GENEVA
Aljazeera America
The Vatican came under sharp criticism from a United Nations committee in Geneva on Thursday for its handling of the global priest sex-abuse scandal that has tarnished the reputation of the Roman Catholic Church and drawn accusations that it purposefully hid the rapes of thousands of children by protecting pedophile priests.
The Vatican, now facing its most intense public grilling over the allegations, acknowledged at the hearing that it had been slow to act, but insisted that it was now committed to facing the crisis.
“The Holy See gets it,” Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s former sex-crimes prosecutor, told the committee. “Let’s not say ‘too late’ or not. But there are certain things that need to be done differently.”
The Holy See is recognized by international law as a sovereign entity headed by the Pope.
Scicluna also encouraged prosecutors to take action against anyone who obstructs justice — a suggestion that bishops, who moved priests from diocese to diocese so that they could avoid prosecution, should be held accountable.
Scicluna’s comments came in response to a grilling by the committee over the Holy See’s failure to abide by terms of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty that calls for signatories to take all appropriate measures to keep children from harm.
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