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A United Nations body charged with child protection has posed a list of tough questions to the Holy See about child abuse by Catholic priests.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has for “detailed information on all cases of child sexual abuse committed by members of the clergy, brothers, or nuns” as part of a review of the Vatican’s adherence to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The Vatican has until January to compile the information, in time for a meeting of the UN committee, at which Vatican officials will be questioned.
The questions cover the steps the Holy See has taken to prevent accused clergy from having access to children, about bishops who have failed to report allegations to the police, about what investigations the Church has run and what compensation or counselling the Church has offered victims, and about the safeguarding measures the Church has put in place to prevent future abuse.
The request — the most wide-ranging probe the committee has ever initiated — makes specific mention of abuse within the Legion of Christ and Ireland’s Magdalene laundries.
The questions are part of a periodic monitoring process which all nations that adhere to the Convention on the Rights of the Child must go through.
The request to the Holy See follows a meeting the committee had with representatives of the United States-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
The Holy See’s diplomatic mission in Geneva — where the committee is based – said it is ready to respond to the questions but warned against potential “exploitation” of the information it provides.
A statement by the Holy See in 2011, posted on the UN website in October 2012, reminded the committee of reservations on legal jurisdiction and other issues it made when it signed the global pact. It said any new “interpretation” would give the Holy See grounds “for terminating or withdrawing” from the treaty.
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Image: Universal Peace Federation
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