Vatican accuses UN of ‘distorting’ facts in child abuse report

A picture taken on Jan.16, 2014, in Geneva shows Vatican’s UN Ambassador Monsignor Silvano Tomasi (left) speaking with Former Vatican Chief Prosecutor of Clerical Sexual Abuse Charles Scicluna at the start of questioning over clerical sexual abuse of children at the headquarters of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Tomasi accused the UN on Wednesday, Feb. 5, of distorting facts in its damning report that denounced the Church for failing to stamp out child abuse. AFP PHOTO/FABRICE COFFRINI

VATICAN CITY—The Vatican’s permanent observer to the United Nations accused the UN on Wednesday of distorting facts in its damning report that denounced the Church for failing to stamp out child abuse.

The report failed to take into account the fact that the Vatican had made “a series of changes for the protection of children,” and its efforts at reform were “facts, evidence, which cannot be distorted,” Monsignor Silvano Tomasi said in an interview with Vatican Radio.

He said the report by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child—which was drawn up after a landmark hearing last month between human rights experts and senior Churchmen—”almost appears to have been prepared before the meeting.”

While the Vatican had given “detailed, precise answers to several points” raised by the experts, they “were not included in the final report, or at least appear not to have been taken into serious consideration,” he said.

The report “appears to be out of date, bearing in mind what actions the Holy See has taken in these past few years. It is simply a question of facts, evidence, which cannot be distorted,” Tomasi added.

The UN report said “tens of thousands of children worldwide” had been abused systemically for years within the Catholic Church, which it called on to remove all clergy suspected of raping or molesting children.

It cited a long record of cover-ups that protected abusers and questioned the real impact of the zero tolerance approach announced by former pontiff Benedict XVI and his successor Francis.

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