The Center for Constitutional Rights says in a press release issued this afternoon that the Vatican has been called before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in response to a report issued to the Committee by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
The UN committee has summoned the Vatican to report on its record of ensuring children are protected from sexual violence and safeguarding children’s well-being and dignity, the first time the Holy See will have been called to account for its actions on these issues before an international body with authority. The first meeting will take place in Geneva in June.
There is little doubt that enemies of the Church will repeat these charges exactly as this group has made them. The problem is that they are false.
It may be true that SNAP issued what’s called a “Shadow Report” to the Committee making their views known and asking the Committee to take action. But, the truth of the matter is that the Holy See is a State Party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and therefore reports regularly to the Committee. Any upcoming appearance before the Committee was scheduled anyway. There is no way the SNAP report in any way caused the Committee to call the Vatican before it. The Committee does not work that way.
The press release also calls the Committee an “international body with authority.” That is also false. The Committee has no authority whatsoever. States Parties don’t even have to appear before it and States Parties do not have to answer to it or even do what the Committee suggests. And that is all the Committee may do anyway, make suggestions.
It is possible the Committee could go beyond the authority given to it by the treaty and by the signatories to the treaty. This happens with such frequency that UN Member States are as we speak undergoing a process of treaty body reform that will likely clip the wings of these kangaroo committees.
The news that the Vatican has been called before a UN Committee to answer charges should be stopped in its tracks.
March 2nd, 2013 | 4:13 am
Seems to me that the Vatican should be held to account somewhere. If this body doesn’t have the authority then another.
March 2nd, 2013 | 9:51 am
But we’re not citizens of the Vatican.
March 2nd, 2013 | 3:03 pm
So did the CFCR release their press release before, during or shortly after SNAP released their report?
March 3rd, 2013 | 1:08 am
Excuse me… but SNAP and the CCR ‘DID” file this report to the UN..
http://www.ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/vatican-summoned-un-committee-rights-of-child
Judy Jones, SNAP Midwest Associate Director, 636-433-2511. snapjudy@gmail.com,
(The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests)
March 3rd, 2013 | 9:02 am
Dude, give it up. The Vatican is long overdue on this one. Children have been hurt, terribly hurt.
Consider Matthew 18.
Please, before blindly defending the bishops, consider Matthew 18, and more of the teachings of the Christ.
March 3rd, 2013 | 1:03 pm
Judy, that’s the same press report that was referenced in the article. It suggests that the report was the cause of the Vatican’s being summoned, which is false.
Further, the subtitle “Worldwide Sex Abuse Crisis,” is, at best, inflammatory and misleading. Empirical evidence suggests that the sex abuse outbreak was limited mostly to the 70′s and 80′s. Implying that it is still widespread approaches calumny.
Don’t think that just because there was abuse and cover-ups, that the situation can’t also be exaggerated and exploited by the enemies of the Church. It’s happened before:
“There are cases of sexual abuse that come to light every day against a large number of members of the Catholic clergy. Unfortunately it’s not a matter of individual cases, but a collective moral crisis that perhaps the cultural history of humanity has never before known with such a frightening and disconcerting dimension. Numerous priests and religious have confessed. There’s no doubt that the thousands of cases which have come to the attention of the justice system represent only a small fraction of the true total, given that many molesters have been covered and hidden by the hierarchy.” — Joseph Goebbels.
What is needed is objective examination of evidence in a just and impartial manner, not the deliberate fostering of outrage exemplified by this press release.
March 3rd, 2013 | 2:20 pm
Kangaroo court. The U.N. is a complete joke, everyone knows it and yet the secular leftist world still acts as though it has legitimacy.
That is because it is run by secular leftists which also explains why it is so corrupt and wasteful. If you want a vision of what Barack Obama’s America will look like someday, take a nice gander at the U.N.
March 3rd, 2013 | 2:34 pm
Nobody is blindly defending anyone (see the FT posts on Mahoney, dude). The secular press blindly attacks and attacks and proves that American journalists are smirking liars. If they cared so much about hurt children, they would go after the public schools and coaches who are abusing kids as we speak. The church abuse largely happened decades ago.
OSV has the best blog I have seen on the subject, a better source than the brainiacs at the AP:
http://www.osv.com/PopeBenedictXVIandtheSexualAbuseCrisisBlog/tabid/8019/Default.aspx
March 3rd, 2013 | 3:01 pm
A list of past and future sessions (1995-2015) of the Committee on the Rights of the Child is at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/sessions.htm
The appearance of the Holy See’s delegation before the Committee is, therefore, not only not surprising but both normal and predictable; nor is it surprising that a ginger group would try to exploit the occasion as a publicity stunt.
Having regard to the volume of work on its plate, it is unlikely that the Committee will waste time in exceeding its remit in order to flatter SNAP.
People might remember that the International Humanist and Ethical Union pulled the same vacuous anti-Catholic stunt before the Human Rights Council in Geneva in 2009. Care to tell me, anyone, what the outcome was?
March 4th, 2013 | 3:21 pm
It seems like the Vatican hierarchy still does not take seriously the sex abuse crisis and its continued corrosive impact on the Faith in the world.
For veritable evidence, look at the collapse of the Catholic Faith in Ireland. I love the Church, but it needs to offer some rational “Olive branches” to the faithful. The time for mere apologies is long expired.
March 4th, 2013 | 6:36 pm
The UN, isn’t that the same organization that supports expanding abortion rights?
March 5th, 2013 | 1:35 am
When it comes to SNAP I find them more credible than reports from EWTN and the Catholic Register.
March 5th, 2013 | 6:22 am
We do NOT have a clergy child sexual abuse problem in the Church. We DO have a clergy homosexual problem. Practically all minors who were molested by priests were pubescent males. Granted they were still minors. But the sexual objects chosen by these priests were pubescent males. THAT is homosexuality. We all know it. And it’s about time that we pulled the covers on EVERY homosexual priest we know. Let’s clean house for real.
March 5th, 2013 | 11:49 am
Honestly, I think this is a generational scandal – in the sense that a lot of nonsense was allowed in the seminaries during the 60s – 80s; as these are reformed, those bishops responsible retired or pass on this will cease to be pandemic that it appears to be.
‘Protecting God’s Children’ is only of several changes that have occured – and are a good start.
Any abuse is a serious offense against the individual human being, God, and the Church herself as a community.
March 5th, 2013 | 12:02 pm
Judy and others,
I read in the media last year that the complaints vs. the Vatican do not come under the jurisdiction of the international court of justice — I forget why. It is a legal issue. Repeating the facts that complaints were made doesn’t really help in my view. This is not to deny that abusers at all levels in the Church must be dealt with fairly and strictly — I hope the next Pope will bite the bullit on this. It’s not enough to express regret for the victim without holding people, even in the highest places, accountable. Meanwhile, all the rhetoric expressing the need “to get even” with abusers sound to me very lacking the the spirit of the Gospel. God help us all to live the Gospel!
March 5th, 2013 | 12:02 pm
The time is long overdue for Catholics and the rest of the public to learn the *truth* about the anti-Catholic group SNAP. The facts may very much surprise you:
http://www.themediareport.com/hot-topics/snap-survivors-network-of-those-abused-by-priests/
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