# The Vatican plays 3-Priest Monte once again **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 16, 2017, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-vatican-plays-3-priest-monte-once-again/796446 "2017-09-16T02:50:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-vatican-plays-3-priest-monte-once-again/796446/101 "2017-09-18T20:05:36Z")
Trust has nothing to do with it. He is a diplomat of a sovereign nation and has the immunity that comes attached with that status, just as a diplomat from Lichtenstein or Equatorial Guinea has. We respect diplomatic immunity because it helps keep our diplomats safe, something I’m presuming you are in favor of. Sometimes you have to take a bad thing to avoid a worse thing. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-vatican-plays-3-priest-monte-once-again/796446/102 "2017-09-18T20:15:25Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > Trust has nothing to do with it. He is a diplomat of a sovereign nation and has the immunity that comes attached with that status, just as a diplomat from Lichtenstein or Equatorial Guinea has. We respect diplomatic immunity because it helps keep our diplomats safe, something I’m presuming you are in favor of. Sometimes you have to take a bad thing to avoid a worse thing. The _first_ “bad thing”(not counting the crime itself which has yet to be proven) was the Vatican pulling him after he had said he was willing to cooperate. This is the “wrong” I am most upset with-that after the past history they have concerning crimes of this nature, followed by assurances that they have turned over a new leaf, they do something like this when they could have smoothed the waters by waving immunity(at least temporarily) and letting the investigation continue. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-vatican-plays-3-priest-monte-once-again/796446/103 "2017-09-19T00:56:23Z")
> [@HeweyLogan](#): > > What’s that you keep saying about reading for comprehension? It’s where you complain about everyone else saying the same thing you claim to be. > [@](#): > > Wait and see what happens to the investigation at the Vatican You really think there’s going to be one? You’re fucking hilarious. ---
**Author:** ![HeweyLogan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heweylogan/32/547_2.png) [@HeweyLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeweyLogan)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-vatican-plays-3-priest-monte-once-again/796446/104 "2017-09-19T03:54:38Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > It’s where you complain about everyone else saying the same thing you claim to be. I guess you’re right Elvis. I can’t comprehend or make sense of what you’re saying with that sentence no matter how many times I try. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-vatican-plays-3-priest-monte-once-again/796446/105 "2017-09-19T04:53:02Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > What is it that’s at issue? You are familiar, are you not, of the legal concept that you don’t punish someone for another person’s crime? Yeah, what’s with all this punishment for someone else’s sins crap? This is the _Catholic Church_ we’re talking about! ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-vatican-plays-3-priest-monte-once-again/796446/106 "2017-09-20T13:00:35Z")
Back in [2005, this brilliantly researched and grippingly authored column](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2228/whats-the-story-on-diplomatic-immunity) appeared here. It included this case: > [@](#): > > Salem Al-Mazrooei was arrested in Virginia after he arranged to meet the thirteen-year-old girl he’d been chatting with on the Internet at a Bedford shopping mall. According to Bedford sheriff’s deputies, Al-Mazrooei had made some “very graphic” requests for sex to the seventh-grader. As it happened, the person on the other end of the keyboard was neither a seventh-grader nor a girl but rather a Bedford sheriff’s deputy. The case turned sour when Mr. Al-Mazrooei was arrested and immediately asserted diplomatic immunity – he was a Saudi Arabian diplomat assigned to the Saudi embassy in Washington. After the embassy was informed of the charges, Mr. Al-Mazrooei was removed from his job but permitted to return to Saudi Arabia. He remains outside of U.S. jurisdiction to this day. Al-Mazrooei was, for whatever it’s worth, the director of the embassy’s scholarship program. And when he learned that the seventh-grader he was chatting with (actually a deputy sheriff) had persuaded a sixteen-year-old female friend of hers to drive her to their meeting place, Al-Mazrooei asked her to ask the friend to join them for their encounter. He was not prosecuted after his return home; he remains a wanted man in Virginia, should he return someday without benefit of diplomatic immunity. As I said twelve years ago: > [@Bricker](#): > > So why do we agree to a system in which we’re dependent on a foreign country’s whim before we can prosecute a criminal inside our own borders? The practical answer is: because we depend on other countries to honor our own diplomats’ immunity just as scrupulously as we honor theirs. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-vatican-plays-3-priest-monte-once-again/796446/107 "2017-09-20T16:29:51Z")
It’s worth noting that the US has invoked diplomatic immunity any number of times. In 2013 we pulled Diplomat Joshua Wade out of Kenya after he drove recklessly\* and crashed into a bus, killing a man. We pulled Raymond Davis out of Pakistan after he shot and killed two people. (He claimed self defense.) \*Probably. We’ll never really know, since the investigation was never completed. ETA: Thank you google. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-vatican-plays-3-priest-monte-once-again/796446/108 "2017-09-20T16:30:07Z")
I propose Danny Glover be given discretionary revocation authority. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-vatican-plays-3-priest-monte-once-again/796446/109 "2017-09-20T17:02:03Z")
