AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun
ANNETTE BLACKWELL AAP JANUARY 17, 2014
THE questioning of the Catholic Church by the UN child rights watchdog has been hailed as historic by an Australian abuse victims’ support organisation.
Nicky Davis, the spokeswoman for the Australian branch of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s spotlight on the Vatican could be seen as vindication for those who had suffered abuse.
“Survivors should feel vindicated that for once their experience has not been ignored, for once they have not been abandoned, and finally this abusive institution has been revealed, without all the usual smoke and mirrors, in its true colours,” Ms Davis said.
On Thursday in Geneva the UN committee grilled a delegation from the Holy See for six hours on the Church’s lack of transparency and its failures to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of sexual abuse.
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