GENEVA
Deutsche Welle
The Vatican on Thursday faced a grilling by a UN panel over its failure to implement a UN child protection convention and its handling of sex abuse scandals. DW spoke to John Allen from the National Catholic Reporter.
Envoys of the Holy See appeared for the first time before a UN committee to answer questions about child sex abuse cases in the Catholic Church on Thursday (16.01.2014). The hearing took place as part of a broader UN probe on the implementation of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, which the Holy See ratified in 1990. But it has refused to provide regular progress reports.
But the Vatican’s representatives made it clear that the Vatican is taking the handling of the sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church seriously. However, they reiterated that the Vatican’s options are limited, as it only has jurisdiction in Vatican City State.
DW: The Vatican still insists that its limited jurisdiction means it cannot sanction pedophile priests and bishops around the world. How does that chime in with its recent efforts to reform?
John Allen: It’s a double-edged sword for the Vatican. On the one hand, they want to argue that they’ve adopted tough new policies and are trying to promote reforms, which certainly sounds like the have responsibility for what happens in the Church around the world, on the other hand they want to, both for theological reasons and for practical legal reasons, keep themselves at arm’s length from taking direct responsibility for the conduct of priests on the ground.
In a sense, you could say they want it both ways: they want to take credit for tough new policies, but they don’t want to take responsibility for when those policies break down.
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