Read the full text in our new weblog devoted to papal crimes :
Benedict XVI Crimes against Humanity at the Hague and other papal lawsuits http://popecrimes.blogspot.com/Criminal Charges against Dr. Joseph Ratzinger, Pope of the Roman Catholic Church on grounds of Crimes against Humanity According to Art. 7 ICC Statute
http://www.kanzlei-sailer.de/pope-lawsuit-2011.pdfGERMANY
To the Prosecutor
The International Criminal Court
Dr. Luis Moreno Ocampo
Maanweg, 174
NL-2516 AB Den Haag ...
G r o u n d s
Introduction
The charges are directed against three worldwide crimes, which until now have not been denounced merely because they stemmed from an institution headed by the “highest dignitaries,” who appear to be far above criminal acts. The traditional reverence toward
“ecclesiastical authority” has clouded the sense of right and wrong.
If, by way of massive psychological pressure, a new religious group were to force its members to integrate their newborn into the group, in order to finance the latter itswhole life long and to orient itself in everything according to the directives of the group, it would be called a “sect.” It is possible the state would dissolve the group and punish the “sect leaders” on grounds of coercion and extortion, even more so, if the group would not tolerate anyone leaving, instead hindering this under threat of severest punishment, thus giving rise to serious emotional disturbances and impairment of the freedom of development in many of its members.
Under the same facts and circumstances, can this be any different merely because it concerns an organization that acts in the same way not only toward a few, but worldwide, calling itself the “Roman Catholic Church” and constantly referring to religious freedom, while setting “sect commissioners” onto those of different faith? It is not different, but people have simply become accustomed to it. However, since July 1, 2002, this inurement is no longer admissible. On this day, the statute for the International Criminal Court came into effect, making crimes against humanity a punishable offense.
If a coercive sect of the kind described above were widespread in present-day Africa and its members were forbidden the use of condoms under threat of severe punishment, transmission of the HIV-AIDS virus and the deaths caused by this would be attributed to the sect leaders, and charges would be brought against them. Can this be any different simply because the coercive sect calls itself a “church” and its head claims to be infallible?
If, in a worldwide coercive sect, hundreds of thousands of children were sexually abused and the crimes covered up and prosecution called off at the behest of the sect leader, this criminal organization and its leader would be put on trial. Can this be any different merely because this organization calls itself a “church” and the command to be silent about the crimes does not come from a mafia boss, but is pronounced by the pope? It is no different, but it is simply centuries of becoming inured to a pedophile priesthood and the power of its high priests. Since the statutory offense of crimes against humanity exists, this “looking the other way” is no longer admissible.
In the following, charges are brought against three crimes committed against humanity, for which Dr. Joseph Ratzinger, as former cardinal and present-day pope, is criminally liable:
1. the preservation and leadership of a worldwide totalitarian regime of coercion, which subjugates its members with terrifying and health-endangering threats,
2. the adherence to a fatal forbiddance of the use of condoms, even when the danger of HIV-AIDS infection exists, and
3. the establishment and maintenance of a worldwide system of cover-up of the sexual crimes committed by Catholic priests and their preferential treatment, which aids and abets ever new crimes.
