[Vision2020] Richard Dawkins calls for arrest of Pope Benedict XVI

[Kenneth Marcy]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7094310.ece 

RICHARD DAWKINS, the atheist campaigner, is planning a legal ambush to 
have the Pope arrested during his state visit to Britain “for crimes 
against humanity”.

Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, have asked human 
rights lawyers to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over 
his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church.

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 Pope was embroiled in new controversy this weekend over a letter 
he signed arguing that the “good of the universal church” should be 
considered against the defrocking of an American priest who committed 
sex offences against two boys. It was dated 1985, when he was in 
charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which deals 
with sex abuse cases. 

Benedict will be in Britain between September 16 and 19, visiting 
London, Glasgow and Coventry, where he will beatify Cardinal John 
Henry Newman, the 19th-century theologian.

Dawkins and Hitchens believe the Pope would be unable to claim 
diplomatic immunity from arrest because, although his tour is 
categorised as a state visit, he is not the head of a state 
recognised by the United Nations.

They have commissioned the barrister Geoffrey Robertson and Mark 
Stephens, a solicitor, to present a justification for legal action.

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.

Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, said: “This is a man whose first 
instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to 
cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence.”

Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great, said: “This man is not above or 
outside the law. The institutionalised concealment of child rape is a 
crime under any law and demands not private ceremonies of repentance 
or church-funded payoffs, but justice and punishment."

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warrant was withdrawn after Livni cancelled her planned trip to the 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.

“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.”