Thursday, April 15, 2010

I have only seen the headlines

Based on the headlines alone, I am going to form an opinion. Then I'll go read the articles and see if it changes.

Apparently, atheists have demanded that the Pope be arrested in connection with the sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church. I should say, the recent ones.

The headlines are as such:

"Atheists Demand Pope's Arrest in UK" (I think that means that some atheists in the UK have called for the Pope's arrest.)

"Atheist Richard Dawkins backs campaign to arrest Pope"

"Atheist writer Richard Dawkins wants criminal case vs. Pope Benedict XVI for sex abuse scandal"

"Richard Dawkins calls for arrest of Pope Benedict XVI"

What I am thinking is that Prof. Dawkins is trying to draw some public attention to this case from a perspective outside the protective shell of religion and the Vatican's own manner of handling "internal disciplinary issues." In a criminal justice sense, there must be some liability, somewhere, in this whole mess. I'm guessing he's thinking about this as a long-term, systematic abuse of human rights, and thinks that someone should be held accountable to some entity other than the Vatican.
Here's what the Vatican has to say:

"Vatican spokesman: Atheist campaign to arrest Pope is publicity stunt"

Well, duh.

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