₦airaland Forum

Image123: so feeling is now size relative? wetin we no go read. Step on a ant smaller than a bean and observe if it has feelings. And when did feelings and knowledge start to determine who deserves to get killed BTW?

Don't be d@ft. Its not about size, its about function. What we are really arguing about is what makes someone human. Thoughts, feelings and self awareness are a central part of the human experience, and in that sense, an adult pig is more human than a human fetus.

A fetus is a potential human, but that is not enough. You may not be aware of this, but scientists are now able to clone an entire person from a single cell of almost any type. That means that every time you scratch your nose or wipe your ynash, you're killing tens of thousands of potential people. Do you want to ban people from wiping their noses? Does that make any sense to you? Well neither does calling a clump of cells with no significant brain activity a human being. It just isn't.

https://pigroll.com/img/abortion_not_a_difficult_concept.jpg

Richard Dawkins is entitled to his opinion. He doesn't speak for all atheists or all pro-choice people. Just because he's against late term abortions doesn't weaken the stance of pro-choice people at all.

I'm atheist and pro-choice and I'm strongly against late term abortions. In fact I think the only reason many pro-choice people in America fight against banning late term abortions is that they are afraid of the slippery slope phenomenon that may eventually lead to all abortions being banned.

As regards foetuses and pigs, you guys are just deliberately muddling up the point the man was trying to make. At the end of the faetal period (8 weeks) an entire human being is only the size of a single bean. Its brain is just a tiny clump of cells. It cannot think or feel. It is not aware of itself or its environment. It doesn't feel pain, or sadness or joy or fear. Compare that with an adult pig or even better, a dog and you can see exactly what Prof. Dawkins was saying.

Animals have feelings. Tiny lumps of human cells don't. Is that so hard to understand?

mumumugu: Freedom of religon.its better to worship a flying spagheti, a jumping indomie, a running plantain than to be an atheist

Really? How so?

Image123: Psalms 96:5 For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the LORD made the heavens.

Exactly!

The Flying Spaghetti Monster made the heavens, and the mountains, and the trees, and the midgits. All other gods are but bullsheat before him.

Maxymilliano: A spoof religion that worships pasta is to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights after being turned down as an official faith by officials in Poland.

First of all, we are not a spoof religion. We are dead serious, just like Christians, Muslims and Guru Maraji followers.
Secondly, we don't worship pasta. We worship the invisible, undetectable entity who created the universe and all it contains. It just so happens that it somewhat resembles spaghetti and meatballs. Stop spreading lies about our faith

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster -whose members call themselves pastafarians - say they will ask judges in Strasbourg to rule on their right to exist after being rejected by Poland's Ministry of Administration.

"This is not the end. Most religions were persecuted at the beginning of their existence.

"We declare that we will bring a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg," said the group in a statement.
Patsfarians emerged in 2005 in Kansas, USA, as a parody of organised religions.

Physics student Bobby Henderson launched the movement - which claims the universe was created by an alien made of spaghetti - after local education officials allowed science classes to teach creation theories instead of evolution.

Lies! He is not made of spaghetti, He vaguely resembles spaghetti. He created the universe, He must be worshipped!

Also, why don't they teach children about how his noodly appendage created the universe as part of the school science curriculum? Why don't we teach spaghetti religious knowledge (SRK) in our schools? After all, if we teach children the bedtime stories in the bible and Koran, we should be willing to tell them the truth about where we really came from. The Noodly appendage theory has just as much evidence backing it as the Christian creation myth. Why are governments discriminating against the one true religion?

We pastafarians will never abandon our struggle. We will fight for our rights. We will fight until all false religions are vanquished, and pastafarianism rules the whole world!

From [url]greenlight.com.ng[/url]

Polygamy is often used when one man marries more than one wife, but the correct term is polygyny. Polygamy is actually an umbrella for the two words – Polyandry and Polygyny – that involves multiple partner in marriage. Polyandry in contrast to polygyny is where a woman takes two or more husbands at the same time. Most broadly, polyandry refers to sexual relations with multiple males, within or without marriage.

And it is alive and well, and not just in India where it is the culture in some parts of the country, including where the young woman in the picture above lives with her five husbands, as shown in an article by the Sun.

