Vatican responds to child sex abuse charges at UN

On September 22, 2009, the International Humanist & Ethical Union (IHEU) representative, Keith Porteous Wood, stood before the UN Human Rights Council and accused the Holy See of covering up cases of child abuse in defiance of both moral authority and it's obligations under international law. Among the charges leveled were covering up allegations, failure to inform civil authorities even when obligated by law to do so, protecting abusers by moving them from parish to parish (thus allowing abuse to be repeated elsewhere), accusing victims of lying, requiring gag clauses as a condition of settlements and allowing clerics (such as Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law) implicated in cover-ups to remain in office. A summary, as well as a link to the full text of IHEU's written report on the matter, may be found here.

 

Today, September 24, 2009, the Holy See issued a response to the UN Human Rights Council. It is a short, one page document. The text can be found here but the jist of it, as well as an assessment of it, is summarized by the IHEU as follows:

 

Exercising their right of reply to criticism by IHEU at the Human Rights Council on 22 September, the Holy See argued that the Catholic Church was not unique in having clergy who sexually abused children and young people - thereby comprehensively missing the point. No doubt there are abusers in all walks of life, but our point was not the abuse itself but the cover up in which some of the highest officials of the Church were implicated. The Holy See is a sovereign state and its senior clergy, safe in their cosy palaces in the heart of Rome, are answerable to no earthly power other than themselves - and to the few international treaties to which they are party. One such is the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and, as we showed on 22 September, they are in massive breach of their obligations under that convention. Answerable only to international law, it is by the international community that they mustv be held to account. One senior UN official described the reply by the Holy See as "a disgrace". We agree.

 

Photo Credit:

1) UN Human Rights Council emblem

 

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