UNITED STATES
Slate
Amanda Marcotte
On Wednesday, a U.N. human rights panel released its assessment of the Holy See’s responsibilities in the decadeslong child sex-abuse scandal and offered its recommendations to the Vatican on both how to prevent sex abuse in the future and how to deal responsibly with victims when it happens. The report is scathing in its judgment of the church’s past actions, but what is most startling is how aggressive the panel is in recommending that the church radically change its teachings and culture to prevent more child abuse.
Among the recommendations: “Abolish the discriminatory classification of children born out of wedlock as illegitimate children,” “support efforts at international level for the decriminalization of homosexuality,” “explicitly oppose all corporal punishment in childrearing,” “overcome all the barriers and taboos surrounding adolescent sexuality that hinder their access to sexual and reproductive information,” and “review its position on abortion which places obvious risks on the life and health of pregnant girls.” On that last one, the report mentioned the horrific story of that time the church excommunicated a woman for getting her 9-year-old daughter an abortion after the girl was raped by her stepfather.
The Vatican is not happy about this. On Friday, spokesman Federico Lombardi shot back, accusing the U.N. of being biased against the church. “More attention was devoted to well-known non-governmental organizations that are prejudiced against the Catholic Church and the Holy See than to the positions of the Holy See,” he complained, adding that the panel appears “to go beyond its competences and interfere in the doctrinal and moral positions of the Catholic Church.”
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