She said: “Initially it felt a bit awkward. But I don’t favour one over the other.”

Husband Guddu, 21 — the first to make her his bride — insisted: “We all have $ex with her but I’m not jealous. We’re one big happy family.”

Eldest brother Bajju said: “I consider her my wife and sleep with her like my brothers.”

Rajo …said, “I sleep with them in turn. We don’t have beds, just lots of blankets on the floor. I get a lot more attention and love than most wives.”
https://greenlight.com.ng/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/one-woman-and-five-husbands-300x245.jpg

The story is not much different in London either. According to the Mirror UK, Maria Butzki currently lives with her former husband and her current lover and makes love to both of them. More than that, they live as one big happy family in one apartment;
[img]http://4.bp..com/-4uZA2YHuvVM/UUecouHKA6I/AAAAAAAASN0/IVrl-S-Mids/s640/3some+polyamory.jpg[/img]
“People might think it’s weird but I love both men and couldn’t choose between them,” says Maria, a ­housing liaison officer.

Incredibly, the men agree. Paul, a railway assessor, says: “Peter is a great guy. When Maria first had the affair with him I was just heartbroken. But as I got to know him, I realised we have so much in common. We both adore fishing, and he’s like a surrogate dad to the kids.”

Peter, a construction site manager, adds: “We all get on so well. It doesn’t feel as if I’m ­sharing Maria. There’s no ­jealousy …it feels as if we are a team.”

So ladies, if you’re feeling like one man is not going to be enough, don’t be discouraged, you just might find guys who understand. Just make sure they’re not jealous. And you’ll definitely get more than an average wife’s share of attention from your multiple husbands

http://greenlight.com.ng/2013/03/19/myne-whitman-polyandry-one-woman-and-more-than-one-man/

What do you guys think of this. Do any nairalanders know anybody living in a similar situation? Are any ladies (or guys) willing to try this if given the opportunity?

Comments please.

ooman: I quite agree with him that pead0philia is a psychological disorder rather than a criminal offense. People who are molested as children have scars of the experience left in them that might change their psychology when they become adults.

General studies truly concluded that females who were treated badly as children tend to treat other children badly when adult and that children who were homosexually molested tend to molest other children when they become adults. The study is not consistent, of course as some molested children got healed of the psychological scars.

I think that the cardinal is right and ped0philia should be treated as a psychological disorder rather than a criminal offense.

I remain an atheist.

Guy, what are you saying? Are you actually buying this bullshít? Räping children is a disgusting crime, end of story. There's no room for compromise on that matter. Don't let these perverts muddy the waters and confuse you.

Just because one guy claims he knows 2 or 3 pedophiles who were abused doesn't excuse child molesters. Anecdotal evidence is worthless. In any case, no studies have shown any causal link between being molested and molesting others. The vast majority of child sex abuse victims don't go on to molest other children later.

And what happened to free will? Why can't these priests choose to seek help rather than punishing innocent children for their own perceived demons? And how does that justify the church's failure to warn parents about known pedophiles or at least move them to posts where they don't have access to children.

As far as I'm concerned, these sick, twisted human beings should seek whatever spiritual and mental help they need in prison where they belong.

Bump

Just days after being involved in the election of pope Francis 1, South Africa's most senior catholic cleric has launched himself into a bold defense of ped0phile priests.
From the Independent Online:

South Africa’s most senior Catholic, Archbishop of Durban Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, has plunged the church into a fresh child abuse row.

Two days after he took part in the election of Pope Francis, Napier incurred the wrath of religious groups and anti-child abuse lobbyists who are now calling for his head after he described paedophilia as a psychological “illness, not a criminal condition”.

Napier is likely to fly into a storm when he returns home on Friday.

Napier, 72, told the BBC on Friday that people who were abused as children and in turn abused others needed to be examined by doctors.

In an interview with Stephen Nolan, Napier referred to paedophilia as “a psychological condition, a disorder”.

“What do you do with disorders? You’ve got to try and put them right,” he said.

“If I – as a normal being – choose to break the law, knowing that I’m breaking the law, then I think I need to be punished.”

