“Your Holiness, you have the right to remain silent”

This week I have found myself in different parts of cyberspace discussing the plans made by British militant atheists, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins to arrest the Pope during his state visit to the UK in September. As this issue is getting more attention I thought I would draw my thoughts together here...

Hitchens, author of “God Is Not Great,” and Dawkins, author of “The God Delusion,” are petitioning UK courts to issue an arrest for the Supreme Pontiff so he can answer allegations of covering up cases of child abuse. Their lawyers argue that the Pope cannot claim diplomatic immunity because the Vatican is not officially recognised as a state by the United Nations. This certainly would be a dramatic turn of events if it were to be successful.

From my point of view however, the duo are about as likely to get the Pope arrested as the Chinese ambassador is in getting the Dalai Lama arrested for political subversion in Tibet. This is because Prime Minister Gordon Brown has proposed policies blocking the right of political campaigners to use the courts to issue arrest warrants for visiting foreign officials.

Brown moved on this in response to a court last year issuing an arrest warrant for the former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who campaigners accused of war crimes. She was planning a visit to the country but unsurprisingly cancelled her trip. Naturally it also soured UK/Israeli relations.

The courts, knowing that this legislation is coming, will pre-empt it and not issue such a daft warrant even if it is still technically lawful to do so. Once the legislation is passed, only the Crown Prosecution Service will be able to request them.

Whilst to most people, this looks like a political stunt, it does reflect the feelings victims of abuse who are powerless to hold certain powerful priestly perpetrators to account. But it will take members of the Roman Catholic Church themselves, not two outspoken old atheists, to make it happen.