Vatican scoffs at calls for Pope arrest

THE Vatican yesterday said Pope Benedict was willing to meet more sexual abuse victims but not under media pressure and scoffed at calls that the Pope should be arrested when he visits Britain in September.

A lawyer for British author and atheist campaigner Richard Dawkins said in London at the weekend he would try to have Pope Benedict arrested to face questions over accusations the Church covered up cases of sexual abuse of children by priests.

Asked about this at a briefing on the Pope’s trip to Malta this weekend, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said: “This is a bizarre idea to say the least. It looks like the intent is to make a public opinion splash. I think they should look for something more serious and concrete before we can respond to it.”

Dawkins, a scientist and outspoken critic of religion, has asked human rights lawyers to examine whether charges could be brought against the Pope during the September 16-19 trip.

The Vatican said last week that Benedict, who travels to Malta on Saturday, would be willing to meet more victims, as he had during his trips to the US and Australia.

The Pope feels that meetings with victims should take place “in a climate that is intentionally one of reflection, discreet, and not under pressure of the glare of the media, so he can have a real possibility to listen and communicate personally”, Lombardi said.

Ten Maltese men who are suing three priests for alleged child abuse have requested a private meeting with the Pope.

So far, the Pope has not spoken out directly on the new wave of sexual abuse allegations besetting the Church in a number of countries, including the US, Italy and Germany. He last spoke about it in a letter to the Irish on March 20.

He is refusing to comment publicly on individual sex abuse cases because they were not his responsibility, his private secretary said yesterday. Monsignor Georg Gaenswein said it was not helpful for the Pope to comment because it was individual bishops’ responsibility to deal with them.

Meanwhile, telephone hotlines in Europe offering help to people claiming abuse by Roman Catholic priests are being deluged with calls — with one centre reporting complaints jumping from about 10 cases a year to more than a thousand in the past few weeks.

Experts say the record influx of calls reflects an increasing realisation among victims that they are not alone and they will not be scorned for breaking their silence about horrors that in many cases go back decades.

In the Netherlands, the help and law-line was set up in 1995 and generally dealt with roughly 10 reports of abuse per year. Since March it has received 1,300 new reports.

Germany’s bishops conference, which launched its hotline on March 30, reported this week that 2,700 people have called it in its first three days, while an older number in Germany run by a pro-reform group, We Are Church, said calls have jumped dramatically.

Austria has nine church-run offices that allow victims to report abuse, one for each diocese. The first was set up in Vienna in 1996 as a result of the sex scandal surrounding then Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer. In the first three months of this year, it recorded 566 calls or emails.