutor’s office said on May 31 that the file presented against leaders of the Roman Catholic Church does not meet the “preconditions of the court” and thus “do not appear to fall within the (court’s) jurisdiction.”
Court officials could not be reached for comment, but The Associated Press reported that the court letter said it can only examine “the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.”

Hague court declines inquiry into church abuse cover-up

UNITED STATES
The Tech
The International Criminal Court in The Hague has decided not to investigate or prosecute the former pope and other leaders of the Roman Catholic Church on allegations of covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests.
Victims of sexual abuse filed a complaint in 2011 asking the court to prosecute Benedict XVI, then the pope, and three other Vatican officials for what they called an international and systemic cover-up of sexual abuse that amounted to “crimes against humanity.”
The court responded in a letter dated May 31 that after analyzing the complaint, it determined that the matters “do not appear to fall within the jurisdiction of the Court.” The letter said that “some of the allegations” fell outside the court’s jurisdiction, which is to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Hague prosecutor declines to investigate Vatican officials over sex abuse

UNITED STATES
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel June 13, 2013 1
The International Criminal Court at The Hague has declined to investigate Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and other Catholic leaders for the church's handling of the sexual abuse of children, the advocacy group the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests announced on Thursday.
SNAP and the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights accused the Vatican officials of crimes against humanity in a September 2011 complaint. It included three Wisconsin cases, including that of the late Father Lawrence Murphy, who is believed to have molested as many of 200 deaf boys, and the destruction of documents Dioceses of Milwaukee and Green Bay. SNAP's Midwest director, Peter Isely of Shorewood, was among the victims and advocates who traveled to the Hague in the Netherlands to support the filing and lauch a 12-city tour of Europe to draw attention to the charges.

Int'l Court Case Against Ex-Pope Fizzles

UNITED STATES
ABC News
By RACHEL ZOLL AP Religion Writer
NEW YORK June 13, 2013 (AP)
The International Criminal Court has rejected a longshot request by clergy sex abuse victims to investigate former Pope Benedict XVI and Vatican cardinals for possible crimes against humanity.
The tribunal, based in The Hague, told attorneys for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests that "there is not a basis at this time to proceed with further analysis."
"The matters described in your communication do not appear to fall within the jurisdiction of the court," a court official wrote in a May 31 letter to the Center for Constitutional Rights, the nonprofit legal group that represents the victims. The legal organization released the letter Thursday.
Jeffrey Lena, the U.S. attorney for the Vatican, had called the 2011 request to the court a "ludicrous publicity stunt."
"The common thread running through all these cases is the mistaken idea that 'everything is controlled by Rome,'" Lena said Thursday.

===================

JP2 Army 

 JOHN PAUL II PEDOPHILE PRIESTS ARMY

The Cardinals and Bishops who enabled the Vatican sex maniac rapists priests

 CSC Holy Cross Congregation delay $18 million compensation payout. Brother Andre & Saint JOSEPH giant GOLDEN COW STATUES could not help victims of CSC pedophiles http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/01/csc-holy-cross-congregation-delay-18.html



People, please STOP DONATING to the ORATORY and STOP LIGHTING CANDLES to St. Joseph and instead donate your money to Red Cross, Doctors without Borders, your local charities, and the homeless shelters of Montreal. God will listen more to your prayers in your acts of charity because they are better than material candles and money you give to the wealthy billionaire CSC religious Holy Cross family of Saint Brother Andre. If you were to face Christ on Judgement Day today, He will not ask you how many candles you have lit at the Oratory of St. Joseph, but how many poor people you have helped, as He has said, “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren, that you have also done to Me.”

  ZEUS GIANT SAINT JOSEPH did NOTHING to stop pedophile priests of the Congregation de Sainte-Croix happening right before his very eyes for 50 years

If you live in Los Angeles, or elsewhere in the USA or in the world, and are planning a “pilgrimage” to the Oratory of St. Joseph or flying to the Vatican, DON'T GO and instead DONATE that pilgrimage money to the Red Cross or your local charity - or sponsor a poor student and pay for his or her school supplies and school lunch for a year, or feed a homeless person for a year at McDonald's,  instead of flying to Montreal to see the Oratory or the Vatican Mammon Beast - and God will listen more to your prayers in your act of mercy rather feeding the Vatican Mammon Beast or St. Joseph Oratory Mammon Beast copying the Vatican Titanic sinking in moral bankruptcy. http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2012/12/oratory-of-st-joseph-copy-vatican.html

Children are better sex educated reading the Los Angles files rather than wasting their time to attend the wizardry of the Mass where priests ceaselessly reiterate those old horrid stories of extinct people in the Bible, read here the Immoral Bible http://pope-ratz.blogspot.ca/2010_12_01_archive.html. 

It’s more important and more relevant for children to know the story of Eleuterio Ramos and all JP2 Army Vatican sex maniac rapists  priests of the 20^th century - than the ancient Bible stories irrelevant mythical figures like Jonah being swallowed by a whale, read here the Los Angeles Files http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/01/los-angeles-files-mahony-must-be-jailed.html

BOYCOTT Oratory of Saint Joseph! CANDLES to giant Zeus statues of St. Joseph and Brother Andre cannot protect children from CSC pedophiles

http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/01/boycott-oratory-of-saint-joseph-candles.html

Vatican Billions: its history, sources, and assets today worldwide. BOYCOTT the Vatican Museum and boycott ALL donations to the Vatican Catholic Church Reign of Terror

http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2011/03/vatican-billions-holy-mass-tourism-for.html  

READ our latest articles:

- Vatican Last Tsar Benedict XVI resigns as Vatican Pontiff of Vatican Catholic Church. It’s deceitful to say “Roman Pontiff” of “Roman Catholic Church” is here

http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/02/vatican-last-tsar-benedict-xvi-resigns_13.html

Billion Dollar Christ & Apostles in Red now playing in Vatican. Evil impact of Papal Conclave: epidemic violence against women & perpetuity of poor countries

http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/02/billion-dollar-christ-apostles-in-red.html