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As sexual assault cases against the Archdiocese of Agãna continue to increase, it appears that the Vatican has found itself in trouble with the United Nations.
In 2014, the Vatican was summoned to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child committee.
It was asked to take concrete steps to remedy decades of institutional complicity and the cover-up of widespread sexual abuse of minors.
The Vatican has now missed the September 1 deadline to submit a report, detailing the steps it has taken to protect children from sexual violence, according to a Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) statement.
Guam, where more than 100 clergy sex abuse lawsuits have been filed, was cited in their statement as an example of the Vatican’s failure to increase child protection as well as accountability for perpetrators and those who cover up and conceal the offences.
“The fact that the Vatican did not submit a report to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child is one more indication that church officials have not taken this process seriously,” said SNAP managing director Barbara Dorris,
CCR staff attorney Pam Spees said church officials are quick to decry efforts to hold them accountable, calling it scapegoating or anti-Catholic sentiment, and to deflect the issue by pointing to instances of sexual violence in other religious contexts.
“No other entity on earth has the church’s global presence and power to conceal the offences and insulate its perpetrators through the religious, political, and financial influence it wields,” Spees said.
SNAP and CCR said the Vatican has not made substantial progress in genuinely acknowledging, internalising, and implementing the full range of policies and practices that would centre children’s best interests and protect them against sexual violence.
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