GENEVA
Christian Science Monitor
By Nick Squires, Correspondent / January 16, 2014
ROME
Vatican officials came in for an unprecedented grilling today by a United Nations committee over the Catholic Church’s cover-up of decades of sexual abuse of children by clergy.
But despite familiar defenses from the Holy See concerning its role in child-abuse scandals, victims and their advocates are hopeful that the shame of being questioned in public could propel significant change within the church.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva posed charged, blunt questions to senior Vatican officials today, the first time that they had been called to defend their record on the rape of thousands of children by clergy in front of an international body. The Catholic Church ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990 but failed to provide the required progress reports for more than a decade, with victims’ groups accusing the church hierarchy of fostering a culture of secrecy to hide abuse of children by priests, monks, and nuns in countries around the world, from Italy and Ireland to the US and Australia.
“Why is there no mandatory reporting to a country’s judicial authorities when crimes occur?” asked Hiranthi Wijemanne, a member of the committee. “Taking actions against perpetrators is part of justice.”
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