Huff Post: NEW YORK — The International Criminal Court has rejected a longshot request by clergy sex abuse victims to investigate former Pope Benedict XVI and Vatican cardinals for possible crimes against humanity.
The tribunal, based in The Hague, told attorneys for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests that “there is not a basis at this time to proceed with further analysis.”
“The matters described in your communication do not appear to fall within the jurisdiction of the court,” a court official wrote in a May 31 letter to the Center for Constitutional Rights, the nonprofit legal group that represents the victims. The legal organization released the letter Thursday.
Jeffrey Lena, the U.S. attorney for the Vatican, had called the 2011 request to the court a “ludicrous publicity stunt.”
“The common thread running through all these cases is the mistaken idea that ‘everything is controlled by Rome,'” Lena said Thursday.
Pam Spees, senior staff attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, said her group was confident it could collect enough evidence as new abuse victims come forward to press the tribunal to reconsider.
Categories: Europe
We are not deterred. We continue to collect information and work to expose the truth about church officials enabling and empowering child predators to sexually abuse children. We thank the Center for Constitutional Rights for continuing to help us bring these crimes against humanity to the ICC, because it is not over.
The sex abuse and cover up within the Catholic church hierarchy is still going on to this day. Cardinals and bishops are still covering up sex crimes against kids, they are still not removing accused predator clergy and employees, and they still are not reporting to law enforcement. Even in the USA, their so called “zero tolerance” policy is not being followed by all the bishops who created it. They don’t have to, because there is no punishment to force the bishops to change their ways of protecting their image and the institution rather than protecting innocent kids. Many of these bishops and church officials need to be held accountable and spend some time behind bars. Until that happens, they will not change.
Sex abuse thrives in secrecy and secret systems that allow it to continue to this day, so silence is not an options anymore, it only hurts, and by speaking up there is a chance for healing, exposing the truth, and therefore protecting others.
Judy Jones, SNAP Midwest Associate Director, USA, 636-433-2511. snapjudy@gmail.com,
“SNAP (The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests)
We wish the Pope well.
Even though the lawsuit has been decided in favor of the Pope, it may have contributed in some small way to his resignation.
We may know more in coming years and decades.