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UN slams Vatican for protecting priests over child abuse

The UN has denounced the Vatican for "systematically" adopting policies allowing priests to sexually abuse thousands of children.
The UN watchdog for children's rights said the Holy See must "immediately remove" all clergy who are known or suspected child abusers.
It heavily criticised the Vatican's attitudes towards homosexuality, contraception and abortion.
The Vatican has set up a commission to fight child abuse in the Church.
In a report released on Wednesday, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) said the Holy See should open its files on members of the clergy who "concealed their crimes" so that they can be held accountable.
The committee said it was gravely concerned that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed.
It comes after Vatican officials were questioned in public last month over why they would not release data and what they were doing to prevent future abuse.
In December, the Vatican refused a UN request for data on abuse, on the grounds that it only released such information if requested to do so by another country as part of legal proceedings.
The Vatican is expected to issue a statement on the report later on Wednesday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26044852

Reply 1

Fullofsurprises

I am almost (but not quite) starting to feel sorry for the Vatican on this issue. They behaved terribly around it in past decades but of course now that they want to do better, they are in a state of declining funds to settle the heavy compensation payouts in many countries and declining entry to their clergy.

I don't really care what happens to the Catholic Church as an institution (and personally I think the Vatican ought to end and become something different, how about a completely non-religious university on those lovely grounds in Rome?) though, this kind of thing will be yet another nail in their very large coffin. They have severely lost it in most of the developed world and even in S. America they are in decline, despite propaganda to the contrary.

The only bad thing is that their devotees will probably in many cases switch to even more nutty evangelical/pentecostalist churches.

Reply 2

limetang

"The UN watchdog for children's rights said the Holy See must "immediately remove" all clergy who are known or suspected child abusers."

Nice to see that the presumption of innocence is alive and well... oh wait.

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