Growing Moves to Challenge Vatican's Immunity Status

Love|Peace Leading atheist Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins are launching a campaign to arrest Pope Benedict for ‘crimes against humanity’ when he visits the UK in the fall.

The BBC’s religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott said the anti-Pope campaign could be seen as a mischievous attempt to create an “air of criminality” around the Pope. via BBC News

Hitchens is advancing an intellectual campaign that insists that the Vatican is not a legal state. Exempting the Vatican from prosecution is a key legal argument in most sex abuse cases. Several American cases seek to end the Pope’s immunity status, arguing that he’s no different than the CEO of a large corporation and therefore responsible for actions of workers.

(Hitchens} said: “The UN at its inception refused membership to the Vatican but has allowed it a unique “observer status”, permitting it to become signatory to treaties such as the Law of the Sea and (ironically) the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and to speak and vote at UN conferences where it promotes its controversial dogmas on abortion, contraception and homosexuality.” via BBC News

Former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni cancelled a visit to London after a British judge signed an arrest warrant over her alleged role in conflict in Gaza.

Read also We can’t let the Roman Catholic Church judge itw own cases via Slate