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How the
Holy See Was Ambushed by a Un Kangaroo Court
Catholic Voices
February 5, 2014
http://cvcomment.org/2014/02/05/how-the-holy-see-was-ambushed-by-a-un-kangaroo-court/
The UN watchdog on children’s rights which recently
hauled the Vatican over the coals for its handling of sex abuse
has today released its recommendations. The report is not only
ignorant and misguided, peddling myths for which there is no
foundation, but betrays an extraordinary misunderstanding of the
nature of the Church and the Holy See, while seeking to impose
an ideology of gender and sexuality in violation of the UN’s own
commitment to religious freedom.
Although the Holy See has responded diplomatically to
the report (see below), promising to look at the
recommendations, the Secretariat of State cannot possibly accept
them without doing violation to the nature of the Church. By
adopting the mythical framework peddled by victims’ advocacy
groups and lawyers, and ignoring the evidence put to it by the
Holy See on 16 January (see CV Comment here,
and Archbishop Tomasi’s speech here),
the Committee has shown itself to be a kangaroo court. The Holy
See can only now consider withdrawing its signature to the
Convention. The Committee has very seriously undermined both its
own credibility and that of the UN as a whole.
The 16-page UN
report is so full of crass errors and myths that it is
impossible to tackle them all. But the principal faults can be
gathered under the three headings of 1) ignorance about the
Church’s record on abuse 2) misunderstanding about the Church 3)
attempt to impose an ideology of sexuality and gender.
1) Ignorance of the Church’s record
of abuse
Nowhere is the Report is there an acknowledgement that
the Catholic Church in the western world has led safeguarding,
creating guidelines and best practices which are routinely
recommended by governments to other institutions to emulate. Nor
does it acknowledge that the Holy See at least since 2001 has
been the catalyst of those best practices, cajoling bishops’
conferences across the world to put in place measures of the
sort pioneered in the US and the UK. Instead, the Report peddles
the myth (29) that “the Holy See has consistently placed the
preservation of the reputation of the Church and the protection
of the perpetrators above children’s best interests”. If there
is substance to that claim pre-2000, the opposite is now the
case, and nowhere is this acknowledged. This, no doubt, was
designed to produce headlines
like the BBC’s — ‘UN slams Vatican for protecting priests over
child abuse’ — in order to sustain the myth of the Church, and
the Vatican in particular, as an unreformed institution, when
all the evidence points the other way.
In order to sustain that myth, the Report calls for
the Vatican, for example, to inculcate the notion that the best
interests of children are paramount, when this has been a
central tenet of the Holy See’s efforts for at least the past
decade. It claims (43-44) that “well-known child sex abusers
have been transferred from parish to parish” when this was true
of the 1970s-80s but hardly ever at all from the early 1990s,
when the bishops began seriously to tackle the problem.
It claims, too, that the Holy See “has established its
full jurisdiction over child sex abuse cases in 1962″ when that
was true only of one form of canonical crime (solicitation in a
confessional) which did not exist in civil law at the time. It
claims that sex abuse cases were placed from 2001 “under the
exclusive competence of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith”, implying that local bishops had no role in the matter.
In fact, the CDF’s measures were to ensure that action was taken
by local bishops in civil law and to speed up canonical measures
such as laicization; it in no way usurped the role of bishops.
The Report is in deep confusion about canon and civil
law, claiming, for example, that child sex abuse has been dealt
with in “confidential proceedings providing for disciplinary
measures which have allowed the vast majority of abusers … to
escape judicial proceedings in states where abuses were
committed.” This is an outrageous untruth. The Holy See’s
procedures — bound by confidentiality to enable victims to give
evidence — refer to canonical processes such as laicization;
they do not contradict, interfere with, or prevent in any way
action under the civil law of states, and in general demand that
the civil law process of states is completed before canonical
processes begin. Back when abuse cases were not dealt with, they
were not dealt with in either canon or civil law; and once they
were dealt with, they were dealt with in both. There is simply
no evidence that canonical trials of sex abusers have ever been
used instead of, or to subvert, the actions of police and courts
in any country in the world.
The Report then falls into a state of total confusion
when it claims that there was a “code of silence imposed on all
members of clergy under penalty of excommunication” as a result
of which “cases of child sexual abuse have hardly ever been
reported to the law enforcement authorities in the countries
where such crimes occurred.” This is breathtakingly false. How
to explain the dozens of clergy in prison, or the millions and
millions paid out in compensation to victims following
convictions? A quick glance at a recent safeguarding report
in the US blows apart that astonishing affirmation.
