Mexican Catholics Welcome Vatican Sex Abuse Probe

Solar News
January 16, 2014

http://www.solarnews.ph/news/world/2014/01/17/mexican-catholics-welcome-vatican-sex-abuse-probe#.Utqf8BDGztR

Mexican Catholics call for the Vatican to follow through on the prosecution of priests found to have committed abuse as the UN pushes the Vatican on abuse scandals that have plagued the church. (Image captured from a Reuters TV clip)

Mexico City, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexican Catholics welcomed questioning of the Vatican by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on Thursday, Jan. 16 (Friday, Jan. 17, in the Philippines), hoping it will spur greater accountability and prosecutions of priests found to have committed acts of abuse.

Representatives from the Holy See are being publicly questioned for the first time by an international panel at the Palais Wilson in Geneva over the child abuse scandal which severely damaged the standing of the Roman Catholic Church around the world. The UN panel will assess the Church's adherence to the 1990 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty guaranteeing a full range of human rights for children, which the Holy See has signed.

The local "Catholics for the Right to Decide" organization in Mexico City, a group of faithful who are pushing for justice within the church, said the questioning is a historic moment for the Vatican.

"In my opinion, today's hearing is very important in the history of the Catholic Church. It's about the accountability of the Vatican regarding the crimes of pedophilia. In this respect, we also hope that it will be important the report on the rights of the child because they seem to have been very thorough in their questioning. However, we regret that the Holy See continues to have ambiguous answers," said organization official, Aide Garcia.

In December 2013, Pope Francis ordered the formation of a child protection committee to address the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church and consider ways to better screen priests, protect minors and help victims in the face of charges the Vatican has not done enough to guard the vulnerable or make amends.

In the same month, however, the Vatican refused to provide the United Nations rights panel with information on the Church's internal investigations into the sexual abuse of children by clergy.

The Holy See said it would not release information on its internal investigations into abuse cases unless required to do so by a request from a state or government to cooperate in legal proceedings. This was in response to a series of tough questions posed by the UN CRC in July 2013.

Garcia told Reuters the prosecution of priests found to have committed abuses will show if Pope Francis is true to his word.

"Those priests who have committed these crimes are brought before justice and that these crimes are followed with a sentence because it is necessary. Also, this will show that the messages giving by Pope Francis are true and there is a true change inside the Catholic institution," she added.

Catholic priests have been accused of abuse by alleged victims around the world. In Mexico, Father Marcial Maciel was ordered by Pope Benedict to retire to a life of "prayer and penitence" in 2006 after years of allegations that he had sexually abused boys and young men.

Nine men have in recent years accused Maciel of molesting them while they were in a seminary from the 1940s to the 1960s. Maciel repeatedly denied the charges, and the claims decades later came too late for authorities to pursue a criminal case.

The CRC will publish on Feb. 5, 2014 its concluding observations of the report delivered by the Vatican on Thursday, a spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights told Reuters.