========
http://www.kanzlei-sailer.de/pope-lawsuit-2011.pdf
Criminal Charges
against
Dr. Joseph Ratzinger,
Pope of the Roman Catholic Church
on grounds of
Crimes against Humanity
According to Art. 7 ICC Statute
Dr. jur. Christian Sailer
Dr. jur. Gert-Joachim Hetzel
__________________________________________
Rechtsanwälte
Dr. Sailer, Dr. Hetzel, Max-Braun-Str. 2, 97828 Marktheidenfeld-Altfeld, Germany
Max-Braun-Straße 2
97828 Marktheidenfeld-Altfeld, Germany
Telefon: 09391/504-200
Telefax: 09391/504-202
e-mail: info@kanzlei-sailer.de
http://www.kanzlei-sailer.de
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Introduction .................................................................................................................. 3
I. The Terrifying Church Regime.............................................................................. 5
1. Compulsory membership ....................................................................................... 5
2. Psycho-terror ............................................................................................................. 7
3. A crime against humanity.......................................................................................12
4. The criminal responsibility of Dr. Ratzinger .......................................................14
II. The Murderous Forbiddance of Condoms .......................................................14
1. The conflict ...............................................................................................................15
2. Obedience with fatal consequences ......................................................................16
3. A crime against humanity ......................................................................................18
4. The criminal responsibility of Dr. Ratzinger .......................................................19
III. Joseph Ratzinger’s Patronage of the Sexual Crimes of the Clergy ............20
1. The worldwide sexual crimes of Catholic priests...............................................20
1.1 USA...........................................................................................................................20
1.2 Ireland .....................................................................................................................22
1.3 Germany .................................................................................................................23
1.4 Canada.....................................................................................................................24
1.5 Australia ..................................................................................................................25
1.6 Africa........................................................................................................................25
1.7 Prominent perpetrators ........................................................................................25
2. The cover-up strategy.............................................................................................28
2.1 The pontifical secret ..............................................................................................28
2.2 The practice of cover-up .......................................................................................29
2.3 The preferential treatment and reinstatement of the perpetrators ...............32
2.4 No end in sight .......................................................................................................35
2.5 A crime against humanity.....................................................................................38
2.6 The criminal responsibility of Dr. Ratzinger .....................................................41
IV. On the Admissibility of the Proposed Charge...............................................44
V. Summation ..............................................................................................................46
In the name of and on behalf of
1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
We hereby bring charges against Dr. Joseph Ratzinger and apply to the
prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to initiate investigations against
the accused and to examine him regarding the facts presented.
G r o u n d s
Introduction
The charges are directed against three worldwide crimes, which until now have not been
denounced merely because they stemmed from an institution headed by the “highest
dignitaries,” who appear to be far above criminal acts. The traditional reverence toward
“ecclesiastical authority” has clouded the sense of right and wrong.
If, by way of massive psychological pressure, a new religious group were to force its
members to integrate their newborn into the group, in order to finance the latter its
whole life long and to orient itself in everything according to the directives of the group,
it would be called a “sect.” It is possible the state would dissolve the group and punish
the “sect leaders” on grounds of coercion and extortion, even more so, if the group would
not tolerate anyone leaving, instead hindering this under threat of severest punishment,
thus giving rise to serious emotional disturbances and impairment of the freedom of
development in many of its members.
Under the same facts and circumstances, can this be any different merely because it
concerns an organization that acts in the same way not only toward a few, but worldwide,
calling itself the “Roman Catholic Church” and constantly referring to religious
freedom, while setting “sect commissioners” onto those of different faith? It is not
different, but people have simply become accustomed to it. However, since July 1, 2002,
this inurement is no longer admissible. On this day, the statute for the International
Criminal Court came into effect, making crimes against humanity a punishable offense.
If a coercive sect of the kind described above were widespread in present-day Africa and
its members were forbidden the use of condoms under threat of severe punishment,
transmission of the HIV-AIDS virus and the deaths caused by this would be attributed
to the sect leaders, and charges would be brought against them. Can this be any different
simply because the coercive sect calls itself a “church” and its head claims to be
infallible?
If, in a worldwide coercive sect, hundreds of thousands of children were sexually abused
and the crimes covered up and prosecution called off at the behest of the sect leader, this
criminal organization and its leader would be put on trial. Can this be any different
merely because this organization calls itself a “church” and the command to be silent
about the crimes does not come from a mafia boss, but is pronounced by the pope? It is
no different, but it is simply centuries of becoming inured to a pedophile priesthood and
the power of its high priests. Since the statutory offense of crimes against humanity
exists, this “looking the other way” is no longer admissible.