He said he knew at least two priests who had been abused as children and became paedophiles.

“Now don’t tell me that those people are criminally responsible like somebody who chooses to do something like that. I don’t think you can really take the position and say that person deserves to be punished. He was himself damaged.”

Speaking to the Sunday Tribune from Rome last night, Napier appeared to back-track, although he still questioned whether it was right to prosecute perpetrators “damaged” by abuse.

He accused the BBC of being “sensationalist” by “putting words into my mouth” and playing a short excerpt of a 17-minute interview.

“I made it quite clear that paedophilia is a crime, and that we as a church have got a whole process in place for dealing with it.”

Napier said strong action had to be taken where people had been convicted of sexual abuse.

“Those people should be removed. But what about the case where somebody has been damaged? What I am saying is, can you call it a crime if someone has been damaged? Judges do it all the time, they say, ‘This person is not fit to stand trial’.

“When someone is sick then they need to be cured. My view is that person needs help first and foremost. My point is: if somebody has been damaged, how do you undo that damage? You have to deal with that damage first. And then the law can take its course.

“This interviewer asked me to come and talk about the pope’s election. I made a sacrifice to come home early so I could do the interview, not knowing he had another agenda. But two minutes into the interview, he tried to get me to say what he wants me to say.”

As reports of Napier’s statements made international headlines, child protection lobbies were outraged.

The founder of Operation Bobbi Bear, Jackie Branfield, said it was “insanity not to incarcerate rapists”.

“I pray these comments are not true coming from a man of God. I always held him in high esteem.”

She said paedophiles were the lowest form of humanity, taking away children’s innocence.

“Paedophiles are not just raping children but murdering them, gouging out their eyes and disembowelling them.

“And Cardinal Napier says they are victims and must be excused for their actions? I was raped, but I am not out there raping children.”

Branfield said Napier would be returning home to an angry nation.

“We deal with horrific cases. If he wants to get them psychological help, he can offer it to them in prison where they belong.”

JoAnn Downs, a child abuse and rape activist and African Christian Democratic Party MPL, describing his statement as “awful”.

“I know he said some of the guys who were caught were abused themselves and that they should get psychological help. Yes,they should, but it’s not an excuse. It’s still a criminal act. And while we may agree paedophiles should get psychological help, it should be behind bars where they can’t abuse kids.”

The way the Catholic church had dealt with paedophiles had not been a shining example. “It’s awful. He’s such a great guy, he’s done such good work. This is really unfortunate.”

The Rev Ivan Booth, the Diakonia Council of Churches chairman, said he did not believe Napier would make such sensational statements.

“I am sure he would want to pursue criminal action against paedophiles. We believe that criminal action, along with psychological help, is needed. The interview needs to be reviewed in its full context.”

Linda Naidoo, the director of Childline KZN, said she was outraged at Napier’s “careless” and “sad” comments.

“Saying they are victims is an excuse. Research clearly shows that not everyone who was abused will become an abuser. His comments are absolutely sad.

“I think Cardinal Napier is trying to absolve the church and their sins, and for this he needs to be held accountable.

“Strong action should be taken against him for making such irresponsible comments.”

Errol Naidoo, the founder and director of the SA Family Institute, called Napier’s comments ridiculous and irresponsible.

“Children who have been abused by priests will be even more afraid to come forward against these institutions and men who are respected in their communities,” he said.

He believed they used the cloak of priesthood to gain access to children.

“If they were sexually abused themselves, they should have voluntarily sought help and not entered the priesthood where they would have every opportunity to harm children. It shows their intent.”

http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/kwazulu-natal/anger-over-cardinal-s-gaffe-1.1487696#.UUXFuhxvOEo

His comments give another insight into the twisted mindset of senior Vatican officials as they continue their decades long quest to shield the child molesters within their midst from justice. Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict had previously been directly involved in the covering up of pedophilia scandals worldwide, a policy that has allowed many of these criminals to assault even more children and escape unpunished. It was hoped that the emergence of a new pope would lead to a change of policy. However, these new statements from a senior cardinal shows that not much has changed at the church's upper levels.

Catholic nairalanders would do well to leave their children at home whenever they go to mass.

