From the arrest of Assange to the fall of dictators, we cannot evade eternal moral truths

Apr 13, 2019 by Jill

by Daniel Johnson, The Article:

Absorbing as the Brexit psychodrama has been, it is good to be reminded that for the rest of the world, this is not the only show in London town. And as MPs head for the hills, the rest of us too can take an Easter break to reflect on some ancient truths.

The arrest of Julian Assange after seven years holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy has divided opinion on predictable lines. Jeremy Corbyn, for example, immediately denounced the Americans, who are seeking to extradite Assange to face charges of hacking and perhaps espionage that could result in him spending the rest of his life behind bars. Others see him as a martyr for free speech.

Yet the judge who called Assange a “narcissist” yesterday was surely right. He is in denial about his own actions and their consequences. Not only is he wanted by the US, but by Sweden too, where he jumped bail after being accused of rape. Now his behaviour during his self-imposed incarceration appears to have forfeited his asylum. It has taken far too long for him to accept that he is not above the law. Whatever misfortunes now await Assange, he has only himself to blame for his fate.

[…] Coincidentally, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has released a letter which argues that the origins of the present crisis of clerical sexual abuse are to be found in the collapse of Christian morality since the 1960s. Like everything from the pen of Joseph Ratzinger, it is a carefully nuanced document that deserves to be read in full, rather than dismissed as an evasion of responsibility. It contains a key passage that is of universal import, even though Benedict is referring to the steady abandonment by the Church of traditional Catholic moral doctrine over the past half-century.

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