Devastating
UN report demands Vatican 'immediately remove' all clergy who are known or
suspected child abusers
theguardian.com, Agencies in Vatican City, Wednesday 5 February 2014
 |
| Pope Francis meets bishops at the end of his weekly general audience. Photograph: Alessandra Tarantino/AP |
A UN human
rights committee has denounced the Vatican for adopting policies that allowed
priests to rape and molest tens of thousands of children, and urged it to open
its files on the paedophiles and the churchmen who concealed their crimes.
In a
devastating report on Wednesday, the UN committee also severely criticised the
Holy See for its attitudes toward homosexuality, contraception and abortion and
demanded that the Vatican "immediately remove" all clergy who are
known or suspected child abusers and turn them over to civil authorities.
The
committed said the Holy See should also hand over its archives on sexual abuse
of tens of thousands of children so that culprits, as well as "those who
concealed their crimes", could be held accountable.
The
watchdog's exceptionally blunt paper – the most far-reaching critique of the
church hierarchy by the world body – followed its public grilling of Vatican
officials last month.
"The
committee is gravely concerned that the Holy See has not acknowledged the
extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address
cases of child sexual abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies
and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse by and the
impunity of the perpetrators," the report said.
The Vatican
was expected to issue a statement on the report later on Wednesday.
The UN
committee on the rights of the child said the Catholic church had not yet taken
measures to prevent a repeat of cases such as Ireland's Magdalene laundries
scandal, where girls were arbitrarily placed in conditions of forced labour.
It called
for an internal investigation of the laundries and similar institutions so that
whose who were responsible could be prosecuted and that "full compensation
be paid to the victims and their families".
A
commission created by Pope Francis in December should investigate all cases of
child sexual abuse "as well as the conduct of the Catholic hierarchy in
dealing with them", the report said.
Abusers had
been moved from parish to parish or other countries "in an attempt to
cover up such crimes", it added.
"Due
to a code of silence imposed on all members of the clergy under penalty of
excommunication, cases of child sexual abuse have hardly ever been reported to
the law enforcement authorities in the countries where such crimes
occurred," the UN body said.
At a public
session last month, the committee pushed Vatican delegates to reveal the scope
of the decades-long sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic priests that Pope
Francis called "the shame of the church".
The Holy
See's delegation, answering questions from an international rights panel for
the first time since the scandals broke more than two decades ago, denied
allegations of a Vatican cover-up and said it had set clear guidelines to
protect children from predator priests.
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