UNITED STATES
FrontPage Mag
February 11, 2014 by Joseph Klein
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (“Committee”) describes itself as a “body of 18 Independent experts that monitors implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child [‘Convention’] by its State parties” and “publishes its interpretation of the content of human rights provisions.” Its so-called “independent experts” include representatives from such human rights abuser states as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain. They are described on the Committee’s website as “persons of high moral character and recognized competence in the field of human rights.”
One of these “independent experts,” the Committee’s Chairperson Kirsten Sandberg, charged last week that the Holy See, a non-member state permanent observer at the United Nations and a party to the Convention, “is in breach of the Convention.” She was commenting on the “concluding observations” contained in a scathing report the Committee had issued on January 31, 2014. The report denounced the Vatican’s handling of child abuse cases, criticized the Catholic Church’s teachings on abortion and family discipline, urged the Pope to change his views on contraception and homosexuality, and interposed its own secular views on what should be taught in Catholic schools.
The Holy See, responding with a statement and in a Vatican Radio interview by its UN representative Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, promised to seriously study and examine the report’s recommendations. However, the Holy See also challenged the Committee for going beyond its mandate by attempting to “interfere with Catholic Church teaching on the dignity of human person and in the exercise of religious freedom.”
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