VATICAN CITY (VATICAN CITY)
Union of Catholic Asian News (UCA News) [Hong Kong]
December 9, 2025
By Kieran Tapsell
One hopes the canon lawyer in Pope Leo XIV will continue a dialogue with the UN Committee for the Rights of the Child
The Holy See was one of the strongest promoters and first signatories of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted on Sept. 2, 1990. This convention is the most ratified of all the UN treaties.
Signatories are required to provide periodic reports to the Committee for the Rights of the Child every five years. The Holy See submitted its first report two years late in 1994, and its second report 16 years late in 2011. It has not submitted another report since.
There is no enforcement mechanism under the convention. As the former president of Ireland, and a canon lawyer, Mary McAleese has pointed out, the convention is meant to be a dialogue between the UN and the signatories as to how it is protecting the rights of children.
The Catholic Church is the biggest non-governmental provider of educational and welfare services to children in the world. It operates 200,000 schools across five continents, catering to some 60 million children, a majority of whom, according to the Holy See, do not profess the Catholic faith.
Each signatory was permitted to make reservations to its provisions. The Holy See made three reservations. The first protected Catholic Church teachings on abortion and contraception. The second insisted that children’s rights are to be seen through the prism of their parents. The third was that the Convention’s principles within the Vatican City State should be consistent with the Church’s canon law.
There was no reservation that the convention’s principles only applied to the 49 hectares of the Vatican City.
In the first dialogue between the committee and the Holy See in 1994-1995, there was never any doubt that the convention applied to the estimated 300 million children throughout the world who belong to the Church at any one time.
In its first report to the Committee for the Rights of the Child (1994), the Holy See said that the Vatican City State was irrelevant because it only provided a basis for the Holy See’s autonomy and guaranteed the free exercise of its spiritual mission.
Almost the whole of the report described the Church’s implementation of the convention internationally through its canon law, teaching, and practices.
In its 1995 oral submission, the Holy See characterised the Vatican City State as a “childless curial workplace where implementation of the convention did not arise.”
By the time of the second dialogue in 2011, the issue of child sexual abuse within the Church and its covering-up had become world news. The Committee for the Rights of the Child was understandably concerned about these developments.
On Jan. 31, 2014, the committee handed down its concluding observations in which it criticized the Holy See’s secrecy laws, its inadequate disciplinary system, the failure to mandate reporting of child sexual abuse to the civil authorities, and its failure to cooperate with independent inquiries.
In its response, the Holy See made a surprising assertion. It stated that its only obligation under the convention was to the 30 children living in the Vatican City (the children of the Swiss Guards and other staff). Within those 49 hectares, the Church decides whether any of its priests and religious, convicted of child sexual abuse by civil or canonical courts, will still have access to some of the 300 million children that attend its schools, churches, and religious activities.
The Holy See said it would encourage those living outside the Vatican City to abide by the convention, but it said, attempting to implement the convention in other countries, “could constitute a violation of the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of states.”
This interpretation of the convention was inconsistent with the Holy See’s first report in 1994. It was also inconsistent with its response to many other United Nations treaties. It signed the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Convention in 1969. Since then, it has provided numerous reports in which it stated specifically how the principles in the convention are reflected in its canon law, Church teaching, and religious practice.
There was never any suggestion that its obligations under the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Convention only applied to residents of the Vatican City.
This interpretation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child was peculiar for other reasons. There are tens of thousands of international sporting, cultural, and charitable organizations that operate in many countries. They have their own rules, which do not interfere with the sovereignty or affairs of the states where they are allowed to operate.
For instance, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) enforces its rules on drugs in sport all over the world, banning athletes from Olympic events if they break them. The IOC would only interfere with a country’s sovereignty if it required athletes to break the local civil laws.
The Holy See’s argument suggests that under international law, the IOC cannot ban athletes from competing in Olympic events for breach of its drug rules. It can only encourage states to pass and enforce laws preventing such athletes from competing in Olympic events within their borders.
The Holy See occasionally puts on its “independent state” hat to ward off criticism. It has done that when refusing to produce its evidence of child sexual abuse to independent inquiries.
In this response to the United Nations Committee for the Rights of the Child, as the Irish criminologist, Marie Keenan, points out, the Holy See would like the world to believe that bishops are like medieval princelings, entirely subject to the civil law of the place where they live and not subject to canon law.
One hopes the canon lawyer in Pope Leo XIV will see through this casuistry, and he will continue a dialogue with the Committee for the Rights of the Child about canon law and its compliance with the convention.
There have been significant developments in canon law over child sexual abuse since 2014, the most important of which were the abolition of the pontifical secret over child sexual abuse by Pope Francis in 2019, the new Book VI of the Code of Canon Law in 2021, and the setting up of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.
A further report could discuss transparency, zero tolerance, mandatory reporting to civil authorities, the publication of case law jurisprudence, and the Universal Guidelines proposed by the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. Dialogue is the best way to protect the interests of children everywhere.
Pope Leo XIV has made a number of speeches supporting international humanitarian law. His support will be more meaningful when he issues a belated five-year report, which the Convention for the Rights of the Child requires from all signatories.
*Kieran Tapsell is a retired civil lawyer and the author of ‘Potiphar’s Wife: The Vatican’s Secret and Child Sexual Abuse’ (Second Edition 2024). He was a member of the canon law panel before the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.