VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency
Vatican City, Feb 5, 2014 / 11:14 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In wake of the U.N. Child Protection Committee criticizing Vatican policies and calling for the Church to change its doctrine, a leading archbishop countered that the committee’s analysis fails to be objective.
“The concluding recommendations…point out a rather negative approach to what the Holy See has been doing and has already achieved in the area of the protection of children,” Archbishop Silvano Tomasi told Vatican Radio on Feb. 5.
Archbishop Tomasi, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva, made his comments in response to Wednesday’s U.N.-authored Rights of Children report claiming that the Vatican “systematically” adopted policies allowing priests to rape and molest children. The document was issued following a Jan. 16 committee hearing in Geneva on global children’s rights.
Charging the Church to open its files on previous cases of abuse and criticizing their stance on homosexuality, contraception and abortion, the report suggested the Church change its canon law to ensure that what it called children’s rights, including access to health care, are guaranteed.
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