In (44d), the Report calls for the Holy See to “amend
Canon Law in order for child sexual abuse to be considered as
crimes and not as ‘delicts’”. But as anyone with any Latin
knows, a delict is a crime. And a canonical crime is as
much as crime as a civil crime, even if the types of crime and
punishment differ. In (44e) the Report calls for “clear rules,
mechanisms and procedures for the mandatory reporting of all
suspected cases of abuse” but these have long been in place in
the Church guidelines in most countries — unlike institutions
such as BBC — and the Holy See has been active in encouraging
this to be part of all bishops’ guidelines.
There are countless other examples.
2) Gross misunderstanding of the
nature of the Holy See and the Church worldwide
The Report’s authors appear to have grossly
misunderstood the peculiar characteristics of the Church, not
just as a religious institution but as an juridical entity.
Throughout the Report, the Holy See is spoken of as it were the
command and control centre of an army, or the HQ of a
multinational. In (17.), for example, the Report says the Holy
See should track spending on children in Catholic institutions
worldwide, and in (20.) says the Vatican should create an
international monitoring body to be made accessible to all
children in all Catholic schools — which would be a remarkable
feat for a Church with over a billion members and hundreds of
thousands of educational institutions. Equally absurd is the
idea that the Holy See should “provide systematic training on
the provisions of the Convention to all members of the clergy”,
as if the Vatican were some kind of centralized training body.
In (44h) it suggests the Holy See develop “educational
preventive programmes” in Catholic schools, as if the Vatican
controlled the curricula of Catholic schools.
The Report also treats the Church as a kind of NGO —
precisely the opposite of what Pope Francis has insisted it is
– when it calls for it (45a) to combat domestic and
gender-based violence. It doesn’t suggest how — through a poster
campaign? Tweets? — but any ignores the fact that any such
campaigns are led by local bishops, not the Vatican.
And how on earth could the Holy See “properly
investigate all allegations of children and adolescents being
separated from their families by means of psychological
manipulation”?
3) Attempt to impose an ideology of
gender and sexuality
With breathtaking arrogance, the UN Report tries to
change church teaching to bring it line with gender ideologies.
In (25) and (26) it peddles the secularist myth that the
Church’s teaching that sex is ordained by God for the
possibility of procreation within marriage encourages
homophobia, and patronisingly suggests that the Holy See condemn
all forms of discrimination against gay people — which it does
and has done for decades.
The Committee then criticizes contemporary Catholic
teaching on sexuality, regretting how “the Holy See continues to
place emphasis on the promotion of complementarity and equality
in dignity, two concepts which differ from equality in law and
practice provided for in Article 2 of the Convention.” In other
words, where the Catechism of the Catholic Church fails
to comply with the ideology of gender, it must be amended.
Amazingly, the Report also calls (36.) on the Holy See
to provide – to whom, it does not say; perhaps via a helpline
manned by monsignors? — what it calls “family planning,
reproductive health and adequate counselling” to prevent
“unplanned pregnancies.” Where this is going becomes clear in
(55.), where the Holy See is told to change its teaching on
abortion and even to amend canon law “with a view to identifying
circumstances under which access to abortion services can be
permitted.”
Lastly, the Report even lectures the Holy See on how
it should interpret Scripture. In (39d) the Holy See is told to
“ensure that an interpretation of Scripture as not condoning
corporal punishment is reflected in Church teaching”.
[Austen Ivereigh]
STATEMENT BY THE HOLY SEE
The end of its 65th session, the Committee on the
Rights of the Child has published its Concluding Observations on
the reviewed Reports of the Holy See and five States Parties to
the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Congo, Germany,
Portugal, Russian Federation and Yemen).
According to the proper procedures forseen for the
parties to the Convention, the Holy See takes note of the
Concluding Observations on its Reports, which will be submitted
to a thorough study and examination, in full respect of the
Convention in the different areas presented by the Committee
according to international law and practice, as well as taking
into consideration the public interactive debate with the
Committee, held on 16 January 2014.
The Holy See does, however, regret to see in some
points of the Concluding Observations an attempt to interfere
with Catholic Church teaching on the dignity of human person and
in the exercise of religious freedom.
The Holy See reiterates its commitment to defending
and protecting the rights of the child, in line with the
principles promoted by the Convention on the Rights of the Child
and according to the moral and religious values offered by
Catholic doctrine.
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