as you have probably heard, the hierarchy of the catholic church is coping with plenty of more-than-usually-unpleasant scandal involving the usual suspects: priests, paedophiles, children, cover-ups, pay-offs, not-quite-apologies, denials, denouncings and defrockings which have, for the first time i can remember, started to take on a somewhat apocalyptic tone, that’s apocalyptic in terms of the catholic church if not the rest of us. even the commentariat at the times smell blood:
“A pope with no moral authority simply cannot function as a pope. Yes, he has ecclesiastical power. But ecclesiastical power without moral authority merely exposes the hollowness of an unaccountable, self-perpetuating clerisy. Does he think we don’t know? Does he understand that any parent of any child will be unable to imagine themselves in the same moral universe as this man?”
and some of them are even sort-of-default-catholics for whom this is the final straw:
“I could hardly be described as a good, or even decent, Catholic, but I’d managed to hang on in there, in the vaguest way imaginable. Vague because it’s hard to pay lip-service to a faith that you feel hates you; a faith that would rather let you die in childbirth than have an abortion, won’t let you take the contraception necessary to prevent said abortion, hates gay people despite having many homosexual priests; a faith that talks ignorant nonsense about HIV and Aids, that would rather watch people die in Africa than let them use a condom; a faith that is unbelievably slow to say sorry about the fact that some of its members are habitual rapists of children.
I mean, you know, at some point you just give up. Not one of these things is defensible taken individually. Collectively, they are beyond comprehension.”
faith central has a bunch more, thanks to the always-charming ruth gledhill.
and now, of course the pope’s opposite number in the atheist world, the ever-reliable richard dawkins and his fellow diatribalist christopher hitchens (the man who, i was appalled to discover, repeated the “hole in the sheet” legend as fact in his anti-religious tract “G!D Is not great” without doing basic research) have volunteered to “do a pinochet” on big bad benny before his lips touch the tarmac at heathrow.
"science be praised!"
now, i have to admit that part of me admires them for having the stones to try and, frankly, i’d rather not foot the tax bill for his security. however, it is only fair to point out, as indeed does libby purves at the times, that:
“We know that even if the Vatican had never done anything legally dubious or morally wrong, Hitch and Dawk would still hate it.”
although on balance, i think i agree with her that this needs airing and dealing with properly if the church is not to avoid a fatal collapse in its already critically compromised moral authority. aside from the pre-vatican 2 accusations of deicide and more than a thousand years of clerical jew-hatred (oops, i’m not sure we’re done with that), i have, i think, a fairly relaxed attitude to catholicism and a great admiration for my many friends who seek to remain within its communion, even if i always thought the theology was a bit on the prudey-square side and have never, ever seen eye-to-eye with celibacy.
i’m actually not sure if it’s the general or the specific that worries me; i always admired peter tatchell when he tried this kind of stunt, but that’s peter tatchell, he’s a principled sort of bloke. it’s just that i could envisage dawkins and hitchens trying exactly the same thing on, say, an israeli chief rabbi or the sheikh of al-azhar; it’s all the same to them, of course, but if they were to get this to fly, you could see exactly what would happen with every single-issue campaigner/gadfly/wingnut: the same thing that happened with tzipi livni. we are, after all, talking about a mentality that will try any stunt, no matter how stupid, counterproductive and unhelpful, that gets them into the paper.
i suppose south park are right:
Dawkins knew that logic and reason were the way of the future. But it wasn’t until he met his beautiful wife that he learned using logic and reason isn’t enough. You have to be a dick to everyone who doesn’t think like you.
9 Comments
Hitchens is god.
well, that’s as may be, but that’s just *one* of the more glaring inaccuracies and sloppy argufyin’ments i found when i read the book. besides, that would also mean that:
a) he isn’t great either and
b) he almost certainly doesn’t exist, according to dawkins
dawkins himself, of course, was monumentally unamused by his treatment on south park:
well, er… ok. we are after all, according to mrs garrison, the “retarded offspring of five monkeys having butt-sex with a fish-squirrel”, but he must have missed the line that went:
this, i feel, is a position that we at the spittoon can really get behind, as it were.
b’shalom
bananabrain
The Times headline is misleading. Dawkins merely told the reporter, when asked, that he supported the plan to get Geoffrey Robinson QC (who is quite a heavy hitter) to build a case.
