GENEVA
NPR
by SCOTT NEUMAN
May 05, 2014
A United Nations committee on Monday grilled a Vatican representative about the priest sex abuse and compared the impact of the scandal to torture.
But Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See’s top envoy in Geneva, said the Vatican leadership had improved its handling of abuse in the decade since the scandal exploded.
“There has been, in several documentable areas, stabilization and even a decline of cases in pedophilia,” he told a committee of experts in charge of the U.N. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the Vatican ratified in 2002.
Tomasi also reiterated that the Holy See’s jurisdiction in applying treaties extends only to the Vatican City State, which with fewer than 900 inhabitants in the heart of Rome is the world’s smallest country, The Wall Street Journal reports.
“The Holy See intends to focus exclusively on the Vatican City State,” the archbishop said. “It should be stressed, particularly in light of much confusion, that the Holy See has no jurisdiction … over every member of the Catholic Church.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.