Australians Welcome Un Vatican Scrutiny

By Annette Blackwell
Herald Sun
January 17, 2014

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/australians-welcome-un-vatican-scrutiny/story-fni0xqi4-1226804389250

THE questioning of the Catholic Church by the UN child rights watchdog has been hailed as historic by an Australian abuse victims' support organisation.

Nicky Davis, the spokeswoman for the Australian branch of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child's spotlight on the Vatican could be seen as vindication for those who had suffered abuse.

"Survivors should feel vindicated that for once their experience has not been ignored, for once they have not been abandoned, and finally this abusive institution has been revealed, without all the usual smoke and mirrors, in its true colours," Ms Davis said.

On Thursday in Geneva the UN committee grilled a delegation from the Holy See for six hours on the Church's lack of transparency and its failures to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of sexual abuse.

It was also asked if it understood that in most jurisdictions covering up a crime was also a crime.

Kirsten Sandberg, who chairs the 18-member UN committee, asked the Vatican delegation if it was willing to open its archives and share data it had on the cases of sexual abuse.

Delegation head Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said he could not answer this and other questions now, but took them seriously.

"While the Vatican may continue to drag its feet and make painfully slow progress, it is clear that the status quo, involving the pretence of change masking the fact that nothing has actually changed, must at last come to an end, " Ms Davis said.

She said Australia's Royal Commission as well as other national inquiries were likely contributing factors in the UN taking the vital stand now to protect children.

The Vatican last appeared before the committee almost two decades ago, before it was hit by the tsunami of child sex-abuse scandals.

Broken Rites Australia, a victims' support and research group, also welcomed the UN questioning of the Vatican.

Spokeswoman Chris MacIsaac said Broken Rites for 20 years had been helping victims who had crimes against them covered up by Catholic bishops.

She welcomed the UN scrutiny of Church procedures and also the focus brought by the Victorian inquiry and the ongoing Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

"It is still a very much a wait and see situation" she said explaining that it would take time for the UN committee to process the Vatican response.

Francis Sullivan, CEO of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council, which oversees the Catholic Church's engagement with the Royal Commission, was unavailable for comment.