As for the claim that we know he would hate the Vatican even if it had never done anything morally wrong (in Bizzaro World, presumably) well, he doesn’t seem to have directed much ire at, say, the Quakers. He would doubtless sigh and roll his eyes, which is pretty much all he needs to do to be denounced as a shrill fanatic. But I doubt he would hate a morally blameless, if deluded, institution.
Hitch? Well, when he is right (which oddly enough is when he agrees with my opinions) he is still a debater and polemecist of remarkable skill and verve. When he is wrong he is spectacularly and pig-headedly wrong.
But if we can finally get rid of this mad idea that the RCC and its operatives inhabit some kind of trans-national alternate legal world and can make their own rules because they say so and Musso declared the Vatican sovereign
state then I’m all for it. The day a court officer slaps him with the papers I’ll do a soft shoe shuffle to ‘Putting on the writs.’
don:
i think you must be looking at another source from the times article, because reading this:
i can’t see how this isn’t active participation, unless i am somehow reading it wrong or the journalist, marc horne, has also got the wrong end of the stick. neither would particularly surprise me.
have you not read “the god delusion”, don? he wants *all* religion, without exception, even the non-offensive ones like the quakers and universalist unitarianism eliminated. in the tv series “the root of all evil” and “the genius of charles darwin”, he had on-screen discussions with the archbishop of canterbury and the bishop of oxford, both of whom said they were perfectly happy with darwin and evolution and didn’t see any reason for conflict. dawkins then declared that this was as “yet another creationist strategy, this time the stealth doctrine of ‘absorption’”. he is not prepared to compromise. the vatican is simply an easy target and one which will instantly appeal to anyone who thinks celibacy is daft, paedophilia is appalling or that large organisations who engage in cover-ups should be exposed. this will ensure support and then the established principle will then be used (in my view) to conduct “lawfare” on any and all representatives of organised religion. this is the reason i am trying to extract a principle here, in order to come up with a way to support something that i think is important, which is the catholic church coming clean and making amends as far as possible and the people responsible being punished, without opening the door to vexatious litigation designed only to further what is in my view a nefarious agenda and an attack on liberty and freedom of conscience.
i think you are correct to identify the following as problematic and in need of resolution:
but surely this then puts it into the area of international law, doesn’t it? if it is a state, it could claim the protection of sovereignty, the same as other theocracies such as iran, but if it isn’t, surely the first thing they will do is declare the vatican a sovereign state and turn it into, well, a cross between switzerland and saudi arabia, won’t they? what happens then?
i am in quite the quandary here.
b’shalom
bananabrain
Hi bb,
Yes, I was using a different source. Sorry, should have linked.
http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,5415,Richard-Dawkins-I-will-arrest-Pope-Benedict-XVI,Marc-Horne—-TimesOnline,page2#478580
#89.
I really think that it is extrapolating rather too far to suggest that the proposal to bring the Vatican to book is part of a grand scheme to bring about the established principle (which)will then be used (in my view) to conduct “lawfare” on any and all representatives of organised religion.
I am slightly puzzled by your last paragraph. The Vatican does claim to be a sovereign state with attached immunity, but unlike Iran claims – or seems to – that this immunity transcends national boundaries. This was a position first granted by Mussolini and more recently endorsed by GWB. Robinson proposes that this position should be tested and expects it to be found wanting.
In my view Dawkins’ support for the proposal to strip the Vatican of its apparent immunity is not part of a nefarious agenda, but I suspect we will have to agree to disagree about that.
The pope is immune from legal action for child molestation charges in the US. And as Don says, only after Bush granted Ratzinger the immunity specifically regarding paedophilia cases, back in 2005!
I’d like Christopher Hitchens to comment on that situation, since the US is now his adopted homeland. I’d also like to ask him if he still upholds his own call to bring Henry Kissinger to justice in an ICC court, but that’s another matter.