In the following, charges are brought against three crimes committed against humanity,
for which Dr. Joseph Ratzinger, as former cardinal and present-day pope, is criminally
liable:
1. the preservation and leadership of a worldwide totalitarian regime of coercion, which
subjugates its members with terrifying and health-endangering threats,
2. the adherence to a fatal forbiddance of the use of condoms, even when the danger of
HIV-AIDS infection exists, and
3. the establishment and maintenance of a worldwide system of cover-up of the sexual
crimes committed by Catholic priests and their preferential treatment, which aids and
abets ever new crimes.
I. The Terrifying Church Regime
There is strong suspicion that Dr. Joseph Ratzinger, as cardinal and as pope,
caused severe impairment to the mental and physical health of an unknown
number of people in the meaning of Art. 7(1)(k) ICCSt., in any case, provoking
corresponding health hazards.
1. Compulsory membership
The Roman Catholic Church acquires its members through a compulsory act,
namely, through the baptism of infants that do not yet have a will of their own,
as determined in Can. 96 of the Code of Canon Law (C.I.C. [Codex Iuris
Canonici]):
“By baptism one is incorporated into the Church of Christ ...”
As a rule, baptism takes place during infancy. Catholic parents must believe that
their newborn child is burdened with the taint of original sin, from which it can
be freed solely through baptism. In the current Catechism of the Roman Catholic
Church, it literally says the following about this:
“Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children also
have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of
darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God,
to which all men are called. … The Church and the parents would deny a
child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer
Baptism shortly after birth.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1250)
And in the Code of Canon Law, it says in Can. 867, para. 1:
“Parents are obliged to take care that infants are baptized in the first few
weeks; as soon as possible after the birth or even before it, they are to go to
the pastor to request the sacrament for their child and to be prepared
properly for it.”
In case the child is in danger of dying, the baptism should even take place
against the will of the parents. Can. 868, para. 2 C.I.C. determines the following
regarding this:
“An infant of Catholic parents or even of non-Catholic parents is baptized
licitly in danger of death even against the will of the parents.”
Most Catholic parents defer to this statement and have their children baptized as
early as possible, usually a few weeks after birth. According to prevailing
opinion, their right to care for and raise their children is sufficient for this, even
though, according to Catholic doctrine, baptism binds the baptized child in a
way that amounts to living in servitude. The Catholic Catechism states the
following about this:
“Having become a member of the Church, the person baptized belongs no
longer to himself, but to him who died and rose for us. From now on, he is
called to be subject to others, to serve them in the communion of the Church,
and to ‘obey and submit’ to the Church's leaders, holding them in respect
and affection.” (Catechism, No. 1269)
The incorporation of the baptized child in the Catholic Church is irrevocable (cf.
von Campenhausen, Hdb. d. Staatskirchenrechts der Bundesrepublik Deutschland,
2. Ed., Berlin 1994, p. 759 f.), due to which the church also refuses to delete
people who have left the church from the baptismal records.
According to the binding doctrine of the church, leaving the church leads to the
eternal punishment of hell. This is what it says, for instance, in the book by Josef
Neuner and J. Dupuis, “The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the
Catholic Church,” 2001. Margin Note No. 1005, p. 421:
“The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that ‘no
one remaining outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans’ but also Jews,
heretics or schismatics, can become partakers of eternal life; but they will go
to the ‘eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels,’ unless before the
end of their life they are joined to it (the Church).”
According to Can. 1364, in conjunction with Can. 751 of the Corpus iuris
Canonici (C.I.C.), to leave the church leads to excommunication, which, in turn,
according to No. 1463 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, represents a
“particularly grave sin” that, according to No. 1861 of the Catechism, results in
the “eternal death of hell.”
2. Psycho-terror
Among other things, the following applies to members of the church (Neuner, J.
and Roos, H. “The Teaching of the Catholic Church as Contained in Her
Documents,” Mercier Press Ltd., 1967, Margin Note No. 91, p. 63):
“If any one shall not receive as sacred and canonical the Books of Holy
Scripture, entire with all their parts, as the Holy Synod of Trent has
enumerated them, or shall deny that they have been divinely inspired –
anathema sit.”
