U.N. demands Vatican ‘immediately remove’ child abusers

The United Nations has gone on the attack against the Catholic Church, demanding the Vatican immediately discharge all suspected and known child abusers, characterizing its views of gays and birth control as archaic and insisting the Holy See open for public review any files on any clergy tied to criminal investigations.

The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said in a report the Church’s “code of silence” on the thousands of children who have been sexually abused by priests is horrific, and that Vatican officials should “immediately remove” those involved, BBC reported.

The U.N. watchdog group also condemned the Church “practice of offenders’ mobility” that allowed suspected criminal clergy to transfer to other parishes to avoid facing sexual abuse allegations and investigations, BBC said.

Such practice put “children in many countries at high risk of sexual abuse, as dozens of child sexual offenders are reported to be still in contact with children,” the U.N. group said, voicing concerns that the Holy See was still downplaying the abuse. “[We have] deepest concern about child sexual abuse committed by members of the Catholic churches who operate under the authority of the Holy See, with clerics having been involved in the sexual abuse of tens of thousands of children worldwide.”

The U.N. in its report called for Pope Francis to step in and investigate the abuse, “as well as the conduct of the Catholic hierarchy in dealing with them.”

Ashley McGuire, of The Catholic Association, said in an email that the U.N. group’s attack was misplaced.

“Today, the United Nations issued a stunning and misguided attack on the Vatican. The responsible committee appears to have overlooked the last decade, in which the Church has taken serious measures to protect children. Such strong steps, actually, that the Church is now one of the safest places in the world for children and its measures for dealing with crimes against children are a model for other institutions and world governments.”