A United Nations committee considered on Wednesday that the Vatican continues to violate the Convention on Children's Rights by covering up for priests accused of sexual abuse in cases spanning decades.
The UN committee on Children's Rights in charge of investigating the cases of priests accused of being pedophiles told the Vatican to immediately remove the priesthood from all priests that have committed sexual abuses against minors, and to report them to authorities, after saying that the religious institution has incurred in practices that have contributed to continued abuses, reported Reuters.
After the Vatican's hearing at the UN in mid-January, the committee revealed in a press conference in Geneva on Wednesday, Feb. 5 that the Vatican must deliver all the information it's keeping on pedophile priests to civilian authorities, so that they can be judged.
"The Commission is deeply worried for the treatment the children, victims of various forms of abuse, and by how the Vatican has systematically chosen to preserve the reputation of the Church and the criminals over the protection of victims," reads a report presented on Wednesday, quoted by the AFP.
The presented document harshly criticizes one of the Vatican's most common policies which consists in moving pedophile priests that have been reported by their victims to a different parish, a practice that has been described as a resource to cover up for criminals and preventing them from being judged by civilian authorities.
"The practice of criminal mobility, which has allowed many priests to stay in contact with children and continue to abuse them, exposes the children of various countries to a high risk of being sexually abused," reads the report.
According to the AFP, Kristen Sandberg, the committee's president, said that the Vatican has violated the Convention on Children's Rights, "because they haven't done what they should" to fight this serious issue.
Vatican Representative Dismisses the Report
Facing the harsh report released on Wednesday, the Vatican's representative to the UN, Silvano Tomasi, one of the clerics present in the committee for Children's Rights, considered that the document is "distorted" and wasn't "updated" after the hearing.
"The document hasn't been updated, it's missing a correct perspective," said Tomasi during an interview from the Vatican, in which he criticized that the UN document didn't take into account the "advances" that Church has made in this issue, quoted AFP.
- Contribute to this Story:
- Send us a tip
- Send us a photo or video
- Suggest a correction
