MEXICO
Solar News (Philippines)
Mexico City, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexican Catholics welcomed questioning of the Vatican by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on Thursday, Jan. 16 (Friday, Jan. 17, in the Philippines), hoping it will spur greater accountability and prosecutions of priests found to have committed acts of abuse.
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 which severely damaged the standing of the Roman Catholic Church around the world. The UN panel will assess the Church’s adherence to the 1990 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty guaranteeing a full range of human rights for children, which the Holy See has signed.
The local “Catholics for the Right to Decide” organization in Mexico City, a group of faithful who are pushing for justice within the church, said the questioning is a historic moment for the Vatican.
“In my opinion, today’s hearing is very important in the history of the Catholic Church. It’s about the accountability of the Vatican regarding the crimes of pedophilia. In this respect, we also hope that it will be important the report on the rights of the child because they seem to have been very thorough in their questioning. However, we regret that the Holy See continues to have ambiguous answers,” said organization official, Aide Garcia.
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