Referring to the devastating Irish government reports this past year revealing the sickening physical, mental, emotional and sexual abuse of children by priests and religious, the subsequent persecution by their bishops and the hierarchical cover-ups, an article noted that Pope Benedict XVI would issue a letter to the Irish people with the usual "so sorry" pap. The pontiff may also make a "a call for a proper understanding of proper sexual health among clergy but also in society and a re-statement of the church's position on healthy sexual morality," but no sign the pope is ready to admit to any flaws in his institution. [1]

The head of the Vatican department for the clergy said it would be wrong to "make generalizations" about priests sexually abusing children. "Unfortunately, we are talking about situations linked to the human condition," he said. However, as with every other statement from a Vatican official, he failed to acknowledge the criminal behavior of bishops around the world towards the children who reported these crimes. [2]

An article about priests sexually abusing children in Japan noted, "In Japan it is suspected...that police refused to investigate charges as the Church was seen as too powerful to take on." [3]

An American undertaker wrote, "His Holiness, Their Eminences and Excellencies--'Don't cross 'em,' the curate cautioned; 'those boyos aren't to be tampered with.'" [4]

So we are left with the same reservations about basic morality and common decency in the institutional Roman Catholic Church. Few, however, have considered the legal environment of the "home office" from which these offending prelates and priests have been selected, promoted and protected as a factor in its global assault against children.

Due to the Lateran Treaty signed with Italy in 1929 creating Vatican City as a sovereign and autonomous territory, the governing bureaucracy of the Church operates within its own country free of civil law, regulation. restraint and punishment. As part of the same treaty, Italy paid the Vatican roughly $500 million in today's dollars [5]  which became seed money for a new financial institution, the Vatican Bank, also operating free of legal restrictions, oversight or accountability. The pope and his curia have been "out" laws ever since.

Based upon recently disclosed U.S. government documents, the Vatican Bank is accused of concealing assets looted by the Croatian Nazis from concentration camp victims, Serbs, Jews, Roma and former Soviet citizens from Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia from 1941 to1945. In the early 1970s, the FBI and the New York City District Attorney's Office were ordered to squelch their case against the Vatican for dealing in counterfeit securities in concert with the Mafia. The Vatican Bank Scandal of the early 1980s is familiar to most readers. More than just a white-collar crime involving the theft of billions of dollars, over a dozen persons - employees of the Vatican's partner bank, investigators, law enforcement officers, and the principals themselves - were gunned-down, poisoned, or "suicided" after Pope John Paul II refused to remove the criminals running his Bank. (His predecessor, Pope John Paul I, died mysteriously after announcing his intention to clean up the mess.) The 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee was kidnapped and never seen again, supposedly as a warning by an American bishop in charge of the Bank against any insider disclosures or whistle-blowing. The commandant of the Swiss Guard, his wife and a young corporal were shot to death in a Vatican apartment with no outside investigation permitted. A Vatican cardinal, monsignor and nuncio were charged with helping to defraud U.S. insurance companies under the RICO Act. There is hardly a major Italian financial scandal that does not implicate a member of the hierarchy and the Vatican Bank is once again under investigation for money laundering.

Because of their legal immunity, not one criminal prosecution of a Vatican official has succeeded.

Against this backdrop, should we be surprised when the pope and his men act as if they are above the norms of moral behavior and beyond the reach of the law?

(Betty Clermont is author of "The Neo-Catholics: Implementing Christian Nationalism in America")

1. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0112/12242621194 07.html

2. http://www.irishtim es.com/newspaper frontpage 2010/0114/ 1224262301695. html
   
3. http://japantherald .blogspot. com/2010/ 01/priest- sex-abuse- scandal-finds- japan.html
   
4. http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/preaching- bishops
   
5. http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/word/word020604.htm