An unprecedented and scathing United Nations report said on Wednesday (February 5) that the Vatican has consistently placed the reputation of the Church above the interests of child sex abuse victims.
The U.N. watchdog for children’s rights demanded that the Vatican “immediately remove” all clergy who are known or suspected child abusers and turn them over to civil authorities, as well as hand over its archives on sexual abuse of tens of thousands of children.
The watchdog’s exceptionally blunt paper — the most far-reaching critique of the Church hierarchy by the world body — followed its public grilling of Vatican officials last month.
“The Holy See has adopted policies and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse by and the impunity of the perpetrators. The Holy See has consistently placed the preservation of the reputation of the Church and the protection of the perpetrators above children’s best interests,” U.N. committee on the Rights of the Child chairwoman Kirsten Sandberg said.
“Another matter was the code of silence that was imposed by the Church on children and the fact that reporting to national law enforcement authorities has never been made compulsory,” the Norwegian expert added.
The Vatican responded quickly with a statement saying the Roman Catholic Church would study the report and was committed to “defending and protecting the rights of the child”.
The exceptionally blunt paper – the United Nations’ broadest critique of the Church hierarchy – followed its public grilling of Vatican officials last month.
The report said a commission that Francis set up in December should invite outside experts and victims to participate in an investigation of abusers “as well as the conduct of the Catholic hierarchy in dealing with them”.
“Due to a code of silence imposed on all members of the clergy under penalty of excommunication, cases of child sexual abuse have hardly ever been reported to the law enforcement authorities in the countries where such crimes occurred,” it said.
Barbara Blaine of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said the report was a “wake-up call”:
“For the safety of children, we hope every head of state on the planet reads this and acts on it.”
Catholic priests have been accused of abuse by alleged victims around the world from the United States to Europe.
In the US, defrocked priest Paul Shanley was sentenced in 2005 to 12 to 15 years in prison for repeatedly raping a boy in the 1980s. Convicted child sex abuser and defrocked Catholic priest John Geoghan was sentenced to a nine-to 10-year sentence and subsequently killed in 2003 by a fellow inmate.
At a public session last month, the U.N. committee pushed Vatican delegates to reveal the scope of the decades-long sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic priests that Pope Francis called “the shame of the Church”.
(Reuters)