UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald
By FR ALEXANDER LUCIE-SMITH on Thursday, 6 February 2014
I was out and about yesterday, and so not at home to pick up the email from a television news programme asking me to give a live interview about the recent UN report on the Vatican and what is always known as “clerical sex abuse”.
If I had been available, what would I have said?
Any proper response would have to rely on a thorough reading of the entire UN report, something for which one does not have the time, nor, often, reports being what they are, the inclination. But one can rely on reports of the report, such as the one in the Daily Telegraph, or this unusually long, detailed and balanced one in the Guardian.
First a bit of background. This matter is not primarily about “clerical sexual abuse” per se. The Holy See is a signatory to the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child, and thus the UN has the right to monitor the way the Holy See implements this charter of rights. The committee’s remit is thus a broad one, enabling it to look at child welfare in toto, not just part of it. Of course it has chosen to focus on sexual abuse, and this is hardly surprising, as sexual abuse is a serious issue in child welfare, indeed the most serious issue.
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