# Archbishop Compares Criticisms Of Pope To Jesus' Sufferings **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 30, 2010, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289 "2010-03-30T02:02:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289/41 "2010-03-30T17:09:42Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > Can you sue the Pope? Unlikely - head of state and all. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289/42 "2010-03-30T17:15:01Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > Can you sue the Pope? An interesting question. As Pope, Joseph Ratzinger is a head of state, so has sovereign immunity. By the rules of his state, he has that position for life, so (unless he abdicates), you can’t wait for his term of office to end. I don’t know enough about German and Bavarian law to know if you can sue the Archbishop of Munich and Freising for acts that he has performed in his official capacity, or if any possibility of suing him is effectively extinguished if he become head of state of the Holy See. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289/43 "2010-03-30T18:00:07Z")
[Vatican defends pope in US lawsuit](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100330/ap_on_re_eu/eu_the_vatican_s_defense) > [@](#): > > The Vatican is launching a legal defense that the church hopes will shield the pope from a lawsuit in Kentucky seeking to have him deposed over claims that the Holy See was negligent in failing to report abuse claims. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289/44 "2010-03-30T18:22:38Z")
Now now. The poor Pope has his hands full condemning the real crimes of the world: gay sex, IVF and birth control. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289/45 "2010-03-30T18:56:27Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > Now now. > > The poor Pope has his hands full condemning the real crimes of the world: gay sex, IVF and birth control. You forgot keeping those pesky and uppity women down. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289/46 "2010-03-30T19:12:58Z")
> [@eleanorigby](#): > > You forgot keeping those pesky and uppity women down. And that’s just the nuns! ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289/47 "2010-03-30T19:26:56Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > Only if you think that these abuse cases make up a large percentage of “things the Church is handling”. You don’t see why people can think that, all things considered, the Church handles things pretty well? What _does_ it handle well? It’s a pretty good conservator of objects of historic significance, but nobody’s allowed to look at them. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289/48 "2010-03-30T19:28:09Z")
it has a kick-ass pron collection, so I hear… ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289/49 "2010-03-30T19:51:06Z")
There is a reason the book of Peterphile is non-canonical gospel. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289/50 "2010-03-30T20:46:58Z")
> [@Pope Ratzi](#): > > Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen. **For instance me, since I was complicit in quickly sending at least one child molesting priest back to his duties where he could (and did) repeat his crimes.** (bolded addition = wishful thinking) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289/51 "2010-03-30T20:53:21Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > [Vatican defends pope in US lawsuit](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100330/ap_on_re_eu/eu_the_vatican_s_defense) Thisi doesn’t make sense: why defend the Pope from a charge they aren’t in jurisdiction to bring? I still think the Church was just stupid, and thought they could handle this crap by themselves, and then it snowballed into not wanting to let people know how poorly they had done. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289/52 "2010-03-30T20:59:32Z")
Christopher Hitchens, on the “Morning Joe” show: > [@](#): > > A school for children who can only use sign language. 200 of them have their childhoods completely wrecked by this priest, and entreaties are addressed to the man who is now Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger, the man who was saying at the time that the only problem with the scandal was there was a press campaign against the church. The abuse was not the problem, the torture the rape; only the revelation of it. Nothing happens except that he forgives the priest who asked for forgiveness before he dies. … > I wrote then and I believe now that the fatal taint went straight to the top at that point, and now we have as head of the church someone who’s personally as well institutionally responsible for knowing of this, covering it up and protecting, not the children, but the predators. … The breaking point just came, when it became obvious from reports from Munich, and reports from Wisconsin, and reports now from Verona, in Italy, that the man who is now calling himself the Pope was the person individually responsible for the coverup. The Vatican and its defenders have lashed out at the New York Times, who broke the stories on the most recent scandals, accusing them of orchestrating a plot to bring down the Pope. That is their main concern, not justice, not the clear difference between right and wrong, but lashing out at those who dare question them. Christopher Hitchens again, from his Salon editorial: > [@](#): > > This is what makes the scandal an institutional one and not a matter of delinquency here and there. The church needs and wants control of the very young and asks their parents to entrust their children to certain “confessors,” who until recently enjoyed enormous prestige and immunity. It cannot afford to admit that many of these confessors, and their superiors, are calcified sadists who cannot believe their luck. Nor can it afford to admit that the church regularly abandoned the children and did its best to protect and sometimes even promote their tormentors. So instead it is whiningly and falsely asserting that all charges against the pope—none of them surfacing except from within the Catholic community—are part of a plan to embarrass him. > This hasn’t been true so far, but it ought to be true from now on. This grisly little man is not above or outside the law. He is the titular head of a small state. We know more and more of the names of the children who were victims and of the pederasts who were his pets. This is a crime under any law (as well as a sin), and crime demands not sickly private ceremonies of “repentance,” or faux compensation by means of church-financed payoffs, but justice and punishment. maybe “Hitch” should have been pope instead. