Vatican and child abuse, United Nations criticism

This 25 February 2019 video from the USA is called Pope Condemns Clerical Sexual Abuse, Survivors Disappointed In Lack Of Action | NBC Nightly News.

Another video used to say about itself:

Sex Abuse Victims “Disappointed” by Vatican’s Response to U.N.

17 Jan 2014

The response from a Vatican delegation to questioning by the United Nations over child sex abuse scandals is met with disappointment by members of the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

Full Story:

The Vatican’s response to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child over its handling of allegations of child sex abuse was found unsatisfactory by a US-based victims advocacy group.

Representatives from the Holy See are being publicly questioned for the first time by an international panel at the Palais Wilson in Geneva over the child abuse scandal.

The U.N. panel will assess the Church’s adherence to the 1990 U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty guaranteeing a full range of human rights for children, which the Holy See has signed.

Members of the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests say they are disappointed with the Vatican’s response.

[Miguel Hurtado, SNAP Member]:

“I was very deceived, very disappointed by the reply of the Vatican because they are not replying to questions that they were asked by the commission. The commission didn’t ask for guidelines, because guidelines are as good as they are implemented. They were asking for implementation. They were asking for particular cases, for particular instances and how they have dealt with that and the reply of the Vatican is that it only had jurisdiction over 30 children. Obviously the Catholic Church has one billion followers and it has influence over a lot more children’s lives than these 30 that they mention.”

Founder Barbara Blaine says there are over 100-thousand victims in the US alone, and many more around the world.

[Barbara Blaine, Founder of SNAP]:

“The fact that they continue to claim that they have jurisdiction only over the Vatican City is really disappointing because we know full well that they have jurisdiction over every bishop in the whole world and what we want to see is the Vatican punish the bishops who cover up the sex crimes. And we want them to turn over the information they have about crimes to police.”

In Germany, a Catholic priest named only as Andreas L admitted to 280 instances of sexual abuse involving three boys over eight years.

In December 2013, Pope Francis ordered the formation of a child protection committee to address the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church and consider ways to better screen priests.

In the same month, however, the Vatican refused to provide the United Nations rights panel with information on the Church’s internal investigations into the sexual abuse of children by clergy.

The CRC will publish on February 5 its concluding observations of the report delivered by the Vatican on Thursday, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

From Reuters news agency:

Scathing U.N. report demands Vatican act against child sex abuse

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA Wed Feb 5, 2014 11:44am GMT

The United Nations demanded on Wednesday that the Vatican “immediately remove” all clergy who are known or suspected child abusers and turn them over to civil authorities, in an unprecedented and scathing report.

The U.N. watchdog for children’s rights said the Holy See should also hand over its archives on sexual abuse of tens of thousands of children so that culprits, as well as “those who concealed their crimes”, could be held accountable.

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 Committee is gravely concerned that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address cases of child sexual abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse by and the impunity of the perpetrators,” the report said.

The Vatican was expected to issue a statement on the report later on Wednesday.

The U.N. committee on the Rights of the Child said the Catholic Church had not yet taken measures to prevent a repeat of cases such as Ireland’s Magdalene laundries scandal, where girls were arbitrarily placed in conditions of forced labor.

It called for an internal investigation of the laundries and similar institutions so that those who were responsible could be prosecuted and that “full compensation be paid to the victims and their families”.

A commission created by Pope Francis in December should investigate all cases of child sexual abuse “as well as the conduct of the Catholic hierarchy in dealing with them,” the report said.

Abusers had been moved from parish to parish or other countries “in an attempt to cover-up such crimes,” it added.

“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,” the U.N. body said.

At a public session last month, the 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”.

The Holy See’s delegation, answering questions from an international rights panel for the first time since the scandals broke more than two decades ago, denied allegations of a Vatican cover-up and said it had set clear guidelines to protect children from predator priests.

(Additional reporting By Philip Pullella in Rome; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Dutch NOS TV writes (translated):

In the report, the committee also criticizes the attitude of the Vatican towards homosexuality, contraception and abortion.

Vatican prelate accused of money laundering: here.

USA: the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese publicly underreported the number of priests accused of abuse: here.

The Catholic church isn’t the only institution to close ranks in a scandal. The police, the NHS, the army – all suffer from a culture of denial. Yet for democracy’s sake, they must reform and revive: here.