UNITED STATES
Democracy Now
The U.N. Committee on Torture sharply questioned the Vatican this week over its handling of sexual abuse inside the Catholic Church. The hearing came just four months after the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child accused the Vatican of systematically turning a blind eye to decades of abuse and attempting to cover up sex crimes. During this week’s hearing, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi revealed the church had dismissed more than 800 priests for sexual abuse of children in the past decade. A number of survivors of sexual abuse attended this week’s hearing, including our guest, Barbara Blaine, president and founder of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. We are also joined by Katherine Gallagher, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights and counsel for SNAP in their international advocacy work.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The U.N. Committee on Torture sharply questioned the Vatican this week over its handling of sexual abuse inside the Catholic Church. The hearing came just four months after another U.N. body, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, accused the Vatican of systematically turning a blind eye to decades of abuse and attempting to cover up sex crimes. During this week’s hearing, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi revealed the church had dismissed more than 800 priests for sexual abuse of children in the past decade.
ARCHBISHOP SILVANO TOMASI: There were, since 2004 to the end of 2015, 848 priests who were dismissed from the clerical status and reduced to the lay status, and several hundred more had received other types of penalties, so that together they are about 3,500 priests.
AMY GOODMAN: Archbishop Tomasi went on to say the church has been addressing the crisis in a systematic and effective way over the past decade.
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