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289/53 "2010-03-30T21:01:02Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Thisi doesn’t make sense: why defend the Pope from a charge they aren’t in jurisdiction to bring? Presumably they are suing in relation to events that took place in Kentucky, and they are including the Pope as the supervisor of clergy employed by the Catholic Church. The linked article says, > [@](#): > > In the Kentucky suit, the men argued that U.S. diocesan bishops were employees of the Holy See, and that Rome was therefore responsible for their alleged wrongdoing in failing to report abuse. If the events took place in Kentucky (the article doesn’t make that clear), the court has jurisdiction over the clergy involved, and probably the relevant diocese, but it may be hard to link the Holy See into the action, partly because it may be hard to prove an employer-employee relationship between the Holy See and the pedophile clergy. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289/54 "2010-03-30T21:06:50Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Thisi doesn’t make sense: why defend the Pope from a charge they aren’t in jurisdiction to bring? You have a point in that since the Pope is not a U.S. citizen (and can even be thought of as a head of state), the parties in Kentucky may not have grounds to bring the suit and force the Pope’s deposition. However, there is quasi-legal loophole regarding foreign nationals that the U.S. has begun using in the past few years. It is possible that we could use this procedure in order to find out just exactly what the Pope knew and when he knew it. What’s the loophole? It’s called gitmo. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289/55 "2010-03-30T21:17:56Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > You have a point in that since the Pope is not a U.S. citizen (and can even be thought of as a head of state), the parties in Kentucky may not have grounds to bring the suit and force the Pope’s deposition. The fact that Joseph Ratzinger is not a U.S. citizen is irrelevant. Suppose the next pope were a U.S. citizen: it would have no effect on the suit, unless that pope were involved in some other way, e.g., as being a former bishop of a diocese where sexual abuse was alleged. What would possible be relevant are the pope as head of state of the Holy See, and the fact that the Holy See does not directly employ the clergy in dioceses and archdioceses outside the Vatican City. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289/56 "2010-03-30T21:23:03Z")
OK. But can we waterboard him, anyway? ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289/57 "2010-03-30T21:26:53Z")
Ugh. These people are deeply sinful and immoral, and anybody who supports them or tries to carry water for them is deeply sinful and immoral as well. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289/58 "2010-03-30T21:43:35Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > Ugh. These people are deeply sinful and immoral, and anybody who supports them or tries to carry water for them is deeply sinful and immoral as well. > [@](#): > > [BBC NEWS | Americas | Excerpts: Vatican document](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3157859.stm) > … They will also be able to transfer him to another [assignment], unless the Ordinary of the place has forbidden it because he has already accepted the denunciation and has begun the inquisition. … Because, however, what is treated in these cases has to have a greater degree of care and observance so that those same matters be pursued in a most secretive way, and, after they have been defined and given over to execution, they are to be restrained by a perpetual silence, each and everyone pertaining to the tribunal in any way or admitted to knowledge of the matters because of their office, is to observe the strictest secret… under the penalty of excommunication. > The oath of keeping the secret must be given in these cases also by the accusers of those denouncing [the priest] and the witnesses. … Before [the person making the denunciation] is dismissed, there should be presented to him, as above, an oath of observing the secret, threatening him, if there is a need, with an excommunication reserved to the Ordinary or to the Holy See. … All these official communications shall always be made under the secret of the Holy Office; and, since they concern the common good of the church to the greatest degree, the precept of doing these things obliges under serious sin [sub gravi]. … The formula for taking an oath to exercise one’s office faithfully and to observe the secret of the Holy Office > I promise sacredly, vow and swear, to observe inviolably the secret in all matters and details which will take place in exercising the aforesaid duty. > [@](#): > > [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100313/ap\_on\_re\_eu/eu\_church\_abuse](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100313/ap_on_re_eu/eu_church_abuse) > VATICAN