From: ouko joachim omolo
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2011
An attempt by international group for victims of sexual abuse by priests to sue Pope Benedict XVI through the International Crime Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity won’t go further-Abuse victims sue pope for crimes against humanity.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said it had filed a complaint calling on the court to “take action and prosecute the Pope” for “direct and superior responsibility for the crimes against humanity of rape and other sexual violence committed around the world.”
In a statement, SNAP said members from Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and the US had travelled to The Hague to urge prosecutors to investigate the pope.
They also asked for three high-ranking Vatican officials — Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, his predecessor Angelo Sodano and the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, US William Levada — to be investigated. The SNAP members were accompanied by lawyers from the non-profit US Centre for Constitutional Rights.
The US-based victims network submitted more than 20,000 pages of supporting materials including “reports, policy papers, and evidence of the crimes by Catholic clergy committed against children and vulnerable adults,” it said.
“Crimes against tens of thousands of victims, most of them children, are being covered up by officials at the highest level of the Vatican. In this case, all roads really do lead to Rome,” the centre’s lawyer Pam Spees said in the statement few minutes ago.
While it is true as Dr Pravin Thevathasan, a UK consultant psychiatrist writes in his book, with experience of working with sex offenders and their victims, it acknowledges the failures of the Church and the real suffering of victims, the Pope is not to blame for the abuse.
The Pope will argue on the grounds that the crisis was not one of “paedophile priests” but largely of homosexual priests, with the vast majority of cases involving adolescent and pubescent boys rather than pre-pubescent children.
He will also argue that celibacy is not to blame as abuse figures of Catholic clergy compare similarly with clergy in other religions and denominations in which clerics can marry.
The fact that the abuse of children is far from uncommon in society and, ultimately, abusive priests come from this society and not because of celibacy rule is one of the reasons the argument that the candidates for the priesthood must be selected with care to avoid future abuses.
Since the Catholic sexual abuse crisis erupted a decade ago, there have been numerous attempts to explain its causes, from a lack of fidelity to an over-emphasis on celibacy and clerical privilege.
People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
P O Box 14877
Nairobi
00800, Westlands
Kenya
Tel +254-7350-14559/+254-722-623-578
E-mail- ppa@africaonline.co.ke
omolo.ouko@gmail.com
Website: www.peopleforpeaceafrica.org