Vatican Says Not Legally Competent over Abuses

The New Straits Times
December 5, 2013

http://www.nst.com.my/latest/vatican-says-not-legally-competent-over-abuses-1.421985

[Read the list of questions from UN Committee on the Rights of the Child here. 

Read the Vatican’s response here. 

Read the SNAP-CCR report here.]

VATICAN CITY: The Vatican has told a UN investigating committee that it cannot be held legally competent over the abuses of children carried out by Catholic churchmen because they are subject to national laws, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

“When individual institutions of national churches are implicated, that  does not regard the competence of the Holy See but rather the laws of the  countries concerned,” Father Federico Lombardi said.

Lombardi said Vatican officials would explain their position at a meeting  in Geneva on January 16 with the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the  Child, which is checking whether the Catholic Church is honouring the  Convention on the Rights of the Child.

“The competence of the Holy See is at the level of the Holy See,” Lombardi  said, explaining that the Vatican was among the first states to sign up to the  convention.

Campaign groups for abuse victims have criticised the Vatican in the past  for making the legalistic distinction between the central administration of the  Church and the actions of individual clergymen.

The Vatican has already refused to respond to a questionnaire on its own  investigations into the abuse cases, which was sent out by the UN committee in  July of this year ahead of the meeting in January.

The Vatican has said Canon Law prosecutors are investigating thousands of  alleged cases of abuse but it is unclear how many have been confirmed and what  action has been taken against those found guilty.

Abuses and cover-ups began coming to light a decade ago in the United  States and there has been a wave of revelations since then — although victims  have mainly been coming forward in Western countries. AFP