ROME
The Tablet (UK)
UN abuse recommendations should act as ‘an incentive’ for the Holy See, says Jesuit child protection expert
12 February 2014 12:45 by Christa Pongratz-Lippitt and Robert Mickens
The head of the International Centre for Child Protection at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University, said recommendations made in a damning UN report on the Church’s child protection record should be regarded by the Holy See as an “incentive”.
Fr Hans Zollner made his comments after the United Nations’ committee on children’s rights on 5 February published a report excoriating the Holy See for lack of compliance with parts of the international Convention on the Rights of the Child. The UN committee questioned Holy See officials for nearly six hours at a public hearing in Geneva three weeks earlier about its adherence to the convention.
Fr Zollner told Vatican Radio after the publication of the UN’s report that it was high time for the Vatican to face a UN evaluation. “I have the impression that the Holy See did itself no favours by not delivering the requested reports for 14 years,” he said.
The Holy See’s UN representatives “have now had to face purgatory and take all the fury, disappointment and justified annoyance upon themselves,” Fr Zollner said.
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