Many
elements of the United Nations are part
of the anti-family and anti-life forces
that seek to weaken or even destroy
the Catholic Church that stands in their
way. This latest assault is outrageous!
But it is not just by some radical activist,
but by a high-ranking UN jurist. Make
no mistake about it -- Satan has marshalled
his forces for the final assault. He
has the UN, the US, the EU, some billionaires,
liberal international media, etc.
Let
us not be complacent. Even as we know
the gates of hell will not prevail against
the Church. But Satan can do a great
deal of damage. Many Catholics can be
lost. Beyond not being complacent, we
cannot just be defensive. We must go
on the offensive. We must evangelize
with a passion. We must renew the family
and defend life. The clergy must be
more open and bolder in speaking about
family and life. The hierarchy must
address and ensure the holiness of the
clergy.
UN
Judge: Pope Should be Prosecuted at
International Criminal Court for "Crimes
against Humanity"
By
Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D.
April
8, 2010 (C-FAM)
- In London last Friday, a high ranking
United Nations (UN) jurist called on
the British government to detain Pope
Benedict XVI during his upcoming visit
to Britain, and send him to trial in
the International Criminal Court (ICC)
for “crimes against humanity.”
Geoffrey
Robertson touted his status as a UN
judge in an article he published last
week, in which he argued that jurists
should invoke the same procedures that
have been used to indict war criminals
such as Slobodan Milosevic, to try the
Pope as head of the Roman Catholic Church,
who he said is ultimately responsible
for sexual abuse of children by Catholic
priests.
Robertson
is one of five select jurists in the
UN’s internal justice system responsible
for holding UN officials accountable
for corruption and mismanagement. His
article was published in both the United
States and Britain and reported on by
the Associated Press.
Professor
Hurst Hannum of the Fletcher School
at Tufts University told C-Fam's Friday
Fax that it would be a “real stretch”
to use the ICC, since that court’s
jurisdiction is mainly reserved for
crimes during war. More likely, Hannum
said, is that Robertson and likeminded
experts would invoke the principle of
“universal jurisdiction,”
so that national courts all over the
world could detain the pope whenever
he stepped foot on their soil. Critics
say the principle, already used in practice,
is a violation of sovereignty as it
is enshrined in the UN Charter.
Yet
Robertson insisted that the ICC could
be used as long as the Pope’s
sovereign immunity was waived and as
long as jurists can show that the sex
abuse scandal was carried out on a “widespread
or systematic scale,” in a similar
way that child soldiers were used in
the wars in Sierra Leone and the way
that sex slaves are traded internationally.
Robertson,
a tort lawyer, argued that prosecution
at a higher level of the Church is necessary
to get more money for victims of clergy
sexual abuse in cases where dioceses
have gone into bankruptcy. He specifically
pointed out the fact that the diocese
of Los Angeles has already paid $660M
in damages and Boston has paid $100M.
One
prominent law professor told the Friday
Fax, “Without in any way minimizing
the seriousness of the alleged offenses
of Catholic priests, it would be a grave
mistake to the laws of human rights
to permit a trivializing of the responsibility
to protect, and to play into the hands
of American contingency-fee lawyers.”
Another
human rights lawyer told the Friday
Fax that the article could be part of
a broader campaign. Robertson has long
campaigned to strip the Holy See of
its permanent observer status at the
UN, and has publicly referred to the
Holy See “the world’s largest
NGO.”
When
a campaign was launched to oust the
Holy See from its status in 1999, UN
Member States rallied around the Vatican,
and in 2004 the General Assembly voted
unanimously to expand that status. It
is unclear whether UN Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon knew about Robertson’s
leanings before appointing him to his
current position.
This
article reprinted with permission from
www.c-fam.org
"For
to me to live is Christ, and to die
is gain." (Phil 1:21)