VATICAN CITY
Huffington Post
Religion News Service | by Josephine McKenna
Posted: 05/02/2014
VATICAN CITY (RNS) As Vatican representatives prepare to testify before a United Nations inquiry into torture next week, a senior official warned investigators that it would be “deceptive” to link torture with the pedophilia scandals that have swept the Catholic Church.
The Vatican’s chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Friday (May 2) the Convention Against Torture, endorsed by the Vatican in 2002, was one of the most important in the U.N.’s ambit.
Lombardi also stressed in a statement the Holy See’s “strong commitment against any form of torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment.”
But he urged the U.N. committee, which is holding three weeks of hearings in Geneva, to resist pressure from nongovernmental organizations “with a strong ideological character” that are intent on including the sexual abuse of minors in a discussion about torture.
“The extent to which this is deceptive and forced is clear to any unbiased observer,” Lombardi said.
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