Amnesty International chides Vatican for abuse

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Amnesty International has criticized the Vatican for
falling short of its commitments to protect children from sex abuse.

"The Holy See did not sufficiently comply with its international
obligations relating to the protection of children," the human rights
group said in its latest annual report, released on Friday (May 13).

"Increasing evidence of widespread child sexual abuse committed by
members of the clergy over the past decades, and of the enduring failure
of the Catholic Church to address these crimes properly, continued to
emerge in various countries" during 2010, the report said.

This is first time the group has included the Vatican in its annual
report, which assesses the state of human right in 157 countries. That
change follows a wave of scandals over sexually abusive Catholic priests
in Europe and Latin America last year.

Amnesty said the Vatican had failed in its obligations as a party to
the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child, by "not
removing alleged perpetrators from their posts pending proper
investigations, not cooperating with judicial authorities to bring them
to justice and not ensuring proper reparation to victims."

"Canon law does not include an obligation for church authorities to
report cases to civil authorities for criminal investigation," the
report noted.

According to a new Vatican directive published on Monday (May 16),
Catholic bishops must report sex abuse of children by priests and other
church employees to civil authorities, but only when required by local
law.

The same Vatican directive gave the world's Catholic bishops until
May 2012 to prepare national policies on sex abuse, in areas including
child protection, caring for victims and disciplining abusive priests.