THE needle on my irony meter leapt off the scale this morning when I read that Pope Ratzinger was praying for all young people who suffer.
He addressed the issue of children during his weekly general audience as he marked the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the first legally binding and most widely ratified international treaty to affirm human rights for all children.
My thoughts go to all the children of the world, especially those who live in difficult conditions and suffer due to violence, abuses, sickness war or hunger.
While urging all to join him in prayer, Benedict appealed to world governments to commit themselves to ensuring the treaty’s goals are met:
So that the rights of children be recognised and their dignity ever more respected.
The irony in this statement lies in the fact that the Vatican has, for years, pointedly evaded its responsibilities in regard to child abuse, and has desperately tried to distract attention from its crimes by accusing other faiths of having even WORSE records.
Although the Vatican has signed the the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which calls for all states to protect children from sexual abuse, it has signally failed to offer such protection. Indeed, according to this report, it has actively engaged in practices that put children at risk.
In a rebuttal to accusations levelled at it at the United Nations Human Rights Council, (UNHRC) the Vatican says that protestant churches and even Jewish synagogues have even worse records of child abuse than the Catholic Church.
Which is a blatant LIE!
This is how the New Humanist illustrated Keith Porteous Wood's article, 'I Shot the Pope'
The accusations were made by Keith Porteous Wood, of the National Secular Society who was speaking on behalf of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU). He alleged at a meeting of the Human Rights Council that the Vatican had failed to provide the mandatory reports to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. Its reports were now fifteen years overdue.
According to a report on the NSS website:
It [the Vatican] has now grudgingly offered to provide just one paragraph on abuse by priests which has led to compensation being paid all over the world running to billions of dollars.
Wood pointed out that the Catholic Church had an appalling record of cover-ups, evasions, moving around of offending priests and making counter accusations of lying against victims who spoke up.
He said:
The Vatican’s record on this is truly shocking. It has shown little remorse for the suffering inflicted on tens of thousands of innocent children over the years. In fact, it has tried very hard to cover up and evade responsibility. We have called on the international community to stop pussy-footing around the Vatican and to hold it to account for the misery it has inflicted on countless people. We want the Vatican to be made to face up to its responsibility and accept its culpability.
He added that the Vatican had compounded the distress of victims by constantly trying to belittle their suffering or to evade responsibility for it altogether.
Victim groups around the world will tell you that closure is just about impossible when the abusers are protected by the church and the victims are made to feel that they are, in some way, responsible for their exploitation. The Vatican really must be challenged to change its ways and to show some repentance not only for the deeds of its priests but for its own conspiracy to try to sweep the whole dreadful business under the carpet. The complacency exhibited by this supposed rebuttal shows that the problem goes to the most senior level in the Church.
In an article entitled I Shot the Pope in this month’s New Humanist, Wood describes in detail how he was given a rare opportunity to call the Vatican to account at the United Nations – and how badly the Vatican hierarchy reacted to his accusations. Said Wood:
Clearly, the Vatican has shot itself in the foot, and I am very happy to have given them the bullet with which to do it. The hundreds of thousands of victims of the Church’s cruelty deserve no less.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child says children should enjoy a full range of human rights, including civil, cultural, economic, political and social ones. It says they have the right to survival and protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation. It says they have the right to develop to their fullest potential and to participate fully in family, cultural and social life.
A series of initiatives are planned for this week around the world to mark the anniversary.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
November 20th, 2009 at 9:58 am
I seem to recall a certain lowly carpenter saying something about casting the beam from your own eye before pointing out the mote in someone else’s.
November 20th, 2009 at 10:40 am
As it’s Children in Need Day today, can I suggest it might be time for a new children’s charity?
What’s needed is not so much Save the Children, more like Sack the Priest.
November 20th, 2009 at 11:56 am
It was in the papers yesterday that the Vatican was blasting the Twilight series as a ‘deviant moral vacuum’. Remove the logs from your own eyes sirs, before pointing out the splinter in someone else’s.
November 20th, 2009 at 11:58 am
‘I shot the Pope’
If only…
November 20th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
I think as a responsible citizen we should protect children from harm and abuses.i personally believe that government should take stringent actions against culprit who are indulge in such inhuman act.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
It is the sepulchral voice and the Ku Klux Klan robe that lets him get away with it. Add that to the slow, slow gestures and the gullible will believe him anything. There is a rumour, unconfirmed, that there is an Open University Course on how Popes and senior cardinals spew religious bullshit while appearing “holy.”
November 20th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Irony meter? Bull-shit meter would have been more appropriate! The fact that the pope could utter his prayer without being smitten proves beyond reasonable doubt that there is no god and that the pope is not his or her representative, but the head of a criminal organization. Can’t they add Vatican City to today’s Axis of Evil?
November 20th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
@remigius
Your comment reminded me of a ditty my big atheist brother (10 years my senior)taught me when I was little:
“Habt ihr schon gehört der Papst ist tot,
alle Katholiken sind in Not.
Doch sie werden sich freu’n,
morgen gibt’s ein’ neu’n.”
Loosely translated it is:
“Have you heard the pope has died,
all the Catholics are distressed.
But they will be delighted,
tomorrow there will be a new one.”
sung to the tune of the Lambeth Walk.
So, if you shoot the present pope, another one will come along for sure.
November 20th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
this is nothing more than the kettle calling the pot black, if you want to protect kids keep them away from the Catholic Church(pedofile cental)
November 20th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
“SPOING!’
November 20th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
are you sure his holiness wasn’t praying for the little children to suffer some more? Catholics are kinky like that. The more you suffer the more harps you get in heaven – or whatever! Suffering is part of their doctrine.
November 20th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
It never ceases to amaze me that there are millions who hang onto Darth Ratty’s every word. How can anyone with even half a brain take this lying idiot seriously?
Have you heard that another Vatican fool has been sounding off about the newest Twilight vampire movie? These movies appear to be silly and harmless, they use vampires and werewolves as a vehicle for a romeo & Juliet type love story. But of course to this guy this is as evil and corrupting as Harry Potter.
November 20th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Spoing indeed, Tim. Thankfully this racket is no longer fireproof. Even in Ireland they can’t replace priests as they die off and are importing where once they exported. Even my nominally catholic friends regard Joey Ratz as being full of it and pay not the slightest attention to his rantings.
November 20th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Oh, the irony! Do these hateful, shameless apologists for child abuse (and adult abuse given their stance on condoms in Africa, to name but one odious policy) know no limits? If there ever was a hell, which to any rational mind there clearly isn’t, then these f***ers would surley be the first in line for a spot of horrific torture.
November 20th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
As I think it was Richard Dawkins said of Jerry Falwell: If pope Ratzinazi was given an enema, he could be buried in a matchbox.
November 20th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Oh, the irony! Do these hateful, shameless apologists for child abuse (and adult abuse given their stance on condoms in Africa, to name but one odious policy) know no limits? If there ever were a hell, which to any rational mind there clearly isn’t, then these f****ers would surely be in line for a spot of horrific torture.
November 21st, 2009 at 9:02 am
Christopher Hitchens, actually Dr. H, during his famous ‘encomium’ on morning television the day of the vile Falwell’s death.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:29 am
Oops! Note to self: remember not to press the ‘Submit’ button twice.
November 21st, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Yeah, the first thing I thought of was the kids orphaned in Africa from AIDS…and the Pope telling the adults not to use condoms.
I think they like people to suffer so they can pretend to “help” them later.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Keep the children away from clergy. That will protect their brains and their privates.