UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has released the full text of its report that blasted the Vatican’s response to the abuse scandal.
The Committee on the Rights of the Child is responsible for examining compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a 1989 treaty signed by 193 states. (The United States is not bound by the treaty: although President Bill Clinton signed it in 1995, the Senate has not ratified it.) The Holy See signed the treaty in 1990, putting forward three reservations as it did so:
[The Holy See] interprets the phrase `Family planning education and services’ in article 24.2, to mean only those methods of family planning which it considers morally acceptable, that is, the natural methods of family planning.
[The Holy See] interprets the articles of the Convention in a way which safeguards the primary and inalienable rights of parents, in particular insofar as these rights concern education (articles 13 and 28), religion (article 14), association with others (article 15) and privacy (article 16).
[The Holy See declares] that the application of the Convention be compatible in practice with the particular nature of the Vatican City State and of the sources of its objective law (art. 1, Law of 7 June 1929, n. 11) and, in consideration of its limited extent, with its legislation in the matters of citizenship, access and residence.”
The treaty requires signatories to submit a report on their compliance within two years of ratification, and thereafter every five years. The Holy See submitted its first report nearly two decades ago but did not submit its second report until recently. At the beginning of its own 2014 report, the committee stated that it “regrets that the second periodic report was submitted with a considerable delay, which prevented the Committee from reviewing the implementation of the Convention by the Holy See for 14 years.”
In its 14-paragraph 1995 report on the Holy See’s compliance, the committee noted three areas of concern and offered five suggestions and recommendations. The committee asked the Holy See to withdraw its three reservations, expressed concern about gender discrimination in “Catholic schools and institutions,” and expressed concern about “the insufficient attention paid to the promotion of education of children on health matters, the development of preventive health care, guidance for parents and family planning education and services.”
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