“Anathema sit” literally translated from the Greek-Latin formulation means:
“may he be damned.”
According to this, anyone who does not acknowledge the threats of punishment
in the Old Testament as the word of God is also “damned.” For example:
“If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the
adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death …” (Lev. 20:10)
“If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed
an abomination; they shall surely be put to death …” (Lev. 20:13)
“The man who acts presumptuously by not obeying the priest who stands
to minister there before the LORD your God, or the judge, that man shall
die …!” (Dt. 17:12)
“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of
his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will
not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him
and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he
lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn
and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’
Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. ...” (Dt.
21:18-21)
At first glance, such things may seem like something from the Stone Age that
has been obsolete for thousands of years. The Roman Catholic Church, however,
views it differently. In 1965, its highest body, in the form of the Second Vatican
Council, declared the following in its “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine
Revelation [Dei Verbum]”:
“… For holy mother Church, relying on the belief of the Apostles, holds
that the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with
all their parts, are sacred and canonical because written under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been
handed on as such to the Church herself. … Therefore, since everything
asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be
asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be
acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth
…”
(Die Verbum, Chap. III,11. http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/
ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html)
Accordingly, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church held to be valid until
today, it says:
“The Old Testament is an indispensable part of Sacred Scripture. Its books
are divinely inspired … Christians venerate the Old Testament as true
Word of God …” (No. 121 & 123)
If this is so, it is possible that only the limits imposed by secular law are keeping
the church from carrying out the threats of death that the Old Testament holds
ready for adulterers, homosexuals, heretics and disobedient children.
Among other things, the God of the Old Testament, the words of which the
church still considers valid today as “the true Word of God,” calls upon one to:
“Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to
which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. You shall tear down
their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim [sacred
poles].” (Ex. 4:12-13)
Paul, who is venerated by the church as the “apostle to the nations,” even goes a
step further, by writing the following about heretics or followers of other cults:
“They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness,
malice … They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. …
they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to
die…” (Rom. 1:29, 32)
How seriously the church takes such calls, when secular law does not hold it in
check, was demonstrated, for instance, by its missionary work in Latin America.
And should a nation rebel against the cruel God of the Old Testament, with
whom the church identifies, it is threatened anew with terrible things:
He “shall eat up the nations, his adversaries, and shall break their bones in
pieces and pierce them through with his arrows.” (Ex. 24:8)
Even if a contemporary with common sense is not at all inclined to connect this
with God, according to church opinion, this, too, is the “true word of God,” and
anyone who claims differently is considered one of the false teachers, against
whom the church hurls the following words in the second Letter of Peter:
“But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught
and destroyed … They are blots and blemishes …” (2 Pet. 2:12-13)
There is no freedom of faith or of conscience. Instead, the following holds true:
“Furthermore we declare, state and define that it is absolutely necessary for
the salvation of all men that they submit to the Roman pontiff.” (Neuner &
Roos, op.cit., Margin Note 342)
The decisions of the pope are
“irreformable of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church. But if
any one – which God avert – presume to contradict this Our definition –
anathema sit.” (=damned) (Neuner-Roos, op.cit., Margin Note 388)
“To be damned” means to be damned to the eternal torments of hell. Karl
Jaspers, one of the great German philosophers of the past century, writes the
following about these sanctions: “There are the eternal torments of hell: the
Church relentlessly spurned the teachings of Origin, who regarded the punishments
of hell as limited in time by the restoration of all things (apokatastasis
panton) … through this, the souls remained in its hand. Nietzsche pointed out …
