VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio
(Vatican Radio) Vatican officials are appearing Thursday before the UN committee in Geneva that is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the Holy See is a party. The Director of the Press Office of the Holy See, Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, issued a Note detailing the history of the Holy See’s adherence to the Convention and its response to a series of questions posed by the committee subsequent to the Holy See’s 2nd Report on implementation of the Convention, submitted in 2011.
The three-page Note, written in Italian, stresses that, “The Holy See is deeply saddened by the scourge of sexual abuse of minors, which harms millions of children throughout the world,” and “laments that, sadly, certain members of the clergy have been involved in such abuse.” The Note goes on to say that the dramatic problem of child sex abuse, lived with unspeakable suffering in the community of the Church, has posed a direct challenge to the credibility of the Church’s commitment to the welfare of children – “[A challenge],” writes Fr. Lombardi, “that has led to the development, in the spirit of the Convention [and] under the Holy See’s guidance, of a series of initiatives and directives [that have proven] extremely helpful also outside the Church community.”
The Note also explains the nature of the Holy See as a sovereign subject of international law, and the limits of the Holy See’s rights and responsibilities vis à vis the conduct of clergy and religious throughout the world. “In fact,” explains Fr. Lombardi, “it is not rare to find that the questions posed [by the committee] – above all where they refer to the sexual abuse of minors – seem to presuppose that bishops or religious superiors act as representatives or delegates of the Pope – [though this is] utterly without foundation.” Fr. Lombardi goes on to clarify that civil authorities in countries that are party to the Convention are directly responsible for the Convention’s implementation and for enforcement of laws for the protection of minors.
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