These are old accusations. Not sure how credible they are but its nothing compared to what Benedict/Ratzinger stands accused of.

Personally, I'm happy to turn a blind eye to any offence that doesn't involve diddling children or harbouring those who diddle children.

Deleted. Double post.

^^^^Some quick calculations:
Adam was 130 years old when he begat Seth after Abel's death. Some of that time would have been before the fall and the birth of Cain, and some would have been after Cain left for Nod, but we dont know how long so I'm just going to assume that potential Cain killers were being born throughout that period.

Cain, Abel and their sisters needed 16 or so years to reach sexual maturity before having kids of their own. Assuming that Cain's wife had a baby every 2 year's from age 16 till Seth's birth, she would have had 55 children. Assuming Abel's wife did the same and that gives us about 107 children by the 3rd generation. If evey single one of Adam's granddaughters got pregnant at 16, we could have had as many as 8 generations before Seth. If you draw a graph taking into account the shorter time later generations have to reproduce and assuming no deaths, you'll end up with about 600 people or so as the absolute theoretical maximum number of people who could have potentially killed Cain.

Of course, Adam only had 3 male children in that time. The average human male:female ratio is about 50:50 so it's safe to assume he had a total of 6 children (plus or minus 1-2) or 1 child every 18.5 years. That means going at the same rate, Cain's wife could have had a maximum of 4 children by the time Adam was 130yrs old assuming she starated at 16. And Abel's wife couldn't have had ukmore than 3 given that she would have been born much later that Cain and his wife and also needed to reach adulthood before having her own kids. Cain's oldest children would have had less that 60 years to reproduce and could have hard more than 2 or so kids.

That gives us a total of 17 people including infants that could have killed Cain by the time Seth was born. Half of these people were women, one was his aged father, And some were children. I wonder why he was so worried?

Let me try and answer OPs questions one by one.

1. Who created God.
The only known natural process by which something complex arises from a simpler precursor is evolution. Therefore, God must have evolved just like we did. That would make him an alien creature of some sort. The other explanation of course is that he is a figment of people's imagination and doesn't really exist. Occam's razor suggests that the latter is more likely true.

2. The tower of Babel.
Clearly, the people who recorded this story believed that the sky was some kind of canopy hanging over the earth with God hiding behind it. They clearly had no understanding of astronomy which is why they thought they could build a stairway to heaven. The whole story is clearly bullshït written by illiterates. How educated people take it seriously is beyond me.

3. Why did God allow the devil to destroy his relationship with man?
You're not going far enough. For one, God created the devil. And since he's omnipotent and omniscient, he must have knowingly programmed all the future bad behaviour into him. He also made man susceptible to the devil's lies. Then he put the tree of knowledge under Adam's nose. Then he sat by and watched the devil convince Adam and Eve to eat the fruit. He's omnipresent so he was right there when it happened. It's not just that God did nothing to stop man's fall, its that he was actually the cause of it having set Adam, Eve, the devil and all of us up to sin (was eating the fruit really a sin since it was God's plan all along?). For me the whole story makes no sense and is clearly just more made up bullshít.

4. Why do animals die?
Probably for the same reason they bring forth their young in pain and why they aren't living in paradise. I know I'm starting to sound like a broken CD, but again the Adam and Eve story makes no sense and is clearly false.

5. Who would have harmed Cain?
Supposedly Adam and Eve also had daughters which the bible didn't mention (women aren't worth mentioning?). Since people lived so long back then, Adam, Cain and Abel might have had dozens of kids between them by the time Cain killed his brother. Despite that, the number of people on the earth at the time of Adams death could have been more than 200 or so (the average healthy woman has one baby every 2 year's without contraception). And that's not accounting for the fact that a lack of experienced midwives or antibiotics would have caused extremely high rates of maternal and infant deaths. Also, the only people around to harm Cain were his parents, sisters, children, nieces and nephews. Again, the story makes no sense.

TL;DR The book of Genesis is full of massive plot holes and makes no sense. Its stories are just iron age myths. There is nothing true about them.

kponke denge: Christians worship Jesus, muslims allah, pagans stones n animals. who do athiest worship?

