MEXICO
El Pais
INÉS SANTAEULALIA Mexico City 13 ENE 2014
The Vatican has an unprecedented appointment on Thursday in Geneva: The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child will study, among other matters, the response of the Catholic Church to the incidences of abuse carried out by its members worldwide over the course of decades. It will be an historic moment; no organization has yet dared to take on the Holy See.
Victims and associations in the USA, Mexico and Europe have taken the opportunity to submit to the committee in Geneva reports with their collated complaints and documented cases of pedophilia. Mexico, from where 169 individuals and organizations will present more than 200 separate cases, has asked that the scandal be treated as a crime of state and the Vatican tried by the United Nations. Such a move would have to be taken in a separate process as the committee has limited itself to making an evaluation.
“Father, good luck with the UN,” someone this Saturday said to former priest Alberto Athié in the Coyoacán neighborhood in the south of Mexico City. Athié arrived in Geneva on Monday to meet with some of the committee’s members. This priest hung up his robes when his reports of pedophilia against Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, fell on deaf ears in Mexico and Rome. He believes the UN now has “an historic opportunity” to see justice served. “The Church is responsible because there were indications that the highest authority sought to protect the abusers and cover up pedophilia, which led to more and prolonged cases,” says Athié.
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