There are some books that should come with health warnings and The Case of the Pope by Geoffrey Robertson QC is one of them. Reading it will make your blood pressure rise and fuel an uncontrollable rage towards the Catholic Church in general and the current Pope in particular.
Of course, you may not feel the same way about this.
For example, if you think that ordaining women priests is as serious as sodomising a child you’ll have no problem with the Vatican’s policy towards victims of child abuse. Also you won’t feel so enraged as I did if you consider that molesting minors is a sin on a par with masturbation. You will be able to argue calmly that, after all, both breach the Catholic rule that stipulates the “non use of the sexual faculty” .
So, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that a health warning needs to be directed at readers with hearts, minds and souls, and at those who place common sense above religious dogma.
This would alert those (surely the vast majority) who believe that abusing a child is not only a sin, but also a criminal act and one which demands not only that the perpetrators be brought to justice but also that the victims be properly recompensed.
And if you are hoodwinked by Pope Benedict XVI’s recent public apology on behalf of priests under his charge then Robertson’s book is essential reading. Continue reading
