Will the Pope Be Prosecuted for Hate Crimes?

by Christopher A. Ferrara

        In previous columns I have documented Cardinal Angelo Sodano’s insane support of the now-functioning International Criminal Court (ICC) — a super-court, above all nations, that will be able to try citizens of any nation for "crimes against humanity."

        In an article for The American Spectator online edition ("Diabolizing the Pontiff", May 23, 2003), the feisty George Neumayr asks the question "Will the international community one day imprison popes for ‘hate crimes’?" This is a question we have long been asking here at fatima.org, and Neumayr rightly notes that "The question isn’t as outlandish or idle as it sounds. In April, the United Nations debated a resolution that calls upon the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights ‘to pay due attention to the phenomenon of violations of human rights on the grounds of sexual orientation.’"

        So already, the ICC — to which the UN is able to refer cases not presented by any nation that has signed the ICC treaty — is gearing up to prosecute "hate crimes" against "gays." Neumayr observes that "The vote on the resolution has been postponed until next year, due to rancorous debate. But what if it passes? Would a pope teaching that homosexual acts are sinful be targeted as a violator of human rights?"

        Crazy? The feverish imagining of conspiracy nuts? Well, Neumayr notes that "A Vatican Cardinal, not seeking attribution, recently said he could foresee a day when a pope is arrested as a hate criminal for teaching Catholic moral doctrine." Neumayr, who is not perceived as a "radical traditionalist" or "Lefebvrite" thus concludes: "The ancient pagans chained St. Peter; the modern pagans in the European Union may one day handcuff one of his successors."

        Indeed, Neumayr points out that "Many European politicians already view Catholicism as one big hate crime. Several Dutch parliamentarians have been campaigning for several years to kick the Holy See out of the United Nations…. In 2000, a Dutch group calling itself ‘The Friends of Gay Krant,’ after a Dutch homosexual magazine, actually tried to put Pope John Paul II on trial for criticizing a homosexual parade in Rome." The complaint was dismissed, but only on grounds that the Pope is not a citizen of the Netherlands and has diplomatic immunity as the head of the Vatican city-state!

        Neumayr draws a compelling parallel between these developments and the imprisonment of Pope Pius VI and Pius VII by French revolutionaries at the end of the 18^th Century and the beginning of the 19^th. He observes that "The Church today, even in its weakened form, is still a threat to European ambition. Watered-down Catholicism is still too much Catholicism for Europe. For example, when Pope John Paul II mildly suggested that the European Union constitution merely acknowledge Europe’s Christian roots, several European leaders balked…. The French Revolution lives. The ‘Rights of Man’ may soon include the right to prosecute anyone who questions them, no matter how absurd they become."

        This is a great part of what lies at the heart of the crisis in the Church today: Her leaders’ accommodation to the false principles of the French Revolution — "liberty of conscience," "liberty of press," "freedom of religion." Popes Leo XIII, Bl. Pius IX and St. Pius X all foresaw that these principles would mean, in the end, no liberty at all for the truth because they deprive the Church of Her rightful place in society. They condemned these false notions of liberty in a veritable stream of papal pronouncements.

        And now those false principles threaten to devour the very churchmen who have ceased opposing them, including the Roman Pontiff himself. This is what happens when the Church tries to accommodate Herself to the world, as it has during the post-Vatican II period — the "springtime" that is the greatest winter ever seen in the life of the Church.