that the Church seized the widespread concept of eternal punishment as the
‘most fertile egg of its power’ … Because the priest penetrates into the inmost of
the soul – on the strength of his office, not as mere mortal – he can put unheardof
pressure on the believer. Parents may be held liable and threatened with
purgatory, for failing to keep their grown children in the Church.” (Jaspers,
“Philosophical Faith and Revelation,” New York, 1967, p. 43.) In the official
documents of the Roman Catholic Church, about “The Last Things,” it says
among other things:
“… in accordance with God’s universal ordinance the souls of those who die
in actual mortal sin descend immediately after death to hell where they are
tormented by eternal punishment.” (Neuner & Roos, Margin Note 822)
“But whoever dies in mortal sin without penance will without any doubt
suffer for ever in the fires of eternal hell.” (Neuner & Roos, Margin Note 815)
Thereby, it is brought again and again to the believer’s attention that this involves
not only mental-emotional torments, but also terrible physical tortures,
with which Jesus Christ allegedly will punish the evil ones at the Last Judgment:
“Jesus Christ … will come at the end of time to judge the living and the
dead, to render to each according to his works, to the rejected and to the
elect, who will all arise with their own bodies which they now have so that
they may receive, according as their works were good or bad, either
perpetual punishment with the devil or eternal glory with Christ.” (Neuner
& Roos, Margin Note 813)
At the same time, the church threatens the faithful, by way of the alleged
statements of Jesus found in the Gospel text authorized by the church:
“When the Son of man comes in his glory … he will place the sheep at his
right hand, but the goats to his left … Then he will say to those at his left
hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the
devil and his angels’ … And they will go away into eternal punishment …”
(Matthew 25:31,32,41,46)
The social psychologist Franz Buggle writes about the eternal torments of hell,
with which the church makes threats in its own documents with the help of the
alleged words of Jesus; among other things: “… a threat of punishment, which
disastrous, psychologically devastating effect on countless people in the history
of Christendom cannot be at all overstated. Try to free yourself from all inurement
caused by religious education and to realize what psychological significance
a threat of eternally lasting torments must have. All otherwise known
tortures and punishments pale in the face of this, because they are at least
limited by time. … there is hardly any other psychological phenomenon like the
threat of eternally lasting torments, which very much deserves the name psychoterror!”
(Buggle, Denn sie wissen nicht, was sie glauben, [For They Know Not
What They Believe] 1992, p. 98)
In many people, not lastly in children and youth, the results of this terror are
fear of sinning, chronic bad conscience, hypochondria, and a myriad of manifestations
of “ecclesiogenic neuroses,” which can imply bondage to the church,
and which is still effective even in those who, over the course of their life, tried
to free themselves from the details of the church message of threat. Karl Jaspers
writes concerning this: “To the hour of death, the priest may bring comfort or
torment; to this day, Catholics who have ceased to believe are seen to turn back
then, as if held by an inner chain …” (Jaspers, op.cit., p. 43) It is the mental
agony that shackles church members from a very early age, expressed in one of
the most important writings of the papal church, in which it says: “It is a fearful
thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Heb.10:31)
3. A crime against humanity
The coercion of faith and of conscience that goes out from the Roman Catholic
Church, practiced against members recruited and held under compulsion, and
enforced with threats of the severest evil imaginable in the eternal torments of
hell, is a grave impairment of the personal freedom of development and of a
person’s emotional and mental integrity. That church members thereby do not
collectively collapse mentally and emotionally can only be due to the fact that
many do not take a large part of the church’s message of threat seriously.
However, this inner emigration does not change anything about the inhumanness
of the system and its goal of the total emotional and mental subjugation of
church members. And it literally presumes the following: “She must therefore
with painstaking care remove and eradicate anything that is contrary to faith …”
(Neuner & Roos, Margin Note 352)
How seriously this is meant can be seen by the trail of blood left by the
Crusades, the Inquisition and the witch burnings. That the church presently
cannot put its spirit of violence into practice in physical acts of violence does not
change a thing about the fact that its system of mental subjugation is contrary to
human rights. The constantly repeated threat, issued in different variations: “If
you do not believe what I tell you, you will suffer the eternal torments of hell,”
occurs towards people whom the church expects to take this threat seriously.
