Amnesty International named the
Vatican in its annual report on human rights' concerns for not
sufficiently complying with international mandates on protecting
children from abuse.
It marked the first time the Vatican was named in the group's Annual
Report on the state of human rights around the world.
The 2011 Annual
Report covered human rights in 157 countries, looking particularly at
rights abuses and restrictions and at failures to implement
international rights' agreements.
The report, released May 13, said, "The Holy See did not sufficiently
comply with its international obligations relating to the protection of
children," specifically regarding sex abuse.
The Vatican is party to the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Article 19 of the convention says that states parties "shall take all
appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures
to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence,
injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or
exploitation, including sexual abuse."
The article also says measures should be implemented to aid in
prevention, reporting and investigation of abuse as well as care for
victims and, "as appropriate," the involvement of the court system.
The Amnesty International report said, "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."
"Such failure included 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," the report said.
The report recognized Pope Benedict XVI's efforts to combat the abuse of
children by clergy and his call for better prevention programs, an
improved selection process for priestly candidates and "just penalties,"
including removing abusers from ministry.
The report also mentioned the pope's pastoral letter to Irish Catholics
in 2010 in which he called for an apostolic visitation to look at how
abuse allegations and cases were handled.
The Amnesty report quoted the pope apologizing that "a misplaced concern
for the reputation of the church and the avoidance of scandal" had
ended in the "failure to apply existing canonical penalties and to
safeguard the dignity of every person."
The pope had called on bishops around the world to fully implement
church norms concerning child abuse and to continue to cooperate with
civil authorities, it said.
"Canon law does not include an obligation for church authorities to
report cases to civil authorities for criminal investigation. Secrecy is
mandatory throughout the proceedings," the Amnesty report said.
Vatican norms maintain the imposition of "pontifical secret" on the
church's judicial handling of clerical sex abuse and other grave crimes,
which means they are dealt with in strict confidentiality.
Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, has said that the
provision on the secrecy of trials was designed "to protect the dignity
of everyone involved."
The Vatican's policy is to encourage bishops to report such crimes wherever required by civil law, the spokesman has said.