Look, I love a great conspiracy theory as much as anyone, especially when the Pope is involved. In fact, I even published an Examiner article joking about five Pope conspiracy theories (the photoshop on the last one is awesome, BTW). My article however was intended as humor and that was pretty obvious from the tone. Today, I see a lot of people re-posting that the Pope had a meeting scheduled with the Italian president to “beg” for immunity from prosecution.
One article alleges that “The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State” is seeking to prosecute the Pope for crimes against humanity. He certainly does deserve to be prosecuted for such crimes, but I don’t think this story is true. First, I never heard of this tribunal and if it did exist, it would be busy with many more crimes of Church/State violations. Besides, the Vatican doesn’t even have a church/state separation. It isn’t America.
Second, why would the Pope need to beg the Italian president for anything? The Pope doesn’t live in Italy. He lives in Vatican City where he is the Pope! Vatican City is a sovereign nation. While it is located within the borders of Italy, it is not part of Italy. If the Pope wanted immunity, he would just need to ask the Vatican City head of state. That would be him.
Unless The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State is prepared to storm the country with troops, the Pope already has immunity. Is it possible that the UN could level sanctions of some kind on the Vatican to get them to give up the Pope? Sure, it’s possible, but highly improbable without multiple nations calling for prosecution including the United State government. According to the article, there is just one unnamed nation calling for prosecution.
I think this story is bullshit. It would be great if it were true but I almost certainly isn’t true. No reputable news source is reporting this. Instead, they are focused on where the Pope will live after retirement… and prison wasn’t one of the options. If this were true, the mainstream media would certainly cover it in some fashion.
Personally, I think my first and last conspiracy theories are much more likely.
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