Vatican 'must immediately remove' child abusers - UN
Kirsten Sandberg from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) said a "code of silence" had been imposed on children
The UN has said that the Vatican should "immediately remove" all clergy who are known or suspected child abusers.
The UN watchdog for children's rights denounced the Holy See
for adopting policies which allowed priests to sexually abuse thousands
of children.
In a report, it also criticised Vatican attitudes towards homosexuality, contraception and abortion.
The Vatican responded by saying it would examine the report - but also accused its authors of interference.
A group representing the victims of abuse by priests in the US welcomed the report.
In its findings, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
(CRC) said the Holy See should open its files on members of the clergy
who had "concealed their crimes" so that they could be held accountable
by the authorities.
Analysis
While promising "thorough study" of the criticisms, the Holy See robustly rejects some of the points made by the UN.
The Vatican has always given precedence to Church law, called Canon Law, over local criminal law in dealing with ecclesiastical crime. It does not easily tolerate interference by civil authorities in ecclesiastical matters.
The recent case of a senior Vatican diplomat, a Polish archbishop, who was suddenly recalled to Rome from his post in Santo Domingo after serious police accusations of sexual abuse of minors there is a case in point.
The Vatican has refused an extradition request by justice authorities in Poland and says an internal police investigation is under way inside Vatican City.
It said it was gravely concerned
that the Holy See had not acknowledged the extent of the crimes
committed, and expressed its "deepest concern about child sexual abuse
committed by members of the Catholic churches who operate under the
authority of the Holy See, with clerics having been involved in the
sexual abuse of tens of thousands of children worldwide".
It also lambasted the "practice of offenders' mobility",
referring to the transfer of child abusers from parish to parish within
countries, and sometimes abroad.
The committee said this practice placed "children in many
countries at high risk of sexual abuse, as dozens of child sexual
offenders are reported to be still in contact with children".
The UN report called on a Vatican commission created by Pope
Francis in December to investigate all cases of child sexual abuse "as
well as the conduct of the Catholic hierarchy in dealing with them".
Ireland's Magdalene laundries scandal was singled out by the
report as an example of how the Vatican had failed to provide justice
despite "slavery-like" conditions, including degrading treatment,
violence and sexual abuse.
The laundries were Catholic-run workhouses where some 10,000
women and girls were required to do unpaid manual labour between 1922
and 1996.
The report's findings come after Vatican officials were
questioned in public last month in Geneva about why they would not
release data and what they were doing to prevent future abuse.
The Vatican has denied any official cover-up. However, in
December it 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.
Many campaigners feel the Vatican should open its files on priests known to be child abusers
In January, the Vatican confirmed that almost 400 priests had
been defrocked in a two-year period by the former Pope Benedict XVI over
claims of child abuse.
The UN committee's recommendations are non-binding and there is no enforcement mechanism.
'Non-negotiable'
The BBC's David Willey in Rome says the Vatican has set up new guidelines to protect children from predatory priests.
Catholic Church abuse scandals
- Germany - A priest, named only as Andreas L, admitted in 2012 to 280 counts of sexual abuse involving three boys over a decade
- United States - Revelations about abuses in the 1990s by two Boston priests, Paul Shanley and John Geoghan, caused public outrage
- Belgium - The bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, resigned in April 2010 after admitting that he had sexually abused a boy for years
- Italy - The Catholic Church in Italy admitted in 2010 that about 100 cases of paedophile priests had been reported over 10 years
- Ireland - A report in 2009 found that sexual and psychological abuse was "endemic" in Catholic-run industrial schools and orphanages for most of the 20th century
But, he adds, bishops in many
parts of the world have tended to concentrate on protecting and
defending the reputation of priests rather than listening to the
complaints of victims of paedophile priests.
Meanwhile several Catholic dioceses in the US have been
forced into bankruptcy after paying out huge sums in compensation to
victims of abuse by clergy.
The Vatican said in a statement following the report's
publication: "The Holy See takes note of the concluding
observations...which will be submitted to a thorough study and
examination... according to international law and practice."
But it added that it "regrets to see in some points of the
concluding observations an attempt to interfere with Catholic Church
teaching on the dignity of human person and in the exercise of religious
freedom" and "reiterates its commitment to defending and protecting the
rights of the child... according to the moral and religious values
offered by Catholic doctrine".
Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, head of the Holy See's delegation
to the United Nations in Geneva, told Vatican Radio the report had
failed to take into account the fact that the Vatican had made "a series
of changes for the protection of children", and its efforts at reform
were "fact, evidence, which cannot be distorted".
He added that the UN could not ask the Church to change its "non-negotiable" moral teachings.
Victims groups welcomed the report as a wake-up call to
secular law enforcement officials to investigate and prosecute Church
officials who were still protecting "predator priests".
Barbara Blaine, president of a group representing US victims
of abuse by priests - Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
(Snap) - told the BBC that the UN report "reaffirms everything we've
been saying. It shows that the Vatican has put the reputation of Church
officials above protection of children".
"Church officials knew about it and they refused to stop it.
Nothing has changed. Despite all the rhetoric from Pope Francis and
Vatican officials, they refuse to take action that will make this stop."