It looks like Mr. Ratzinger is so rattled by the prospect of being held to account for his cover-up of the child sex-crimes of Catholic priests on his watch, that he is going to stay holed-up in the Vatican after he stops being God's representative on Earth. Of course someone, someday, might put a stop to the nonsense about the Vatican being a 'state', and then he's toast but I'm not holding my breath. Contrast the international kid-glove treatment of this vile individual to the hounding of Julian Assange, and one gets a good insight into the priorities of powerful western nations...
'Pope Benedict's decision to live in the Vatican after he resigns will provide him with security and privacy. It will also offer legal protection from any attempt to prosecute him in connection with sexual abuse cases around the world, Church sources and legal experts say.
'The Vatican has consistently said that a pope cannot be held accountable for cases of abuse committed by others because priests are employees of individual dioceses around the world and not direct employees of the Vatican. It says the head of the church cannot be compared to the CEO of a company.
'Victims groups have said Benedict, particularly in his previous job at the head of the Vatican's doctrinal department, turned a blind eye to the overall policies of local Churches, which moved abusers from parish to parish instead of defrocking them and handing them over to authorities.
'The Vatican has denied this. The pope has apologized for abuse in the Church, has met with abuse victims on many of his trips, and ordered a major investigation into abuse in Ireland.
'But groups representing some of the victims say the Pope will leave office with a stain on his legacy because he was in positions of power in the Vatican for more than three decades, first as a cardinal and then as pope, and should have done more.
'The scandals began years before the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope in 2005 but the issue has overshadowed his papacy from the beginning, as more and more cases came to light in dioceses across the world. (Reuters article).
media-underground.net