By : Jorge Valenzuela A
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Vatican tries to draw line under clerical sex abuse scandals at UN hearing
- theguardian.com, Monday 5 May 2014 10.46 EDT
The Vatican has been given another hostile interrogation by a United Nations committee over its record on clerical sex abuse.
One member after another of the committee against torture brushed aside the Holy See's argument that its obligation to enforce the UN convention against torture stopped at the boundaries of the world's smallest country, the Vatican City state. They demanded the pope's representative give answers to a long list of questions about the treatment of sex abuse claims against clergy throughout the world.
The Holy See, which long predates the city state, is a sovereign entity without territory. It is as the Holy See that the Catholic leadership maintains diplomatic relations and signs treaties such as the convention against torture.
But Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's UN ambassador in Geneva, told the committee: "The Holy See intends to focus exclusively on Vatican City state."
The American expert on the committee, Felice Gaer, made plain her disagreement. She said the Holy See had to "show us that, as a party to the convention, you have a system in place to prohibit torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment when it is acquiesced to by anyone under the effective control of the officials of the Holy See and the institutions that operate in the Vatican City state".
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Archbishop
Silvano Tomasi, (R), Apostolic Nuncio, Permanent Observer of the Holy
See to the Office of the United Nations in Geneva, and Vincenzo Buonomo,
(L), of the Secretariat of State of the Holy See prior to the UN
torture committee hearing on the Vatican, at the headquarters of the
office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the Palais Wilson,
in Geneva, Switzerland. Photograph: Salvatore Di Nolfi/EPA
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One member after another of the committee against torture brushed aside the Holy See's argument that its obligation to enforce the UN convention against torture stopped at the boundaries of the world's smallest country, the Vatican City state. They demanded the pope's representative give answers to a long list of questions about the treatment of sex abuse claims against clergy throughout the world.
The Holy See, which long predates the city state, is a sovereign entity without territory. It is as the Holy See that the Catholic leadership maintains diplomatic relations and signs treaties such as the convention against torture.
But Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's UN ambassador in Geneva, told the committee: "The Holy See intends to focus exclusively on Vatican City state."
The American expert on the committee, Felice Gaer, made plain her disagreement. She said the Holy See had to "show us that, as a party to the convention, you have a system in place to prohibit torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment when it is acquiesced to by anyone under the effective control of the officials of the Holy See and the institutions that operate in the Vatican City state".
Read More and Watch Video Here
.....
Vatican faces tough questions at UN torture committee
Vatican to answer questions on past, present and future handling of clerical sex abuse
Archbishop
Silvano Tomasi, (R), Apostolic Nuncio, Permanent Observer of the Holy
See to the Office of the United Nations in Geneva, and Vincenzo Buonomo,
(L), of the Secretariat of State of the Holy See prior to the UN
torture committee hearing on the Vatican, at the headquarters of the
office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the Palais Wilson,
in Geneva, Switzerland. Photograph: Salvatore Di Nolfi/EPA
As
expected, a Holy See delegation faced tough questioning at the UN’s
Committee Against Torture in Geneva yesterday. For the second time in
three months, the Vatican was appearing before a UN body to answer
questions about its ratification of a UN treaty, especially with regard
to is past, present and future handling of clerical sex abuse.
In his opening address to the committee, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi,
the Holy See’s permanent representative at the UN in Geneva, argued
that while the Holy See lent “its moral support and collaboration . . .
to the elimination of torture”, it had signed the torture convention in
2002 “on behalf of the Vatican city state”.
No jurisdictionArchbishop Tomasi said he intended to “focus exclusively on the Vatican city state”, the 100 -acre statelet that surrounds the Basilica of St Peter’s.
No jurisdictionArchbishop Tomasi said he intended to “focus exclusively on the Vatican city state”, the 100 -acre statelet that surrounds the Basilica of St Peter’s.
In that sense, he claimed, the Holy See
had “no jurisdiction over every member of the Catholic Church”. Rather,
he said, persons who “live in a particular country are under the
jurisdiction of the legitimate authorities of that country and are thus
subject to the domestic law [of that country]”.
Inevitably,
that assertion prompted a critical reaction from the UN committee, with
US human rights activist Felice Gaer accusing Archbishop Tomasi of
making an “alleged distinction” between the Holy See and the Vatican
city state.
She questioned the Holy See’s apparent
assumption that the torture convention applied only to the “four
corners of Vatican City”, saying that as far as she could see, Vatican
City was simply a “sub-division” of the Holy See.
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