Richard Dawkins is Not Arresting the Pope

So where are the British libel laws when we need them. A lawsuit against the paper that printed that article ought to go a long way towards paying the legal fees for our suit.

Motto of Faux News (and all of Murdoch’s media): No lie is too big to tell. No truth is too big to bury.

Damn, I wish Dawkins would arrest the Pope. The guy is a sick bastard.

Charles Minus, that is an excellent point. Im no lawyer, much less an English citizen, but it seems to me that there would be a case for libel.

The problem is that Murdoch has such deep pockets. Trying to sue him would be like spitting into the wind.

I think it silly for people like us to call for the Popes resignation. Obviously none of us are Catholic, so we rightly have no say in their organization. I hope he stays. He could be a great force for getting people to leave the church.

Am I the only one wondering why he is “unfit for his position”?

He’s a perfect fit for his position. He’s a lying, immoral, Nazi sack of shit. Who would be a better leader for the Catholic church than that?

Honestly, I’m still hoping that Pope Palpatine is brought up on charges as an accessory after the fact.

Language stickler alert!

Dawkings “admitted” nothing. He stated that the story was untrue.

In order for him to have “admitted” that it was untrue, he would have had to make the initial claim. He did no such thing. The story that he was personally going to attempt to arrest the Pope was not true, and there is therefore nothing for Dawkins to “admit.”
He simply responded to the falsehood by stating the truth.

I think anyone who critizes the RCC for a cover-up is either ignorant or a hypocrite and hate monger. It is not an institutional problem, but a human problem.

Attacking a institution shows how ignorant they are about the topic. Why weren’t they yelling for the arrests of the leaders of the UN when it came to light about the child sex abuse within that organization? Why aren’t they yelling for the arrest of the leading political and business leaders of the tourist industry in the Caribbean when it came to light how they are involved in child sex abuse.

The commercialization of child sex abuse in the tourism sector in some Caribbean territories is becoming an escalating problem, according to a recent study commissioned by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

And the study by UNICEF suggests that regional politicians, senior professionals and businessmen are part of the practice of selling and buying sex in business transactions that are underpinned by the exploitation and abuse of young children.

The report, titled `Perceptions of, Attitudes to and Opinions on Child Sexual Abuse in the Eastern Caribbean’ cites the tourist industry in the region as an area where the proclivity for deviant sexual practices by visitors to the region has been ‘packaged’ by service providers in various forms of emerging child abuse including the use of boys to provide sexual services to cruise ship passengers. Why aren’t the attackers of the RCC yelling for the their heads?

The study also found evidence of a lucrative market for child sex tourism alluding to ‘several specific examples of an organized pedophile network,” in which it found that “boys were a specific target.” Why aren’t the atheists yelling for the their heads?

The report presents what it says is “an alarming picture of a social problem that is escalating, has increasingly severe consequences for Caribbean societies, has multiple layers and is perpetuated not only by adults who carry out harmful sexual practices with children but also by non-abusing adults through complicity, silence, denial and failure to take appropriate action.”

I guarantee a majority of those attacking the RCC know someone in their family who has been molested and won’t speak up or are child molesters themselves.

Hey ignorant people wake up!! The fact is that most victims of child sex abuse stay silent, whether they are abused at church by a clergy member or, more commonly, at home by a relative or family friend. That’s by Susan Nielsen of The Oregonian, not me.

At least one in five girls and one in 10 boys experiences unwanted sexual touching or other sex abuse, based on federal data and research cited by the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Most of the bad actors in these cases are not priests or pastors. They are stepfathers, family friends, fathers and neighbors.

What is it about truth that people don’t understand?

Also, until recently, most state laws enforced a tight window of time during which victims could successfully seek justice. The statute of limitations would close while victims were still in their teens or early 20s, typically unprepared and ill-equipped to take on the authority figure who abused them. Why aren’t the RCC attackers banging on the door of State capitals demanding these laws be changed?

Ignorant people don’t realize that this is a social problem that brings to light flaws in the human and social character and this is where the problem must be attacked. But then again the attackers of the RCC don’t care about child sex abuse, they care about attacking the RCC.

Swampfox, as Muggle pointed out, some of your comparisons are not apt. However, you are correct that sexual abuse is disturbingly common, and most often carried out by family members. I’m baffled as to how you could possibly think that this makes the RCC’s policies of covering up sexual abuse, and placing known abusers in places where they could continue to rape children somehow acceptable. If it was discovered that the Pope had murdered someone, would you just shrug your shoulders and say, “Well, murders happens all the time. Most murders aren’t carried out by the pope. Why are all you RCC-bashers focusing on this particular murder?” Pointing out that sexual abuse is common, and in most cases, not carried out by priests, is exactly the same “logic” (and I use that word loosely).

I would suggest that if you actually want to defend the actions of the RCC, it would make more sense to explain why the RCC policies in question are not morally repulsive, rather than deflect attention by pointing out other morally repulsive behavior. However, I understand that since the RCC’s actions are indefensible, deflecting attention is really the only option that you have.

Ignorant people don’t realize that this is a social problem that brings to light flaws in the human and social character and this is where the problem must be attacked.

What the fuck? This is just a random social problem, that has nothing to do with the RCC at all? As many people have explained, the issue is not the abuse per se. There are child molestors in any organization. The issue is that most organizations don’t feel free to cover up the child molestation from civil authorities, and then place known child molestors in positions where they can continue to rape children. What makes me absolutely furious is that it’s people like you that enable the RCC to continue to act the way that it does. It knows that it can do things like this because its members won’t hold them accountable, and will make excuses for them no matter how groteqsquely repulsive and morally indefensible their behavior.

Greg,

(5) The Church claims to have an absolute knowledge of morality – if you want to take it in that simplistic sense – but it has NEVER claimed to be absolutely moral. I have no idea where atheists get such a stupid idea from. In fact, priests, bishops and Popes have from time immemorial been emphasizing that the Church is made up of sinners – even Benedict himself said that several times recently.

Secondly, the Vatican does not “interfere rough-shod” in other countries any more than liberal lobbies do. In fact, history shows that it is the Vatican that has always been handled rough-shod by the State since the Roman Empire.

(8-9) Perhaps, you should get off your high horse and apply that moral to yourself. Before throwing stones at the Pope (or asking for the Pope to be arrested), consider all the other abuse cases in society first. When you have dealt with all of them, then do you have any right to direct inciendiary comments and actions (including arrest) against the Pope.

If you are aware of a crime being committed and you do not report it, you become an accessory after the fact. If you protect the criminal and assist in concealing the crime, you are guilty of aiding and abetting.

Either Ratzinger should be arrested and tried or let’s have official recognition that yes, some people are above the laws that apply to the rest of us.

Sympathy for him aside, either there is equal justice under e law or the legal fiction of a fair and just society has been a sham.