What makes you think that everybody worships something? That is clearly a false assumption. The truth is that atheists dont worship anything or anyone since we don't believe in supernatural beings.

Atheists are nit unique in this BTW, Jainists and many Buddhists also don't believe in god, and these are clearly religious people.

I generally don't talk to people about my religious beliefs to avoid wahala. When they ask me, I tell them I'm an atheist, but I don't volunteer the information. The only exception is at work when my bosses ask, where I always lie through my teeth that I'm born again and I love Jebus. I'm not interested in dealing with religious bigotry and discrimination if I don't have to.

My advice to OP is to be as nice and friendly as you can to those people. However, if they start disturbing you too much, don't hesitate to cut then off. If they ask you why you stopped talking to them, politely explain that you respect their religious beliefs and that you expect them to show you the same courtesy, otherwise, you're not friends.

Don't allow anybody to disturb your life over religion.

Jsmyth: That was a problem that occured a century ago but it was resolved by a revelation from the Lord......Blacks are allowed the priesthood and full participation in the church....Today, black Mormons are very happy people....I duno of any type of racism in the church. Even as God commanded Peter in a vision not to discriminate the gentiles so in the church, everybody is equal.

The Mormons actually first came to Nigeria in the early 1960s, but they were unceremoniously kicked out by the federal government over their blatantly racist teachings and practices. They only stopped discriminating against blacks in 1978 when political pressure and their need to expand into new countries like Brazil (and make more money) made the policy untenable.

Meanwhile, they have never repudiated or apologized for their long history of racism. They don't feel they have done anything to be sorry for.

Apparently it was God that told then that blacks had the seed of Cain and couldn't hold any notable position in the church. Luckily, he has a habit of changing his mind at the very moment his decrees become inconvenient for the LDS church.

www.nairaland.com/1061475/there-church-lattar-day-saints

davidylan: Amazing... the atheists are in ecstasy.

The more you see posts like this the more you begin to regard evangelistic atheism for what it is... naked proselytizing for adherents. Indeed there is joy in the house of the atheists for every "christian" who reverts.

Please explain to me what your problem with atheist proselytizing is. After all you Christians do it constantly so why can't anybody else share their beliefs?

You remind me of those Saudi clerics who want to force feed everyone the Koran, but scream bloody murder when they see a Christian preaching the bible.

BTW, congrats to Uyi Iredia on the decorking of his brain. For me, he doesn't need to become an atheist. Just the thought that a diehard Nairaland Christian can be taught to apply skepticism and rationality to matters of religion is a huge relief and a validation of my countless rants in this section. I hope he also find time to reexamine his beliefs on evolution, the age of the earth, physics and cosmology.

Science FTW!

^^^Citation needed.

Society needs to stop treating these people as if they are special. We've turned a blind eye to their atrocities for too long and that's why they're so corrupt. We need to start arresting and jailing them every time they are caught misbehaving, starting with the protector of ped0philes and racketeer-in-chief Joseph Ratzinger. If governments would just do their jobs and apply already existing organized crime laws to the catholic church, there would be no child sex abuse scandal.

Claiming to talk to god doesn't make you above society's laws.

Omar Al Basheer is a serving head if state and yet he has an arrest warrant on hisbhead. The moment he sets foot in any sensible, law-abiding country he's going to be arrested and flown to the Hague. I don't see why the pope should be any different.

Nobody is above the law. Let him defend himself in court.

ijawkid: I still can't understand why the pope can't be arrested or why he possesses so much immunity.....is he some kinda God or what??....even Jesus was arrested and so was his apostles......why can't the pope be arrested and tried if he is vicariously responsible for the child molestations going on in the church??..................why can't the pope be arrested oooo??...is he a king or a political ruler??.....smh!!!!....

Exactly. There is clear evidence of a cover-up. The pope was the head of the organization directly involved in the cover-up for 21 years. We have signed letters and memos that he wrote encouraging his subordinates to keep séx abuse cases quiet.

The guy clearly has a case to answer. Let him come and defend himself in court like any other suspected criminal. If he's innocent, then the truth will come out. This idea that he cant be arrested because he's the pope is nonsense. Nobody is above the law.

chukwudi44: No one has come out to say he/she was molested by pope benedictxvi,there are trying to crucify him for crimes committed by other people which is highly reprehensible!!!

