GENEVA
Telegraph (UK)
UN has demanded that the Vatican ‘immediately remove’ all clergy who are known or suspected child abusers and turn them over to police, in an unprecedented and scathing report
By Nick Squires, Rome 05 Feb 2014
The Catholic Church continues to harbour paedophile priests and should immediately turn them over to the authorities, the United Nations said in scathing report on the Vatican’s decades-long failure to tackle the scandal of predatory clergy.
In a damning critique of the Holy See’s attempts to shield abusive clergy from prosecution, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said that tens of thousands of children had been sexually exploited by priests and nuns in the past and that victims continue to be abused.
The committee of independent experts said it was “gravely concerned that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed…and has adopted policies and practises which have led to the continuation of the abuse by, and the impunity of, the perpetrators.”
Abusive priests in many countries had simply been moved from one diocese to another, allowing “many priests to remain in contact with children and to continue to abuse them.”
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