CITY – The Vatican on Saturday denounced what it called aggressive attempts to drag Pope Benedict XVI into the spreading scandals of pedophile priests in his German homeland. It also insisted that church confidentiality doesn’t prevent bishops from reporting abuse to police. > The Vatican’s campaign to defend the pope’s reputation and resolve in combatting clergy abuse of minors followed acknowledgment by the Munich archdiocese that it had transferred a suspected pedophile priest to community work while Benedict was archbishop there. > Benedict is also under fire for a 2001 church directive he wrote while a Vatican cardinal, instructing bishops to keep abuse cases confidential. > Germany’s justice minister has blamed the directive for what she called a “wall of silence” preventing prosecution. … But Irish bishops have said the document was widely taken to mean they shouldn’t go to police. And victims’ lawyers in the U.S. say the document shows the church tried to obstruct justice. > [@](#): > > [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/25/AR2010032502363.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/25/AR2010032502363.html) > The expression was more accurate than we knew. This month, Pope Benedict XVI wrote a pastoral letter of apology – of sorts – to Ireland to atone for decades of sexual abuse of minors by priests whom those children were supposed to trust. To many people in my homeland, the pope’s letter is an insult not only to our intelligence, but to our faith and to our country. To understand why, one must realize that we Irish endured a brutal brand of Catholicism that revolved around the humiliation of children. > I experienced this personally. … schools for troubled youth have been rife with barbaric corporal punishments, psychological abuse and sexual abuse. In October 2005, a report sponsored by the Irish government identified more than 100 allegations of sexual abuse by priests in Ferns, a small town 70 miles south of Dublin, between 1962 and 2002. Accused priests weren’t investigated by police; they were deemed to be suffering a “moral” problem. … Why was such criminal behavior tolerated? The “very prominent role which the Church has played in Irish life is the very reason why abuses by a minority of its members were allowed to go unchecked,” the 2009 report said. … But Benedict’s infamous 2001 letter to bishops around the world ordered them to keep sexual abuse allegations secret under threat of excommunication – updating a noxious church policy, expressed in a 1962 document, that both priests accused of sex crimes and their victims “observe the strictest secret” and be “restrained by a perpetual silence.” … Benedict’s apology states that his concern is “above all, to bring healing to the victims.” Yet he denies them the one thing that might bring them healing – a full confession from the Vatican that it has covered up abuse and is now trying to cover up the cover up. Astonishingly, he invites Catholics “to offer up your fasting, your prayer, your reading of Scripture and your works of mercy in order to obtain the grace of healing and renewal for the Church in Ireland.” Even more astonishing, he suggests that Ireland’s victims can find healing by getting closer to the church – the same church that has demanded oaths of silence from molested children, as occurred in 1975 in the case of Father Brendan Smyth, an Irish priest later jailed for repeated sexual offenses. … Yep, it sure looks like MOST of the effort went into keeping their dirty little secrets, a secret. For the “good of the church” and to hell with any victims or potential future victims. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289/59 "2010-03-30T23:12:55Z")
This is one of those new stories that the more one finds out about it, the more sickened one gets. It’s hard and horrible enough to read about the abuses and atrocities that occurred (and I have no doubt are still occurring, people being people), but to read the half-ass acknowledgment of wrong done and the plea to more closely embrace the very institution that caused such pain is very difficult indeed. A statement is NOT going to cut it. Not this time–something more needs to be done. Perhaps it is time for the Church to enter the 20th century, since we are now comfortably in the 21st. Time was one could say that this was “only” a few priests and could (if one were so inclined) weigh all the positives that the Catholic religion provides (I am not Catholic, but surely it has done some good in the world) and come out on the positive side. No more. No matter which way you look at it, the Church has blood on its hands: not allowing women any type of equal say or power within the church; forcing women to have larger families than they desire (hell, include the fathers in that as well); the whole “condoms cause AIDS” insanity; the pedophile priest scandals in the States which have become a regular feature since I was in college, and now globally. If I were Catholic, I would no longer be so. I’m not saying that all must do as I would, but surely this must give “good” Catholics pause. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289/60 "2010-03-31T00:00:34Z")
I acknowledge the problems weren’t much better under the last pope – it’s just wishful thinking, I suppose. ☹ Or maybe, like **Jayjay** , it’s a case of nostalgia. I was lucky enough to live here in the diocese of Pittsburgh, under Bishop Donald Wuerhl. He’s notorious for having a hardcore zero tolerance for this kind of shit. Not that I, or anyone I know was molested. (well, as far as I’m aware of) > [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > OK. > > But can we waterboard him, anyway? Only if you use holy water. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archbishop-compares-criticisms-of-pope-to-jesus-sufferings/534289.md?page=4)