Book Review – The Case of the Pope: Vatican Accountability for Human Rights Abuse

The Pope in the title of the book is Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, who was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City from 2005 until his resignation in 2013.

Tens of thousands of children were sexually abused by priests around the world and this has never been recognised as a human rights violation by the United Nations, by countries such as the USA and UK, and by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. These Catholic priests have been dealt with by secret ecclesiastical courts that don’t provide real punishments and do provide opportunities to re-offend.

The main reason that there’s been no criminal prosecutions for violating human rights is because the Catholic Church in its guise as The Holy See / The Vatican claims the right to operate these ecclesiastical courts as part of its ‘statehood’ privileges without interference from other groups and organisations.

In particular, the organisation within The Holy See that required these sexual abuse complaints to be heard by ecclesiastical courts in secret and withheld from police and courts was called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and Joseph Ratzinger was the head of the CDF from 1981 to 2005.

The Pope was able to claim sovereign immunity, but this book suggests that The Pope should not be the one person in the world who is above the law.