Since I can find nothing that indicates that The Vatican(or _any_ country, for that matter) is required to grant amnesty in all cases brought to their attention, and I have seen nothing to date that suggests The Vatican is in the habit of granting amnesty 100% of the time, what is wrong with thinking the process of justice in this particular case would be better served if the person in question wasn’t rushed out of the country to a place where we had no jurisdiction and absolutely no legal process to bring him back if needed. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-vatican-plays-3-priest-monte-once-again/796446/110 "2017-09-20T17:16:30Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Since I can find nothing that indicates that The Vatican(or _any_ country, for that matter) is required to grant amnesty in all cases brought to their attention, and I have seen nothing to date that suggests The Vatican is in the habit of granting amnesty 100% of the time, what is wrong with thinking the process of justice in this particular case would be better served if the person in question wasn’t rushed out of the country to a place where we had no jurisdiction and absolutely no legal process to bring him back if needed. Again, this is something that every single country in the world can do, and many have. Again, our own country, The USA, invoked it for a man who straight up gunned down two people in broad daylight, offered a very tenuous claim of self defense, and whose diplomatic status was shaky. Why is the one case provoking you to furious outrage and other much worse cases leave you in calm equanimity? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-vatican-plays-3-priest-monte-once-again/796446/111 "2017-09-20T17:35:23Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > Again, this is something that every single country in the world can do, and many have. Again, our own country, The USA, invoked it for a man who straight up gunned down two people in broad daylight, offered a very tenuous claim of self defense, and whose diplomatic status was shaky. > > Why is the one case provoking you to furious outrage and other much worse cases leave you in calm equanimity? 1. I don’t know where you are getting “furious outrage” from-maybe the tenancy in this forum (and a couple of others) to inflate someones reaction to an event or idea to make it possible to ridicule them? 2. I don’t know if you are promoting the idea that “one side does it, so that makes it o.k. for the other side to do it” or what. I didn’t see or hear of that other case you mentioned, so commenting on how I didn’t react to it the same way is rather silly, don’t you think? _If_ it was brought up in these forums, would you please link to it so that I can offer my opinion on the matter? ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-vatican-plays-3-priest-monte-once-again/796446/112 "2017-09-20T17:41:12Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > 1. I don’t know where you are getting “furious outrage” from-maybe the tenancy in this forum (and a couple of others) to inflate someones reaction to an event or idea to make it possible to ridicule them? > 2. I don’t know if you are promoting the idea that “one side does it, so that makes it o.k. for the other side to do it” or what. I didn’t see or hear of that other case you mentioned, so commenting on how I didn’t react to it the same way is rather silly, don’t you think? _If_ it was brought up in these forums, would you please link to it so that I can offer my opinion on the matter? No, I won’t be doing that. My only point is that this is a routine exercise of diplomatic immunity. That’s it. I don’t think I can convince you otherwise, and I suspect the reason this has got under your skin is that it involves the Vatican and thus triggered your near psychotic hatred of religion. But I’ve got no interest in discussing the matter further. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-vatican-plays-3-priest-monte-once-again/796446/113 "2017-09-20T17:48:53Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > No, I won’t be doing that. > > My only point is that this is a routine exercise of diplomatic immunity. That’s it. I don’t think I can convince you otherwise, and I suspect the reason this has got under your skin is that it involves the Vatican and thus triggered your near psychotic hatred of religion. But I’ve got no interest in discussing the matter further. Of course you don’t…but as you take your ball and go home consider the possibility that it is the crime(of which I have been a victim) that motivated my post, and not some “near psychotic hatred of religion”. ---
**Author:** ![HeweyLogan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heweylogan/32/547_2.png) [@HeweyLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeweyLogan)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-vatican-plays-3-priest-monte-once-again/796446/114 "2017-09-20T18:36:16Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > … what is wrong with thinking the process of justice in this particular case would be better served if the person in question wasn’t rushed out of the country to a place where we had no jurisdiction and absolutely no legal process to bring him back if needed. Where has anyone said that justice would be better served over there instead of here? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-vatican-plays-3-priest-monte-once-again/796446/115 "2017-09-20T19:00:35Z")
Don’t you notice any similarities with the other cases where the RCC has quickly transferred senior staffers back to the safety and security of the home office and its vestigial medieval city-state status, right ahead of the law, justice for the children be damned? This is different only in that the guy had an official diplomatic status (whatever that really means) rather than a religious one. But it’s all the same outfit using the same tactics. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-vatican-plays-3-priest-monte-once-again/796446/116 "2017-09-20T20:23:23Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > 1. I don’t know if you are promoting the idea that “one side does it, so that makes it o.k. for the other side to do it” or what. What people objecting to the concept of equal value and pushing the idea two wrongs don’t make a right ( in their own party’s favour, _naturlich_ ), don’t seem to understand is that if X is denounced for mopery and Y, his opponent, is a distinguished moper, the latter’s party has no longer any moral standing to denounce mopery. It doesn’t make an action _OK,_ just that standing in your orangerie is not the ideal position to launch stones at your neighbours cloches. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-vatican-plays-3-priest-monte-once-again/796446/117 "2017-09-20T20:35:17Z")
I am not my country, my party or my city. Am I supposed to be upset at events that happen in a certain order before I get to the one this thread is about? If so, please post the official list. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-vatican-plays-3-priest-monte-once-again/796446.md?page=5)