Pope Benedict XVI Charged with Crimes Against Humanity
Two German lawyers have filed charges at the International Criminal Court against Pope Benedict XVI.
Christian Sailer and Gert-Joachim Hetzel, both from Benedict's home state of Bavaria, have charged His Holiness with three counts of crimes against humanity.
Their 16,500-word document charges that the Pope "is responsible for the preservation and leadership of a worldwide totalitarian regime of coercion which subjugates its members with terrifying and health-endangering threats...the adherence to a fatal forbiddance of the use of condoms, even when the danger of HIV-AIDS infection exists...and...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."
The charges were presented to Dr. Luis Moreno Ocampo, who is the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. The prosecutor's office will now have to determine whether the charges against Pope Benedict contain merit.
In their complaint, Sailer and Hetzel are particularly adamant about the act of baptism, which they claim is an irrevocable act performed on children who are too young to be able to give their consent.
Similar cases have been presented to the ICC in the past and have never been brought to trial, but the recent global outrage over sex crimes committed against young children by Catholic clergy may provide some impetus for the prosecutor to more carefully consider the merits of the charges against the Pope.
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