UNITED STATES
Voice of Russia
The UN has accused the Vatican of adopting policies that allowed priests to rape and molest thousands of children over decades. And international community demands that all clergy who are suspected or known child abusers should be “immediately removed”. In its report, the UN committee severely criticized the Holy See for its attitude toward homosexuality, contraception and abortion stating it should review its policies. David Clohessy, national director and spokesman for the Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), the largest and oldest self-help group for victims of clergy molestation in the United States, spoke to the Voice of Russia correspondent on the issue.
David, let’s just jump right in and – can you give us a comment on the news that in its report, the UN watchdog for children’s rights has accused the Vatican of “systematically” adopting policies allowing priests to sexually abuse thousands of children?
We believe that the Vatican panel is right on target. Church officials have known about and concealed this crisis for decades, they continue to. They say all the right things in public, but their private behavior is radically different. They continue to rebuff law enforcement and intimidate victims and move predators. So we are very grateful that the UN has done this investigation and released this report.
I’ve got to be honest with you, basically what you described is a conspiracy and a conspiracy that hides a crime is in itself a crime. How are these people not in jail?
It is a very good question. Bishops are very smart men, they have plenty of smart lawyers and they are very careful to keep their fingerprints of these cases and to keep the documents that prove their complicity hidden. And sadly too often secular officials in government and law enforcement have been far too timid to do what this UN panel has done and launch investigations and file prosecutions. So we hope that that will be one result of this disclosure. We hope that government officials and law enforcement officials will develop some spine and start similar probes themselves at the national level across the globe.
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