Photo: Alessio85

For years, I've wondered why Roman Catholics don't demand that Ratzi resign as their pope. But, then again, I'm still trying to figure out why they don't go after the Cardinals and Archbishops who protect child raping priests too.

From The Freethinker 2/12/03:

THE Catholic Church has become mired down in yet another child abuse scandal – this time in Pope Ratzinger’s native Germany.

The widening public scandal began last month with allegations that three priests at the elite Canisius Jesuit high school in Berlin had sexually abused students in the 1970s and ’80s.

In the midst of a steadily growing uproar over the handling of that case, German magazine Der Spiegel published an article last weekend that said nearly 100 clerics and laypeople had been suspected of abusing children and teenagers nationwide since 1995.

According to this report, the rector of Aloisiuskolleg, a high school in Bad Godesberg – an affluent neighbourhood in the former capital of Bonn where diplomats and leading politicians lived – this week resigned over accusations that he was aware of sexual misconduct by teachers at the school.

Many of the cases now coming to light are unlikely to be prosecuted because the statute of limitations requires crimes to be reported within 10 years of the victim’s 18th birthday.

The last paragraph is sadly typical. Priestly child molestation generally isn't even addressed by law enforcement or the media until it's too late to prosecute. Meanwhile, priests continue to rape Catholic kids, and nothing is being done to protect the victims.

I remember reading rightist Catholics from Europe, and some from here in the US, acting like the rampant rape of Catholic children by the Roman Catholic clergy was an "American problem." Some commentators here in the US tried to blame molestation by a nutty rightist clergy on liberals. The facts don't support this kind of denial.

These latest revelations also makes Ratzi's ranting against the UK's queer equality laws even more bizarre. Even without his efforts to protect priests who rape kids, this quote from The Guardian would be bizarre.

"The effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal [of equality] has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed."

Under the last pontiff, Ratzi was in charge of a variety of policies one of which included the effort to protect child molesting priests, a policy that goes on to this very day. The far right's meme of "natural law" always has been suspect, given how far it is astray from biological evidence or even basic logic, but Ratzi has taken things to ridiculous extremes.

Only a true psychopath would think that raping kids is OK under "natural law," but sex among consenting adults of the same gender is not.

His Oppressiveness then goes on to demand that Roman Catholic priests in Britain must meddle in politics, using time and energy that should be used protect Catholic children there from being raped by many within their ranks.

"Continue to insist upon your right to participate in national debate through respectful dialogue with other elements in society. In doing so, you are not only maintaining long-standing British traditions of ­freedom of expression and honest exchange of opinion, but are giving voice to the convictions of many people who lack the means to express them: when so many of the population claim to be Christian, how could anyone dispute the gospel's right to be heard?" he said.

"If the full saving message of Christ is to be presented effectively and convincingly to the world, the Catholic community in your country needs to speak with a united voice. This requires not only you, the bishops, but also priests, teachers, catechists, writers – in short, all who are engaged in the task of communicating the gospel – to be attentive to the promptings of the spirit, who guides the whole church into the truth, gathers her into unity and inspires her with missionary zeal."

Ratzi really is a monster. He makes his celebrity doppelganger, the evil Emperor from Star Wars, seem like a real softy. There simply isn't any way that an honest person can call this pontiff a "moral leader."