LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) While past allegations involving a small number of priests sexually abusing children continue to make the news, Christopher Hitchens, self-proclaimed atheist, is continuing to cry, "Citizen's arrest!" concerning Pope Benedict XVI. In an editorial for a Newsweek magazine the leader of an ad-hoc Papal posse insisted that the Pope must be more forthcoming with information about wrongdoing in parishes.
In this most recent attack on the Pope and the Catholic Church, Hitchens continues to completely misrepresent the role of the Holy Father. He reveals a serious misunderstanding of the ecclesiology of the Church. He also fails to accurately deal with the scope of any crimes committed.
"The case for bringing the head of the Catholic hierarchy within the orbit of law is easily enough made'" Hitchens writes. "All it involves is the ability to look at a naked emperor and ask the question 'Why?' Mentally remove his papal vestments and imagine him in a suit, and Joseph Ratzinger becomes just a Bavarian bureaucrat who has failed in the only task he was ever set-that of damage control."
Hitchens then reveals his strategy for bringing the Pope to purported justice.
"As this became horribly obvious, I telephoned a distinguished human-rights counsel in London, Geoffrey Robertson, and asked him if the law was powerless to intervene. Not at all, was his calm reply. If His Holiness tries to travel outside his own territory - as he proposes to travel to Britain in the fall-there is no more reason for him to feel safe than there was for the once magnificently uniformed General Pinochet, who had passed a Chilean law that he thought would guarantee his own immunity, but who was visited by British bobbies all the same," Hitchens writes.
In addition to his other gross miscalculations, Hitches doesn't get it right concerning the actions and fate of General Augusto Pinochet. He neglects the history of what exactly transpired with the house arrest of the Chilean dictator which became both a political and legal watershed, a part to this story that Hitchens fails to mention.
While visiting London in 1998 for medical treatment, Pinochet was put under house arrest for his participation in the torture and murder of Chilean citizens under his rule. After 16 long months of political bickering, Pinochet was allowed to return to Chile in March of 2000. The case never went to trial.
What Hitchens suggests in his alleged plan of action concerning the Pope amounts to little more than an empty gesture that would tie up judicial systems. Detaining the Pope would be a dramatic move that would amplify tensions, severely polarize people and make the situation far worse.
While the Catholic Church is acknowledging abuses by a small number of priests - and even Bishops - in the past - and dealing with all of the implications of such horror - a "house arrest" of the Pope would serve no purpose. It would not help to bring abusive priests to justice or assist in helping the victims. It is clearly a publicity effort which Hitchins wants to keep pushing wherever he can find a venue.
We are eager to hear what Hitchen's strategy will be in addressing the problem of sexual abuse within the school systems of the United States, the United Kingdom and in other parts of the world. Or has he simply chosen to engage in religious discrimination by only picking on the Catholic Church?
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