Skeletons in the Vatican's cupboard

Tag: england

On the cover of our current issue, we have Martin Rowson's cheerful depiction of a policeman arresting the Pope on his arrival in the UK later this year. It relates to a couple of items inside the magazine.

Firstly, there's the result of our April poll, which asked if the Pope does have a case to answer over the child abuse cover-ups. 10,745 people voted, and the results were as follows.

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Do you think the Pope should face legal action over the Catholic child abuse cover-ups?

51% - Yes. This cover-up appears to go to the very top and its perpetrators must face justice.

22% - Yes. While it's unlikely the Pope will end up in the dock, suggestion of a legal challenge during his UK visit will draw attention to the extent of the cover-up.

13% - No. This is about many individual, horrific cases of abuse spread over decades. It is a distraction to try and attribute responsibility to one man.

1% - No. This looks like atheist posturing. We need to join with Catholics in calling on the Vatican to come clean on this issue, and talk of arresting the Pope will just alienate them

The second piece of content the arrested Benedict related to was a column by Richard Wilson, author of Don't Get Fooled Again: A Sceptic's Handbook, which I've just put online now. Richard says that the Catholic Church's disregard for secular legal authorities in relation to child abuse cover-ups is replicated in relation to many other serious legal matters around the world. Focussing on the Church's record in Africa, he points out that the Vatican has a very serious case to answer regarding the actions of some of its representatives in helping to protect war criminals.

It's a fascinating and disturbing take on the Catholic Church and what Richard calls its "murky relationship with the rule of law", and shows that child abuse isn't the only issue on which we should be holding the Church to account.

http://blog.newhumanist.org.uk/2010/0...board.html