Will the rot in the catholic church ever end?

Politics International Politics
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Pope immunity request won’t stop abuse case-lawyer

18.08.05 1.00pm

By Shasta Darlington

ROME - A US lawyer said on Wednesday he will press ahead with a lawsuit alleging Pope Benedict conspired to cover up the abuse of three boys by a seminary student in Texas, despite the Pontiff’s request for diplomatic immunity.

“This diplomatic move has stopped the suit right in its early stages,” Daniel Shea, who represents one of three plaintiffs in the unprecedented civil suit, told Reuters.

“But there are various avenues we can go down depending on what the (US) State Department does next,” he said, adding that he hoped to take a deposition from the Pope as early as the end of this year.

The Vatican’s embassy in Washington filed a request in May for the US government to declare immunity for Pope Benedict as a head of state, according to documents provided by Shea.

Shea called a news conference in Rome on Wednesday to announce that he would pursue the case. On Tuesday, he took part in a demonstration organised by Italy’s Radical Party urging President George W. Bush to refuse the Pope’s immunity request.

The suit alleging the boys were abused in the mid-1990s was filed in June last year. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was named as a defendant in the case in January, four months before he was elected Pope John Paul’s successor on April 19.

Ratzinger is accused of conspiring with the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston to cover up the alleged abuse by seminary student Juan Carlos Patino-Arango. US courts have issued an arrest warrant for Patino-Arango, who is on the run.

continues… nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_i … D=10341358

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Hardly surprising; the Catholic Church is corrupt and rotten to the core. Given that plenty have been strung up in the name of the Pope, perhaps it is time for the reverse to happen.

I wonder if the Pope is a member of NAMBLA…plenty of his flock probably are.

Thieves and murderers and with their own country to boot.

BroonAtheist

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[quote=“BroonAle”]Hardly surprising; the Catholic Church is corrupt and rotten to the core. Given that plenty have been strung up in the name of the Pope, perhaps it is time for the reverse to happen.

I wonder if the Pope is a member of NAMBLA…plenty of his flock probably are.

Thieves and murderers and with their own country to boot.

BroonAtheist[/quote]
In fairness to the Catholic Church and the Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, was NOT trying to cover things up. His memo to the Archdiocese was directing it to cooperate with his own office in the Vatican in the Church’s internal investigation of the matter.

The interpretation in yesterday’s media blitz that Ratzinger was trying to aid and abet a coverup is spin put out by the attorneys who are suing the Catholic Church for damages.

Ratzinger was pressuring the Church to do more to restrict and expel molesting priests during the last few years. Comments I’ve seen from Catholics seem to indicate that they have a realistic expectation he is going to “clean house”.