And many do so and therefore become ill, either now and then, or even
chronically: With their first sexual contact, young people suffer under the
anxiety of having sinned; married couples allow themselves to be forbidden the
use of birth control measures; non-Catholics who marry Catholics must, at the
time of marriage, pledge to raise the children as Catholics; mentally ill people
have “evil spirits driven out” by church exorcists, and in the process, parents
even risk the death of their child. Children abused by priests and their parents
feel obliged to remain silent about the crimes; African Catholics become infected
with HIV, because according to Catholic sexual “morals,” the use of condoms is
not allowed.
Ultimately, the damages caused by church coercion do not need to be determined,
because, with the crimes committed against humanity via the threats that
are under consideration here, a serious threat to the victim’s health is already
sufficient (cf. Werle, Völkerstrafrecht, 2.Ed., 2007, Margin Note 343). In any case,
it concerns the mental use of force, which is similar to other crimes against
humanity, such as “coercion into prostitution” [Art. 7(1)(g) ICCSt.] or deportation
(d) or – ”remove and eradicate anything” – apartheid (j). Compared to the
threats of the eternal torments of hell, the temporal suffering connected with
these is nigh on harmless. The church system of coercion thus falls under the
elements of an offense of “other inhuman acts of a similar kind” in the meaning
of Art. 7(1)(k) ICCSt.
The fact that the church system of coercion has been in existence for about 1500
years and is an established religion in the countries of the western hemisphere
does not change this, either. This establishment did not take place through the
free recognition of the church system, but through compulsory membership,
mental oppression and bloody violence. The outcome of this historical process,
which led to the “worldwide church,” was accepted with the help of tradition
and inurement, nolens volens (like it or not), even though, throughout the
centuries, resistance of a philosophical and religious kind took place. Over and
over again, these were successfully quelled, in part, in an extremely bloody way
and with state help.
This state help also consisted of the fact that no legal limits were set regarding
the preservation of this church system of coercion. This has changed since the
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court of July 1, 2002 came into effect.
With this, the statutory offense of crimes against humanity was created as an
international law. It protects not only against murder and manslaughter, but also
has in mind human rights that go beyond this, such as protection against racial
discrimination, expulsion and deportation and “other inhuman acts of a similar
kind.” In this respect, it is a cultural turn for mankind initiated through the
international criminal law. Health-endangering psycho-terror consisting of
coercion of faith and of conscience by way of inhuman threats is no longer
tolerated, but is, instead, punishable, insofar as it is inflicted upon a “civilian
population” through an “extensive or systematic” act (Art. 7(1) p. 1 ICCSt.). The
coercive system of the church is equal to such an attack, for the threats made by
the church take place “pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organization
policy,” namely that of the church, “to commit such an attack,” [Art. 7 (2)(a)
ICCSt.] in order to enforce its doctrine worldwide against the “civilian population.”
4. The criminal responsibility of Dr. Ratzinger
The accused may very well not have initiated the church system of coercion;
however, as pope, he is responsible for its preservation and enforcement and, as
Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of his church, he was
jointly responsible, being in a decisive position as the representative of the
former pope. He was head of the church’s Inquisition authority and felt
accordingly. In a radio interview in March 2005, he said: “Grand Inquisitor is a
historic definition. Somewhere, we stand in a line of continuity.” And he added
that one “must indeed say that the Inquisition was progress, because nothing
could be condemned anymore without ‘inquisitio’ [a hearing].”
Today, the accused bears the final responsibility for all his church’s doctrines
and threats. Therefore, he is also responsible for the fact that the church system
of coercion, installed before his election as pope, continues to exist. He could
revoke the threats of eternal torments of hell. As long as he does not do this, he
fulfills the above-indicated statutory offense of Art. 7(1)(k) ICCSt. by way of
omission (cf. also Werle, op.cit., Margin Note 472 f.).
II. The Murderous Forbiddance of Condoms
There is strong suspicion that, as pope, Dr. Joseph Ratzinger has caused an
undetermined number of people severe impairment of their physical health or
even their death, in the meaning of Art. 7(1)(a) and (k) ICCSt.
