Officer, Arrest That Pope!

@Diest TKO,

Certainly is. The only truly all-powerful monarch in Europe and a rare example of a non-hereditary monarchy. He is not head of the Holy See though.

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@roger,

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So, how many divisions does the Pope have? I think it was Stalin who asked first, but still waiting on the answer.

He has the Swiss Guard who are catholic volunteers from the young men of the Swiss army. They are fully trained modern soldiers despite the get up and their recruitment is left over from the high days of Renaissance mercenaries.

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@Diest TKO,

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Technically speaking, I don't believe the Pope is the Vatican's head of state. I think this is a common misconception.

Who is the head of state ?
Anyway, the Pope as a Cardinal has diplomatic immunity. He could murder someone in front of a thousand witnesses in a country that recognises the Vatican and he couldnt be arrested. That may be different if he was a citizen of a country that didnt recognise the Vatican as a country and comitted the murder there.

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The Pope is ex officio head of state and head of government of Vatican City, functions dependent on his primordial function as bishop of the diocese of Rome. The term Holy See refers not to the Vatican state but to the Pope's spiritual and pastoral governance, largely exercised through the Roman Curia.[17] His official title with regard to Vatican City is Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City.

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

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@Eorl,

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the one the United Nations refused to have as a member on the grounds of not being a state?

The State of the Vatican City has observer STATE status at the UN. Ther are only about a dozen countries in the world that dont recognise it as a state...eg..China, North Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos and a couple of African countries.

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@Ionus,

From the article:

“There is every possibility of legal action against the Pope occurring,” said Stephens. “Geoffrey and I have both come to the view that the Vatican is not actually a state in international law. It is not recognised by the UN, it does not have borders that are policed and its relations are not of a full diplomatic nature.”

"Geoffrey" is the kind of man who defends Salman Rushdie.

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@Eorl,

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It is not recognised by the UN

It is recognised by the UN. It has observer State status. Only a dozen countries do not recognise it as a state.

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it does not have borders

It has borders with Italy that have been agreed upon and formalised into law.

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that are policed

It has a gendarmerie and a military.

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its relations are not of a full diplomatic nature.

It issues passports and during WWII had embassies inside its country that were recognised by Britain and Germany amongst others. Not maintaining full diplomatic status with all countries is meaningless as that changes with all countries from time to time. Nauru and Monaco are examples of small countries that dont have a lot of embassies. Israel has status and it has very very few extradition treaties with other countries.

Germany is the only country that might prove a link between when the Pope was a bishop there and allowing child molesters to escape the law, and they have already recognised Vatican City. There are many countries that would not support such a move and a lot of heads of state would not either. The only precedent is crimes against humanity, an evolution of WWII war crimes, and that wont wash in this instance.

Stephen Hawkings was grandstanding on a suggestion by a retired Australian court judge, the original meaning of which was that it MIGHT be possible for Germany to charge him, but it would never be legal to arrest him and bring him to trial. He would simply be expelled from the country, persona non grata . Certainly crimes against humanity charges would never stick and make a mockery of their intent.

The pair believe they can exploit the same legal principle used to arrest Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator, when he visited Britain in 1998. This was based on extradition treaties with spain and as an ex-head of state he did not have diplomatic immunity. The crime will be dated 1985, when the Pope was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which deals with sex abuse cases.

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The pair believe they can exploit the same legal principle used to arrest Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator, when he visited Britain in 1998. The lawyers believe they can ask the Crown Prosecution Service to initiate criminal proceedings against the Pope, launch their own civil action against him or refer his case to the International Criminal Court. Last year pro-Palestinian activists persuaded a British judge to issue an arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni, the Israeli politician, for offences allegedly committed during the 2008-09 conflict in Gaza. The warrant was withdrawn after Livni cancelled her planned trip to the UK.

Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1265151/Richard-Dawkins-plans-arrest-Pope-crimes-humanity.html#ixzz0l22sI1EY

As a sideline The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is the name which the Office of the Inquisition changed to, but it was a name change only. It still bans books and works from the same building.

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@dlowan,

Getting arrested?

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@Ionus,

Ionus wrote:

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It is not recognised by the UN
It is recognised by the UN. It has observer State status. Only a dozen countries do not recognise it as a state.

