U.n. Panel Grills Vatican on Sex-abuse Cases

By Liam Moloney
Wall Street Journal
January 16, 2014

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304603704579324891654814828?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304603704579324891654814828.html

Vatican officials told a United Nations panel Thursday that Roman Catholic Church leaders need to do more to grapple with cases of sex abuse by clergy but reiterated that the church has limited jurisdiction in tackling the problem.

In one of the church's most public grillings for its handling of sex- abuse scandals around the world, Vatican officials faced hours of tough questions in Geneva from a committee on its implementation of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which calls for signatories to take measures to protect children. The Holy See signed on to the convention in 1990.

"The Holy See gets it—I don't want to say, finally—that certain things have to be done differently," said Bishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican's sexual-crime prosecutor for 10 years until 2012. "It isn't the policy of the Holy See to cover up."

Archbishop Tomasi, left, and Bishop Scicluna at Thursday's panel. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Still, Vatican officials added that the church has little legal basis to punish clergy and other church members for sexual abuse. "[Priests] are citizens of their own states and fall under the jurisdiction of their own country," said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi at the session that was broadcast live on the Internet.

The Catholic Church has been badly shaken in recent years by revelations that local bishops mishandled or covered up incidents of sexual abuse over the decades in countries ranging from the U.S. and Australia to Ireland and Belgium.

The Vatican officials told the U.N. Committee that it was aware of 612 new cases of clerical sexual abuse in 2012, of which 418 involved minors.

The Holy See has successfully managed to argue in courts that it is immune from lawsuits as a sovereign state and that the pope isn't responsible for the action of members of the clergy. However, Holy See officials acknowledged that the Vatican still has influence over the clergy and staff of Catholic institutions outside Vatican City State—the world's smallest country.

"It is a spiritual jurisdiction," said Bishop Scicluna, who was part of the Holy See delegation to the committee, referring to the influence it holds over members of the clergy.

The Vatican's efforts drew scrutiny from committee members. Vatican "procedures are not very transparent, and they don't involve victims," said Kirsten Sandberg, chairwoman of the panel, asking how the church was working on resolving these issues.

At the Vatican on Wednesday, Pope Francis briefly mentioned the scandals that have hit the Catholic Church. "So many scandals that I do not want to mention individually, but all of us know...the shame of the Church," said the pontiff in the homily of his daily mass. Last month, the pope announced the establishment of a commission to help the pontiff decide how best to protect children from sexual abuses by priests and help past victims.

Vatican officials attending the U.N. panel came under fire by advocacy groups for clergy sex-abuse victims.

"Two high-ranking Catholic officials today basically told a United Nations panel that the Vatican has little real power to stop bishops from hiding clergy sex crimes," said in a statement Mary Caplan of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. "We're very saddened that such a huge and powerful church bureaucracy continues to pretend it's powerless over its own officials."

The U.N. committee will present its concluding observations on Feb. 5 and although, it can't force the Holy See to do anything, any indications of failings could embarrass it.

"We have great expectations of the new steps taken," said Sara Oviedo, a U.N. panel expert from Ecuador, in concluding remarks. "It is a test of the new dawn to come [for how the Vatican deals with the issue]."

Write to Liam Moloney at liam.moloney@wsj.com