1. The conflict
According to UN figures, more than 22 million people in Africa are presently
infected with HIV-AIDS; approximately 30 million have already died of the
epidemic. In South Africa, every fifth person is affected by it. There are about
500,000 new infections annually. Many millions of Catholics also live in the areas
affected.
The transmission of the HIV virus occurs through the exchange of bodily fluids.
For this reason, one of the most important measures for the containment of the
epidemic consists in urging people in the endangered areas to use condoms
during sexual intercourse.
According to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, proclaimed via the
encyclical Humanae Vitae by Pope Paul VI in 1968, contraceptives, however, are
strictly forbidden. And nothing changed regarding this when the number of
persons infected with HIV skyrocketed during the 1980s and 1990s and the HIV
virus led to millions of deaths, which continues until today. When Pope John
Paul II visited Uganda in February 1993, he omitted the burning question concerning
a change in the life-endangering forbiddance of condoms. He preferred
to accept the spread of the epidemic rather than to change the “moral” doctrine
of the Vatican. In a “Vademecum for Confessors,” which the same pope commissioned
in 1997, Cardinal Alfonso Lopéz Trujillo, president of the “Pontifical
Council for the Family,” emphasized the absolute validity of the old determination:
“The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that
is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be
held as definitive and irreformable.”
(http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/family/documents/
rc_pc_family_doc_12021997_vademecum_en.html)
Members of the Catholic Church who live in the areas of Africa threatened by
HIV-AIDS, that is, primarily south of the Sahara, are faced with a terrible
alternative: If they protect themselves with condoms during sexual intercourse,
they become grave sinners; if they do not protect themselves out of fear of the
punishment of sin threatened by the church, they become candidates for death.
In 1989, a Catholic moral theologian – Carlo Caffarra, who today is the Archbishop
of Bologna – called for ending all sexual activities, even within marriage,
if one of the partners is HIV positive. Forbidding the use of condoms not only
led to fatal infections among Catholics, but at the same time also abetted in the
contraction of this disease among non-Catholics.
For years, resistance to this unworldly and life-endangering “moral” has been
expressed, also from within the ranks of the church. According to Spiegel Online
on April 4, 2010, Kevin Dowling, the Catholic Bishop in Rustenburg, South
Africa, already charged his church on World AIDS Day 2003, with being “blind
toward the reality of life of millions of poor people.” The people in Africa “live,
suffer and die because of this disease.” In his bishopric, the Bishop has
experienced firsthand, how people in the workcamps die of AIDS by the dozens.
“I believe that people living with HIV must be invited and challenged to use a
condom in order to prevent the transmission of potential death to another
person, or to protect themselves from infection, especially in abusive and destructive
relationships,” declared the Bishop.
(http://www.mh2.dds.nl/2003/kitchap5/Michael4%20oct.htm)
2. Obedience with fatal consequences
But the present ruling pope also closes his ears to the moral dilemma of his
priests and believers. Even worse: During his first trip to Africa in March 2009,
when many African Catholics hoped for a redeeming word, he intensified the
dilemma during a conversation with journalists aboard the airplane that took
him to Africa. He stated: “The scourge cannot be resolved by distributing condoms;
quite the contrary, we risk worsening the problem.” He said that the
solution lies in a “spiritual and human renewal” and in “true friendship, above
all, for those who are suffering.”
(http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=32739 [cf. nachrichten.
t-online.de from March 18, 2009])
All the aid organizations with no ties to churches, such as the United Nations
International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), reacted with incomprehension
to so much ignorance. For the pope’s statement occurred two years after
the publication of the sensational book “Gott, Aids, Afrika” (God, AIDS, Africa)
by
Read the full text in our new weblog devoted to papal crimes :
Benedict XVI Crimes against Humanity at the Hague and other papal lawsuits http://popecrimes.blogspot.com/