Then it doesn't have the status of "State" by the UN.
That's the legal loophole they plan to exploit.
You think it won't work, and I think you're probably right, but they are certainly making the attempt, (or at least a threat to do so) and I applaud the sentiment.

Frankly I don't think anyone should have such an immunity for any reason.

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@Eorl,

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Then it doesn't have the status of "State" by the UN.

The status of observer state means it doesnt have voting rights but is there for diplomatic engagement.

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Non-member observer states are recognized as sovereign entities, and are free to submit a petition to join as a full member at their discretion. For example, Switzerland was a permanent observer state from 1948 to 2002, until becoming a full member on September 10, 2002. Currently, the only such state, the Holy See, is described as a "Non-member State having received a standing invitation to participate as observer in the sessions and the work of the General Assembly and maintaining permanent observer mission at Headquarters".

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

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Frankly I don't think anyone should have such an immunity for any reason.

I strongly agree. I would like to see everyone who committed, aided and abetted these heinous crimes in gaol for a long time.

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@Ionus,

That's the Holy See, not the Vatican.

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@Eorl,

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That's the Holy See, not the Vatican.

It is compex so I hope I dont confuse myself, but the Holy See is the Spiritual Decision Maker AND the Government of the State of the Vatican City. Foriegn affairs is one of the duties of the Holy See as it would be for any other government. I would liken it to the State of the USA whilst referring to Government as the Congress, but in this instance the Congress would also be a Body for deciding and legislating spiritual matters. The President would be the Head of Government, the Head of Spritiual matters, and the Head of State. He would also hold absolute power in all matters.

So the Pope is the head of the State of Vatican City (President) , Head (Prime Minister/ President) of the Holy See (Government) , and Head (Spiritual Leader) of the Holy See (Religious matters) .

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@Ionus,

The official list of titles of the Pope, in the order in which they are given in the Annuario Pontificio, is: Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the State of Vatican City, Servant of the Servants of God.[43]

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@Eorl,

It might interest you to know that one of his titles, Vicar of Jesus Christ, is blasphemy. It used to be the Vicar of St Peter and this meant a spiritual and authoritative descendant of Peter. It would also mean a priest who could seceed Peter and hear his confession and so on. When this was changed to the Vicar of Christ, it implied a spiritual and authoritative descendant of Jesus. This is balsphemy and the catholic church has ummed and arrred about this with what amounts to smoke and mirrors. In its essential meaning it is blasphemy.

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@Eorl,

A small aside, Eorl:

That is one of the terrific thread titles!
Makes me smile each time I see it. Smile

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@Eorl,

Eorl wrote:

Dawkins is distancing himself a little from this already, but I say, why not arrest the bastard?

1) Dawkins isn't distancing himself from it at all. (a) He's only rebutting a few specifics of how what Times said he did. Being a Murdoch paper, he says, the Times made a good part of it up in the first place. Here's a link to his rebuttal. (b) He is enthusiastically affirming the principle of the campaign in this recent Guardian article.

2) Indeed, why not arrest the bastard? It would probably set a bad precedent of international law. (Imagine the Saudi government throwing Hillary Clinton in jail for not wearing a head scarf, which is a crime under Saudi law.) But it's obvious to me that popes covering up the raping of altar boys for PR reasons is as unacceptable as secretaries of education covering up the raping of students for PR reasons would be. So even if it's a bad idea for Britain to act on the arrest-the-pope idea, it's a Good Thing(TM) people are talking about it.

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@Eorl,

Eorl wrote:

Then it doesn't have the status of "State" by the UN.

The UN's view is irrelevant to the legalities of arresting him in Britain, though, which is what people are suggesting. Britain has recognized the Vatican as a country.

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@Ionus,

Ionus wrote:

a suggestion by a retired Australian court judge, the original meaning of which was that it MIGHT be possible for Germany to charge him, but it would never be legal to arrest him and bring him to trial. He would simply be expelled from the country, persona non grata . [.

charging him in every country where it's possible would be enough for me - if it would keep him from travelling and infecting more people - keep him nicely tucked inside Vatican City

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@ehBeth,

i could live with that

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@ehBeth,

well, I suppose that would leave him to exploit 3rd world nations but then he seems to do well with that anyway.

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@Thomas,

Well if that's the case, that'd tear it.

1 Reply

Officer, Arrest That Pope!

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