VATICAN CITY
Catholic Culture
As Vatican officials prepare for a May 5 appearance before a UN committee monitoring implementation of the Convention against Torture, the director of the Vatican press office has issued a statement voicing the Vatican’s hope that “a serene an objective dialogue may take place,” with questions focused on the prevention of torture.
The Holy See signed the Convention against Torture in 2002, and thus incurred an obligation to testify before the UN committee. But having recently been subjected to a harsh criticism of Catholic teachings issued by another UN committee, after testifying on the rights of the child, Vatican officials are clearly concerned that the May 5 hearing, and the UN report that will follow, will also stray beyond the committee’s official competence.
Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, stressed that the Vatican fully supports efforts to eliminate torture. However, he said, during such UN meetings, “not infrequently the committees pose questions deriving from issues not strictly linked to the text of the Convention, but rather connected to it indirectly or based on an extensive interpretation.”
Father Lombardi went on to warn against “the pressure exercised over the Committees and public opinion by NGOs with a strong ideological character and orientation, to bring the issue of the sexual abuse of minors into the discussion on torture, a matter which relates instead to the Convention on the rights of the child.”
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