Stop trying to cause confusion, abeg. Covering up the crimes of others is a crime itself. It's called obstruction of justice and that's what Benedict and the church are accused of. The pedöphilia accusations are limited to the individual priestly perverts.

Ubenedictus: And actually he isnt responsible for any coverup while in dat office! The catholic church isnt like d protestant church, d c c has rules that guide such cases, when an accusation of such nature is made against a priest, it is the duty, responsibility and obligation of the local BISHOP to immediately report the case to the police and set up a panel to gather information as regard d case while also reporting cases that have substatial evidence to the congregation on doctrine so as to proceed with ecclesiatical judgement. U dont expect card joshep and his congregation in rome to report cases to texas police! That is d work of d bishop of texas. The only thing card joseph office does is serve as a court of appeal in ecclesiatical judgement to the episcopal panels. In essence the guy that reports cases to the police and gives and execute ecclesiatical judgement against a priest is the Local BISHOP not card joshep. That is why d coverups can be traced to d bishops but not to d prefect in rome becos d prefect has no business with the police case.
He is not aswerable at all.

He was aware of many of the cases of child abuse. He was fully aware that many, it any at all had not been reported to the relevant authorities and he did nothing to make sure the authorities were informed and justice was served. I'm not suggesting should have reported them personally, but he could have taken steps to make sure it was done. A simple letter asking the relevant church agencies to look into it would have sufficed. Or he could have demanded that all such cases referred to him have been reviewed by local authorities first. He was a very powerful man in the vatican even at that time, there were plenty of things he could do, instead he did nothing. In fact he even argued against defrocking a confirmed pedo priest because it would have hurt the church's reputation, exactly the same kind of behaviour that the bishops were engaged in.

I find it funny that both you and the church are using the exact same tactic that american crime families and the Italian Mafia have been using to protect their senior members. "The individual bishops were responsible", "the don knew nothing about the drug dealing". You conveniently forget that the Catholic Church is a monolithic organisation and that all those bishops are representatives of and directly answerable to Rome. That tactic didn't work for the Gambino crime family and it won't work for the Catholic church.

how does the issue concern benedict legally? No one can reasonably say he covered anything up becos it isnt his work to open anything in d first place, d congregation in rome cant be held responsible 4 failure to report a texas case to texas police. The issue lacks merit when brough b4 a law court.

Think about what you are saying. If you find out that the company you work for has been repeatedly committing money laundering, are you going to say "its not my job, so I'm not going to report it"? Benedict was a senior member of the church. Since few or none of the priests referred to him were in prison or under trial; he must have known that the cases weren't being reported. He would have known about all the priests who had been moved from the jurisdictions where the r@pes occured. He was fully aware of the the cover-up and he did nothing. Obstruction of justice is a crime. If you are aware of an on-going crime, and you do nothing to stop it, and make no attempt to report it, for twenty-one whole years, then you are also guilty.

The best you can argue is that the pope was a mere accomplice rather than a main participant in the cover-up. Regardless of which he is, he still deserves to be arrested and tried. Church's reputation be d@mned.

A lot of butthurt Catholics blindly defending mother church. But no matter how much you shout, you cant change the facts:

1. There is a pervasive culture of child abuse and molestation within the Catholic church. It is a worldwide problem and it has been happening for many, many decades. This is a fact.

2. There has been a systematic cover-up of these abuses. The church would catch their priests molesting kids and turn a blind eye. They would pressure victims who came forward to keep quiet about it. They sometimes try to discredit victims who refuse to stay silent. When the heat from the community gets too much, they would often move such priests to different towns, cities and even countries to protect them from the law. In many cases, these confirmed ped0philes continued to have access to children in their new jobs even though the church authorities knew what they'd been up to. The church never warned parents or the communities that the new priest who was "counselling" their kids in private has a known ped0phile. The church has been known to resort to bullying tactics and intense pressure to silence victims and has settled hundreds of cases out of court by paying money to buy silence. They have always been more concerned with the church's reputation than the welfare of these poor children. If you catch someone abusing his position to r@pe children, the first thing you should do is call the police and get the pervert arrested so he can't harm any more kids. Instead, the church has always chosen to protect the r@pists and sometimes even helped them get access to more fresh young meat. This is a fact!

