Monday, June 07 2010 @ 09:11 AM EST
Vancouver Rally at Holy Rosary Cathedral on Sunday June 13 will Revive Drive to Evict Church from Indigenous Lands
Victims of the Catholic church in six countries have established an international coalition to bring the Vatican to justice for its torture, rape and murder of countless innocent children, and its criminal obstruction of justice.
The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State was formed on June 1, 2010 by groups of survivors of church torture in Canada, the United States, Ireland, England, Italy and Germany.
In Canada, a member group of the Tribunal, The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared, (FRD) will commemorate the call of the new coalition for the arrest and trial of Pope Benedict, Joseph Ratzinger, at a rally and press conference on Sunday, June 13 at 10 am outside Holy Rosary Cathedral, Dunsmuir and Richards street, in downtown Vancouver. All are invited.
The FRD, which helped lead a peaceful and high profile occupation of Holy Rosary Cathedral in March of 2008 to press for the return of children who died in Catholic Indian residential schools, will revive and enforce the eviction order issued against the Catholic church that same month by Squamish Nation Chief Kiapilano.
“The Catholic church was legally evicted from Vancouver by Chief Kiapilano because it refused to return the bodies of the children it killed at its residential schools” stated FRD spokesman Kevin Annett today.
“Now that the Pope is personally implicated in concealing the rape of children and protecting their abusers, it’s all the more necessary for the church to be expelled from our midst for its unspeakable wrongs and evil acts.”
Survivors of Catholic abuse will speak at the rally, along with Rev. Kevin Annett, who will also perform the same symbolic exorcism rite he held outside the Vatican in Rome on April 6.
Annett and Tribunal members will be returning to Rome and other European capitals in September to win support from politicians for their efforts to bring the church to trial, and declare an embargo against Canada and its churches for their crimes of genocide.
The new Tribunal includes founding groups like The Templemore Forgotten Victims of Antrim, Ireland, the FRD, human rights groups, and more than fifty individual sponsors, including world renowned author and abuse survivor Paddy Doyle, and Dr. Rose O’Brian Rogers of Ireland.
For more information: 250-753-3345 (Canada)
Issued by The Executive,
The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State