But the pope’s God-given spiritual authority does not grant him the the luxury of state-endorsed impunity in the UK. But I suspect that will soon change.
ah, i see what’s going on here, he’s been “subbed” for extra impact. typical journalism. fair enough, he thinks it’s a good idea, but it sounds like hitchens is the prime mover. thanks for that.
i thought *all* diplomatic immunity transcended national boundaries, which is why the likes of ahmedinejad can visit new york itself. i would personally welcome a clarification and see nothing wrong in that in itself, because it then puts the pope in the position where he has to do something definite, which would be a good thing, i think.
dawkins has stated quite clearly in a number of places that all “special privileges” for religion in the public should be eliminated and sees this as part of it. it’s no different from chucking the bishops out of the house of lords for him, but that’s not the nefarious agenda i’m talking about. i’m talking about the adoption of “lawfare”, so effectively patented by islamists and israel-haters in the case of both shutting down criticism by people who dislike you (the carter-ruck technique) and harassing people you dislike by restricting their freedom to travel (the tzipi livni technique) by the crusaders of militant atheism. needless to say, the only thing that militant atheists, islamists and the hard left all have in common is that they all appear effectively (whether you are objecting to judaism as a religion or zionism as an ideology) to directly target me and my co-religionists. this puts me in the position of either having to defend the catholic church’s behaviour, which i decline to do, or endorse an approach which will end up disproportionately victimising us.
i may write this up properly, because i think i’m getting closer to why this bothers me.
b’shalom
bananabrain
bb,
i thought *all* diplomatic immunity transcended national boundaries, which is why the likes of ahmedinejad can visit new york itself
That is not quite what I meant. It has been the apparent position of the church that if, say, an Irish citizen commits a crime under Irish law in Ireland then that person – if a priest – is subject first to the authority of the Vatican which will decide whether or not secular law should be applied. And almost invariably the decision has been that secular law should not apply lest the good name of the church be tarnished. I believe that is a unique proposition, but they have been getting away with it for decades at the established least.
The diplomatic immunity of the Pope in person rests on the legal fiction that the Vatican is a sovereign state in any meaningful sense.
The first claim, in effect benefit of clergy, has been crumbling since the start of these revelations since, once exposed to the light, it is clearly pernicious nonsense which has been allowed to go unchallenged for far to long. The second claim is the one Robinson will be tackling.
I don’t see that as being either shutting down criticism by people who dislike you (the carter-ruck technique) and harassing people you dislike by restricting their freedom to travel (the tzipi livni technique) but as a long overdue clarification of an underhand, cynical and harmful sleight of hand.
dawkins has stated quite clearly in a number of places that all “special privileges” for religion in the public should be eliminated and sees this as part of it. it’s no different from chucking the bishops out of the house of lords
As you know, that is a position I share with Dawkins. Just because Hitchens, Robinson et al are using the law to address this (apparent) legal anomaly I see no reason to lump them together with those who turn to the law for dishonest or disreputable reasons. In this instance the purpose is to make the Pope accountable for his actions, (which involved covering up crimes committed in real sovereign states) not to restrict his freedom of speech.
well, i certainly think that shouldn’t be allowed, because that really is two legal systems; the only problem is that you still face the “wall of silence” technique, whereby people are informally discouraged from “informing”; this is certainly operative in the religious parts of both jewish and muslim communities and also within ethnic groups, whether black, white, brown or whatever as far as i am aware. however, it is an anomaly which cannot be justified in the light of its widespread abuse.
that the pope isn’t entitled to diplomatic immunity? in which case, i would foresee the extension of diplomatic protection as an enviable form of patronage to be offered by the italian state (i expect) just as the dalai lama enjoys (i think) the diplomatic protection of india – otherwise wouldn’t you expect the chinese to try and arrest him next time he visits the UK in this case? if i was being mischievous, i might suggest that the israelis offer this to the pope!
certainly, in the case of the first. in the case of the second, i am still not convinced it will do the job.
as it happens, i don’t entirely see why bishops should be entitled to sit in the house of lords either, unless the likes of the boss of the national secular society as well as the chief rabbi are also thus elevated as key spiritual leaders. i take the “thought for the day” position on this one. perhaps it isn’t a very good example; so, how about working out the catholic church’s equivalent of my own red lines, namely circumcision and kosher slaughter; if either of these are outlawed, no observant jew can live in this country any more unless they are a female vegetarian. i think that’s where the battle line has to be, because it’s the point at which a personal opt-out from certain rules of civil society is requested on solely religious grounds. however, the environment becomes extremely hostile (as it is at the moment) long before those are threatened. i am not too clear on how the difference is to be defined in a british court; i think it would be a lot clearer – and more draconian – in a roman-law court like they have in france. as i see it, this is a three-way battle, one point being militant atheism, one point being militant religion and the last point being non-militant religion; each point finds the other two intolerable to varying degrees and each seeks a certain vision of society; the last point, on which i find myself most often, also has the benefit of being the one most allied to the preservation of the status quo, in this country at any rate.
b’shalom
bananabrain