3. Joseph Ratzinger was the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith before he became pope and was thus directly responsible for dealing with child molestation cases. As such, he is answerable for any and all cover ups at the level of the Vatican for the over two decades he was there. This is a fact!

Helping to cover up thousands of ràpes is just as much a crime as committing the rápes yourself. This was not a one-time mistake, It was a systematic campaign of obstruction of justice spanning several decades. Their actions gave many pedöphile priests the confidence to continue their horrible, disgusting acts upon innocent children. In some some cases, priests who'd already been caught were allowed to ràpe again. This scale of criminal behaviour cannot be allowed to go unpunished. Some people have to go to prison for this. And pope Benedict is the most obvious of them.

Long story short, Catholic priests have long been ràping children, and the church has been actively shielding them from justice. Like I said before, no matter what it has done in the past, the Catholic church is now an international organized crime syndicate, a worldwide child molestation ring. And it should be treated the same as any other criminal organisation.

End of story.

Ubenedictus: dawkins cant make d police arrect ben becos benedict is immune from persecution. This is a conspiracy theory. And actually no one can prove razinger covered anything up.

Not every state recognizes the Vatican's statehood. It's not recognized by the UN for one, so his diplomatic immunity is suspect.

chukwudi44: @evil brain

So the best way for a pope with diplomatic immunity from arrest and prosecution to evade arrest is to resign and give up his immunity? Do you reason @ all? Your hatred for the catholic church has beclouded your sense of reasoning!!!

You go about googling links to substantiate your fantasies and will readily jump @ any one you think is close to that without even bothering to digest the contents!!!

The purpose of the resignation is to protect the church, not the pope. When Benedict is no longer pope, it'll be harder to go after the church's property. Plus with a new pope,prosecutors will have to build a new case from scratch if they want to nail the big fish. And the church can protect itself by picking a pope that has fewer ties to the scandal.

Benedict doesn't need any protection. As long as he stays within Vatican city, nobody can arrest him.

From Reuters:

(Reuters) - Pope Benedict's decision to live in the Vatican after he resigns will provide him with security and privacy. It will also offer legal protection from any attempt to prosecute him in connection with sexual abuse cases around the world, Church sources and legal experts say.

"His continued presence in the Vatican is necessary, otherwise he might be defenseless. He wouldn't have his immunity, his prerogatives, his security, if he is anywhere else," said one Vatican official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"It is absolutely necessary" that he stays in the Vatican, said the source, adding that Benedict should have a "dignified existence" in his remaining years.

Vatican sources said officials had three main considerations in deciding that Benedict should live in a convent in the Vatican after he resigns on February 28.

Vatican police, who already know the pope and his habits, will be able to guarantee his privacy and security and not have to entrust it to a foreign police force, which would be necessary if he moved to another country.

"I see a big problem if he would go anywhere else. I'm thinking in terms of his personal security, his safety. We don't have a secret service that can devote huge resources (like they do) to ex-presidents," the official said.

Another consideration was that if the pope did move permanently to another country, living in seclusion in a monastery in his native Germany, for example, the location might become a place of pilgrimage.

POTENTIAL EXPOSURE

This could be complicated for the Church, particularly in the unlikely event that the next pope makes decisions that may displease conservatives, who could then go to Benedict's place of residence to pay tribute to him.

"That would be very problematic," another Vatican official said.

The final key consideration is the pope's potential exposure to legal claims over the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandals.

In 2010, for example, Benedict was named as a defendant in a law suit alleging that he failed to take action as a cardinal in 1995 when he was allegedly told about a priest who had abused boys at a U.S. school for the deaf decades earlier. The lawyers withdrew the case last year and the Vatican said it was a major victory that proved the pope could not be held liable for the actions of abusive priests.

Benedict is currently not named specifically in any other case. The Vatican does not expect any more but is not ruling out the possibility.

"(If he lived anywhere else) then we might have those crazies who are filing lawsuits, or some magistrate might arrest him like other (former) heads of state have been for alleged acts while he was head of state," one source said.

