THE TELEGRAPH – BLOG: What will happen when Pope Benedict XVI comes to Britain in September? At Westminster Cathedral they’re dreading the visit, terrified of an anti-papal protest. Already, Peter Tatchell and his Protest the Pope campaign have pledged to picket all venues on the papal tour. Public embarrassment is their weapon of choice.
Christopher Hitchens, writer, wit, and the passionate atheist who has made a fortune out of his best-selling God is Not Great, has plans of his own. He has consulted Geoffrey Robertson QC and Mark Stephens, the human rights lawyer, to mount a legal case to arrest the Pope.
The case, as Mark Stephens has explained to me, hinges on the papal oaths of secrecy that, since the 1960s, were extracted from children, priests and bishops (backed by a threat of excommunication) when abuse cases came up before church authorities. These oaths, Hitchens maintains, have obstructed the course of justice: priests were not handed over to civil authorities to determine whether they were innocent of the charges laid against them, or guilty and therefore punishable by law.
For Robertson and Stephens, this is a crime against humanity and could be tried by the International Criminal Court; but, in what would be an echo of the General Augusto Pinochet case, they see a chance to bring the Pope to trial here in the UK. If a survivor of priestly abuse hands over evidence regarding his abuse to a magistrate, the Pope will be required to appear in court. The Vatican to date has claimed that Benedict enjoys immunity from prosecution, as a head of state. But, Stephens argues, the Pope is not the head of a nation state but of a Church and of a city state, the Vatican.
Stephens says that Hitchens is determined to see the Pope in court, though progress on the case has stalled, as the volcanic ash has kept the triumvirate apart – Hitchens in America, Robertson in Australia, and Stephens here. Read on and comment >>> Cristina Odone | Monday, April 19, 2010
