UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture
By Dr. Jeff Mirus May 05, 2014
Two stories in the news today demonstrate problems with the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church as it is currently understood and implemented. The first concerns attacks on the Vatican by a UN Panel charged with implementing the UN Convention against Torture. The second concerns the rebellion against renewal by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.
It seems that many at the United Nations would like to punish the Vatican for sexual abuse of children by clergy, and the Vatican’s representative for the Holy See at the UN would like to argue that Church personnel are subject to the laws of the nations in which they work. One must ask whether there is any desirable position in this debate.
Even supposing that sexual abuse can legitimately be construed as “torture”, which is at least a strange conflation of language to serve an ideological purpose, it is not clear why a UN Committee is seeking to hold the Vatican responsible. Is the UN going to hold each government responsible for any sexual abuse perpetrated by anyone who holds a government job (which would include, for example, roughly twenty percent of the American public)? Does the UN wish to board the Catholic gravy train by seeking some sort of monetary penalties? Will it seek the same damages from other member states? Considering that most sexual abuse is perpetrated by family members, and that abuse rates are higher in public schools than in the Catholic Church, just what exactly is the point?
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