Another official said: "While this was not the main consideration, it certainly is a corollary, a natural result."

After he resigns, Benedict will no longer be the sovereign monarch of the State of Vatican City, which is surrounded by Rome, but will retain Vatican citizenship and residency.

LATERAN PACTS

That would continue to provide him immunity under the provisions of the Lateran Pacts while he is in the Vatican and even if he makes jaunts into Italy as a Vatican citizen.

The 1929 Lateran Pacts between Italy and the Holy See, which established Vatican City as a sovereign state, said Vatican City would be "invariably and in every event considered as neutral and inviolable territory".

T[b]here have been repeated calls for Benedict's arrest over sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

When Benedict went to Britain in 2010, British author and atheist campaigner Richard Dawkins asked authorities to arrest the pope to face questions over the Church's child abuse scandal.

Dawkins and the late British-American journalist Christopher Hitchens commissioned lawyers to explore ways of taking legal action against the pope. Their efforts came to nothing because the pope was a head of state and so enjoyed diplomatic immunity.

In 2011, victims of sexual abuse by the clergy asked the International Criminal Court to investigate the pope and three Vatican officials over sexual abuse.

The New York-based rights group Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and another group, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), filed a complaint with the ICC alleging that Vatican officials committed crimes against humanity because they tolerated and enabled sex crimes.

The ICC has not taken up the case but has never said why. It generally does not comment on why it does not take up cases.
[/b]
NOT LIKE A CEO

The Vatican has consistently said that a pope cannot be held accountable for cases of abuse committed by others because priests are employees of individual dioceses around the world and not direct employees of the Vatican. It says the head of the church cannot be compared to the CEO of a company.

Victims groups have said Benedict, particularly in his previous job at the head of the Vatican's doctrinal department, turned a blind eye to the overall policies of local Churches, which moved abusers from parish to parish instead of defrocking them and handing them over to authorities.

The Vatican has denied this. The pope has apologized for abuse in the Church, has met with abuse victims on many of his trips, and ordered a major investigation into abuse in Ireland.

But groups representing some of the victims say the Pope will leave office with a stain on his legacy because he was in positions of power in the Vatican for more than three decades, first as a cardinal and then as pope, and should have done more.

The scandals began years before the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope in 2005 but the issue has overshadowed his papacy from the beginning, as more and more cases came to light in dioceses across the world.

As recently as last month, the former archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahony, was stripped by his successor of all public and administrative duties after a thousands of pages of files detailing abuse in the 1980s were made public.

Mahony, who was archbishop of Los Angeles from 1985 until 2011, has apologized for "mistakes" he made as archbishop, saying he had not been equipped to deal with the problem of sexual misconduct involving children. The pope was not named in that case.

In 2007, the Los Angeles archdiocese, which serves 4 million Catholics, reached a $660 million civil settlement with more than 500 victims of child molestation, the biggest agreement of its kind in the United States.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the pope "gave the fight against sexual abuse a new impulse, ensuring that new rules were put in place to prevent future abuse and to listen to victims. That was a great merit of his papacy and for that we will be grateful".

(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Additional reporting by Robin Pomeroy; Edited by Simon Robinson and Giles Elgood)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/15/us-pope-resignation-immunity-idUSBRE91E0ZI20130215

Reuters is about as credible as news organisations get. Story confirmed!

chukwudi44: Europe even in this 21st century still has very large catholic populations.The church is still too influential for its leader to just be arrested.Catholics forms a substantial percentage of most of this european countries and even in the US there are over 70million catholics there.

You are assuming that people care more about the church than they do about protecting children from habitual ped0philes, which is far from certain.

Child molesters are a special class of criminal. People will forgive almost anything, but when it comes to grown men doing dirty things to defenseless children a kind of red mist descends in front of their eyes.

And we're not talking about one or two kids here. They've been literally thousands or cases, not including those who haven't come forward. Thousands of cases, over several decades occurring all around the world.

Are you really sure people are going to be so eager to defend a bunch of child molesters or the corrupt organisation that facilitates r@pes and protect r@pists?

I wouldn't be so confident.