The Vatican has come under blistering criticism from a UN committee for its handling of the global priest sex abuse scandal, facing its most intense public grilling ever over allegations that it protected paedophile priests at the expense of victims.
Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s former sex crimes prosecutor, acknowledged that the Holy See had been slow to face the crisis but said that it was now committed to doing so. He encouraged prosecutors to take action against anyone who obstructs justice—a suggestion that bishops who moved priests from diocese to diocese should be held accountable.
“The Holy See gets it,” Msgr Scicluna told the committee. “Let’s not say too late or not. But there are certain things that need to be done differently.”
He was responding to a grilling by the UN committee over the Holy See’s failure to abide by terms of a treaty that calls for signatories to take all appropriate measures to keep children from harm. Critics allege the church enabled the rape of thousands of children by protecting paedophile priests to defend its reputation.
The committee’s main human rights investigator, Sara Oviedo, was particularly tough, pressing the Vatican on the frequent ways abusive priests were transferred rather than turned in to police. Given the church’s “zero tolerance” policy, she asked, why were there “efforts to cover up and obscure these types of cases”.
Another committee member, Maria Rita Parsi, an Italian psychologist and psychotherapist, pressed further: “If these events continue to be hidden and covered up, to what extent will children be affected?”
The Holy See ratified the convention in 1990 and submitted a first implementation report in 1994. But it didn’t provide progress reports for nearly two decades. It only submitted one in 2012 after coming under criticism following the 2010 explosion of child sex abuse cases in Europe and beyond.
Victims groups and human rights organisations teamed up to press the UN committee to challenge the Holy See on its abuse record, providing written testimony from victims and evidence outlining the global scale of the problem.
Their reports cite case studies in Mexico and Britain, grand jury investigations in the US, and government fact-finding inquiries from Canada to Ireland to Australia that detail how the Vatican’s policies, its culture of secrecy and fear of scandal contributed to the problem.
The Holy See has long insisted that it wasn’t responsible for the crimes of priests committed around the world, saying priests aren’t employees of the Vatican but are rather citizens of countries where they live and subject to local law enforcement. It has maintained that bishops were responsible for the priests in their care, not the pope.
But victims groups and human rights organisations provided the committee with the Vatican’s own documentation showing how it discouraged bishops from reporting abusers to police.
Committee member Jorge Cardona Llorens, a Spanish international law professor, demanded to know how the Vatican would create “specific criteria” for putting children’s interests first, because there weren’t any yet in place.
Msgr Scicluna said the Holy See wanted to be a model for how to protect children and care for victims.
“I think the international community looks up to the Holy See for such guidance. But it’s not only words, it has to be commitment on the ground.”
He added: “The states who are cognizant of obstruction of justice need to take action against citizens of their countries who obstruct justice.” Msgr Scicluna, a Maltese bishop, has previously said bishops who failed to do the right thing with paedophile priests must be held accountable.
“I think it’s time for the church to stop this secrecy,” Teodoro Pulvirenti, who said he was abused by a priest, told The Associated Press in New York. “I believe the church puts too much its reputation before the victims and you know the pain of this abuse that we carry. That’s why I was so excited when I heard about this final meeting between the Vatican representatives and the UN.” – MSN News, 16 January 2014
Benedict XVI defrocked nearly 400 priests in two years – BBC News
Close to 400 priests were defrocked in only two years by the former Pope Benedict XVI over claims of child abuse, the Vatican has confirmed.
The statistics for 2011 and 2012 show a dramatic increase compared with previous years, according to a document obtained by the Associated Press (AP).
The file was part of Vatican data collected for a UN hearing on January 16, 2014.
It was the first time the Holy See was publicly confronted over the sexual abuse of children by clergy.
Church officials at the hearing in Geneva faced a barrage of hard questions covering why they were withholding data and what they were doing to prevent future abuse.
Victims’ advocates complained there was still too little transparency.
Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi initially said the AP report had been based on a mistaken reading of data.
But he later retracted his statement, confirming to the BBC that the story was correct.
The latest statistics reveal the number of priests defrocked in 2011 and 2012 was more than double the 171 priests removed in 2008 and 2009, when the Vatican first provided figures.
The Vatican also sent another 400 cases to either be tried by a Church tribunal or to be dealt with administratively, AP reports.
Benedict, who was elected in 2005, took the helm as the scandal of child sex abuse by priests was breaking.
The Vatican initially rejected the report, but later confirmed the figures
The flood of allegations, lawsuits and official reports into clerical abuse reached a peak in 2009 and 2010, which observers say may explain the spike shown in the document.
The Holy See is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a legally binding instrument which commits it to protecting and nurturing the most vulnerable in society.
It ratified the convention in 1990 but after an implementation report in 1994 it did not submit any progress reports until 2012, following revelations of child sex abuse in Europe and beyond.
Last month, the Vatican refused a request from the UN’s Committee on the Rights of the Child for data on abuse, on the grounds that it only released such information if requested to do so by another country as part of legal proceedings.
In a homily on Thursday, Benedict’s successor, Pope Francis, called abuse scandals “the shame of the Church”.
He announced in December that a Vatican committee would be set up to fight sexual abuse of children in the Church. – BBC News, 18 January 2014
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