Cristina Odone writes:
Here’s a maxim for Left-wing luvvies: let’s treat the Pope like a rapist, and treat a rapist like the Pope.
By the Pope, of course, I mean Benedict XVI, who has been at the helm of the Church during its darkest hour, when scandal upon scandal involving priests sexually abusing children has come to light. By the rapist I mean Roman Polanski, the Polish film director who was convicted of raping an underage girl in America back in 1977.
Ah, but there is a difference between the two men, I hear you say: one has been convicted of a crime, while the other is in charge of a global Church at the moment when some of its members are being exposed as criminals.
That may be the difference in your eyes. But in the eyes of Lefty luvvies from Hollywood to Hampstead, the only real difference between the Pope and Polanski is that the latter is an artist. That, you see, erases a multitude of sins – yes, even the rape of a 13-year-old girl. The same people who are viciously denouncing Benedict even though he has not been convicted of any crime defend Polanski despite his conviction because he’s “one of us”. In their eyes, directing The Pianist and Rosemary’s Baby has somehow cleansed the stain of shame from this repulsive little man.
Here is the bad news: the luvvies have won. Their man has been let off – to cries of relief from the arty set, the Swiss authorities have refused the America its request for extradition. The Pope, meanwhile, continues to be publicly reviled by bohemians who think he should be arrested for crimes he neither committed nor concealed. And they dare attack the Church for hypocrisy!
Polanski's, though the most serious abrogation of adult responsibility in this case, was not the only one. What was this girl doing there? Where were her parents?
Hitting puberty and thus experiencing greatly increased sexual desire makes girls and boys alike more vulnerable, not less vulnerable. They therefore need and deserve legal and societal protection all the more, not all the less.
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Is there a specific example of someone who has defended Polanski and attacked Benedict? Because frankly these "luvvies" sound like imaginary playmates.
ReplyDeleteAsk any defender of Polanski what he/she thinks of Benedict.
ReplyDeleteMy concern is to defend the Pope, no one else.
ReplyDeleteThat said, Polanski's victim was younger than almost any priest's victims. She was subjected to acts to which hardly any of them were, in one case to which almost all of them physically could not have been. And she had been drugged, which hardly any of them had been; if it had been up to Peter Tatchell et al, then almost every act by a priest would have been classified as consensual sex, and almost all of the rest could have been made to sound like it in court.
As for for co-operation with the civil authorities, what if there is practically no functioning civil authority, as in some countries where the Catholic Church is active? What if it would be better that there were not than that there were what there is, as in very many such countries? What if it is the Dutch civil authority, which has lowered the age of consent to 12?
Most people in the Irish Republic were educated by the Church and simply never heard of any of this. In several countries, professional criminality, such as would cause a witness's evidence to laughed out in any other situation, has been held up as proof positive that the professional criminal is entitled to a large financial settlement.
There are very few countries where there is no functioning state at all, although the presence of a civil authority is a sliding scale (or series of sliding scales) rather than a yes/no question.
ReplyDeleteThere are some countries such as perhaps China where the Catholic church is persecuted and the civil authorites cannot be trusted to investigate impartially. Most countries though, are equipped to deal with investigations of this type properly. Anyway, there is no need for a one-size fits all policy for all countries, just because China might be bad that doesn't mean it's wrong to co-operate with the Belgian police.
The pope threatened to excommunicate people who co-operated with the investigations. He has not excommunicated anyone who abused children. Maybe it's a justifiable position, but we keep being told the Vatican is a normal European state, as leader he's then a politician and should be brought on to be interviewed by Paxman to defend himself.
Isn't Christine Odone the one whose article you linked to claiming the Lib Dems wanted 16 and 17 year olds to appear in porno? (she called it a dirty old man's charter), which she backed up with a link to a bbc news story. On the actual link it just said there was a proposal at their conference that the age for watching films should be reduced from 18 to 16.