So what do you think, is the Pope above the Law just like the Central Banking Cartel?



Victims' groups file charges against Vatican for 'crimes against humanity'


In international coalition of sex-abuse victims has lodged charges with the International Criminal Court at the Hague, charging Pope Benedict XVI and other leading Vatican officials with crimes against humanity.

Leaders of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), assisted by the Center for Constitutional Rights, filed an 80-page complaint, accompanied by over 20,000 pages of supporting evidence, claiming that the Holy See bears "direct and superior responsibility for the crimes against humanity of rape and other sexual violence committed around the world." The charges were directed against Pope Benedict and three Vatican officials: Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Secretary of State; his predecessor, Cardinal Angelo Sodano; and Cardinal William Levada, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Experts in international law said that it is extremely unlikely the Hague court will take up the case. The court does not have jurisdiction over the Holy See, and the charges raised in the complaint fall well short of the standards required for an international trial. Similar charges against the Vatican had been lodged in the past, and no prosecution ensued.

However, legal experts said that the SNAP case could serve the group's purposes by "raising awareness" of their cause. In other words, the case will generate publicity.

Pope's butler charged over leaked Vatican letters

(Yeh arrest the common guy for being a whistle blower, and let the Pope get away with crimes against Humanity.)



Paolo Gabriele charged with illegal possession of documents after whistleblowing book alleges corruption at Holy See


The pope's butler has been formally charged over suspicions he leaked a large number of confidential letters addressed to Benedict XVI which have lifted the lid on alleged corruption and nepotism at the Holy See.

Vatican magistrates charged Paolo Gabriele, 46, with illegal possession of secret documents and said a wider investigation would take place to see if he had any accomplices who helped him leak them.

Gabriele, who has worked as Benedict's butler since 2006, was taken into custody after investigators reportedly found a mass of documents in the Vatican apartment he shares with his wife and three children.

The arrest comes a month after the Vatican gave an investigative team led by Cardinal Julián Herranz, a member of Opus Dei, a full "pontifical mandate" to join Vatican police in rooting out the perpetrators of what has been dubbed Vatileaks.

Gabriele is a member of the 85-year-old pontiff's closest circle of helpers, assisting him in his papal apartment at the Vatican alongside four female members of the Italian religious movement Comunione e Liberazione who cook and clean.

The Rome-born butler is in custody in the Vatican's cells.

"We have cells," said a Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi. "It is a simple structure, since this is a small state, but we have them."

Among the most serious leaks published this year is a letter from Carlo Maria Viganò, the former deputy governor of Vatican City, denouncing inflated contracts with friendly companies, false invoicing and missing cash.

Further revelations were published this week in a book by a journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi, who described how an unnamed whistleblower sent emissaries to sound him out before they held secret meetings in an unfurnished rented flat near the Vatican. "I wore a USB round my neck for six months with the leaked documents on it," Nuzzi said. "It was like something out of a film."

In the book, the source says he was coming clean because "hypocrisy within the Vatican goes unchallenged and scandals multiply".

The book, which was described as criminal by the Vatican, alleged that the editor of the Vatican's newspaper started a gay smear campaign against a rival editor, with the help of a newspaper owned by the Berlusconi family.

Letters depict collusion between the Berlusconi government and the Vatican over how to avoid EU pressure to make the Catholic church pay tax on its properties.

Huge cash donations to the pope from banks and a TV presenter are described, as well as a €100,000 (£80,000) truffle sent by a businessman which was donated to the poor.

"After Pope John Paul II's death I started putting aside copies of some documents that came into my possession thanks to my work," the source told Nuzzi.

"Initially I did it sporadically. When I saw that the truth coming out in the newspapers and official speeches did not match the truth in the documents I put everything aside in a folder to try and investigate and understand."

The source said his growing disenchantment with the "personal interests and hidden truths" at the Vatican was shared by other people living and working in the city state, but "nobody knows who all the others are".

The letters show the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, in a bad light but spare the pope. "The source backed Benedict's reforming spirit. The problem is that the pope has not been able to achieve things very quickly," said Nuzzi.

Marco Tosatti, a Vatican expert at La Stampa newspaper, said: "I don't believe they would have arrested him if they didn't have real proof, but I believe he is not the only guilty one. I imagine he will go before an Italian court and risks 20 years for stealing correspondence from a head of state."

Other letters reveal a row over improving transparency at the Vatican bank after it was implicated in the 1980s in the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano whose chairman, Roberto Calvi, was found hanging under London Bridge.

On Thursday, the Vatican bank's president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, who was brought in to improve transparency, was ousted "for not having carried out various responsibilities of primary importance regarding his office," the Vatican said in a statement.

The Vatican has cells?

The Rome-born butler is in custody in the Vatican's cells.

"We have cells," said a Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi. "It is a simple structure, since this is a small state, but we have them."


(They probably have dungeons with people chained to dark dank walls)

Good then we have a place to put the royalty.

No, no one is excempted to the law. The law of the people is the law of God.

I read he is trying to cut a deal with the Italian government for protection.

Folks, the Vatican is one of smallest (if not the smallest) sovereign states in the world. Indeed, it is an observer state at the U.N.

One word: NO.

Sometimes when you say "the law", you have to be specific about the legal jurisdiction that you are referring to. People who work and live within the Vatican are within the jurisdiction of the Vatican.

If people who work within the Vatican are only within the jurisdiction of the Vatican, then if they are deemed to be criminals elsewhere, they can be arrested as soon as they leave the Vatican.

Do they all have diplomatic immunity? I doubt it.

That is one of the reasons the Vatican is set up as independent from the rest of the world.

The Vatican may be like a country. But does it have an army to protect it? If the world decided to invade it and tear it down, who is obligated to protect them? Anyone?

Italy? (Don't make me laugh) But will Italy stand up and protect the Pope which will be like harboring a criminal? Depends on how many people are tired of the abuse of power going on.

The will of the people...

Judging by the long secretive tradition of pedophilia among the Catholic church, of which many have been exposed and prosecuted due to victims coming foward, id say they believe they are above the law, historicly they have been above the law. Wheither this above the law continues depends on the many victims deligence and committment. In almost every city in this country there have been and are presently many cases pending and many convictions of Catholic clergy. Are they above the law? NO, but they sure think they are. The level of success in prosecuting the old tradition of pedophilia depends on what is the extent of the fallout politiclly, where lies the true essence of this problem.