Accomplices

The difference between them is only in the magnitude of their crimes.

Accomplices

Warren Jeffs only stands accused of a few dozen terrible things, and he's only been convicted of two counts of being an accomplice to rape.  Joseph Ratzinger over the years has been an accomplice to perhaps tens of thousands of rapes.

He served on the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith beginning in 1978, and in 1981, he became its Prefect.  As Prefect, he was responsible for presiding over cases of clerical sexual misconduct.  His Crimen Sollicitationis in 2001 was a reassertion that internal Church investigations into sexual misconduct by priests should be kept confidential.  In short, even if an investigation revealed sexual abuse, that information was to be kept secret, in order to protect the Church from bad publicity and the threat of lawsuits.   Just like what any soulless corporation would do: cover your ass.

When I think of this, I wish I believed in God.  I wish I believed in the vengeful smiting God of the Old Testament.  Or even the milder, but intolerant toward child abuse God of the New Testament.  Consider that the harshest thing that Jesus is quoted as saying relates to the harm of children.  Mr. Turn the Other Cheek said, "It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones."  Hear that, Ratty?  Better for you to be drowned like an unwanted kitten than to have allowed those priests to go on sinning, to go on polluting the emotional, physical, and spiritual lives of those children.

Of course, I wish I believed in God so that I could believe Pope John Paul II were suffering for allowing these crimes to be swept under an ecclesiastical rug.  Alas, he daid, so that's all for him.

As for Ratzinger, the Vatican requested and Chimpy Bush agreed to give him immunity from prosecution in the United States.