GENEVA/VATICAN CITY
Catholic Free Press
By Cindy Wooden and Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Testifying before the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, a Vatican representative acknowledged the horror of clerical sexual abuse and insisted the Vatican was serious about protecting children.
Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican observer to U.N. agencies in Geneva, said the church recognizes abuse of children as both a crime and sin, and the Vatican has been promoting policies that, “when properly applied, will help eliminate the occurrence of child sexual abuse by clergy and other church personnel.”
The archbishop spoke in Geneva Jan. 16 during the committee’s annual session to review reports from states that signed the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Holy See signed the treaty in 1990.
“There is no excuse for any form of violence or exploitation of children,” the archbishop said. “Such crimes can never be justified, whether committed in the home, in schools, in community and sports programs, in religious organizations and structures.”
Pope Francis, in a homily at his early morning Mass the same day, spoke generally about the shame of the “many scandals” perpetrated by members of the church. Those who abuse and exploit others, he said, may wear a holy medal or a cross, but they have no “living relationship with God or with his word.”
Instead of giving others “the bread of life,” he said, they feed them poison.
Archbishop Tomasi told the committee that, in December, Pope Francis approved the establishment of an international commission to promote child protection and prevent abuse. He said Vatican City State recently updated its laws to define and set out penalties for specific crimes against minors, including the sale of children, child prostitution, the military recruitment of children, sexual violence against children and producing or possessing child pornography.
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