The Pope and the Vatican are up to the same duplicitous behavior regarding sexual abuse. He has lost any credibility in my eyes. It's the usual "ass covering" mentality.

TIMELINE:

1) Upon his appointment as Pope in March, Francis vowed to return credibility to the Catholic Church by dealing openly with the problem of sexual abuse.

2) Yesterday, the Vatican snubbed the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and its probe on sex abuse cases by insisting that the Holy See was "separate and distinct" from the Roman Catholic Church and that it was not its practice to disclose information about the religious discipline of clergy unless specifically requested to by the authorities in the country where they were serving.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25204805


3) Today, the Vatican jubilantly announced that it is forming its own Committee to fight sexual abuse - consisting of the Pope and 8 Catholic Cardinals. (They have the nerve to call themselves a "panel of experts").

So much for the new "transparency" promised by Pope Francis!




http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/05/pope-francis-commission-sexual-abuse_n_4390452.html



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/2013 02:25PM by Senoritalamanita.

Ok. I see your point. However, with sex crime rampant in Thailand, with Japan taking sex tours for pedophiles, why isn't the UN asking questions to those countries also? Mao's favorite things was an 8-12 year old virgin any. time he wanted it. ? The reason is not for the protection of children. It is a coalition of child abuse compensation lawyers that is pushing the UN. So, after bankrupting in individual dioceases, they can go after the Holy See and get their money also. The churchs have money. Go after the catholic church but for God's sake they are ignoring the hundreds of thousands of child sex trafficing because they don't have an attorney. What a farce!

Here is the U.N. Treaty "reporting status" page regarding Thailand and human trafficking, plus recent UNODC news and status reports:

http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/TreatyBodyExternal/Countries.aspx?CountryCode=THA&Lang=EN


http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/

The SEE has disclosed information to California. It does disclose. Is the UN going to criminally charge any of the names the SEE discloses? No.


Yes, it is tracking reports, which does nothing. Thailand does not name the criminals nor does it name the criminals that it HAS admitted and allows to stay within its boarders who are known pedophiles. The UN has not asked Thailand to name them.
There is a specific attorneys pressure group with a specific civil law suit agenda that is behind this.

What the attorneys want to do is like with the Anglicans, get an admission of guilt to go forward and to sue The Anglicans because now they "know" they have knowledge. When they had knowledge is a different thing. If that knowledge was obtained during confession is a different thing.

Tell me where that is going to help all the sexually abused children in the world. It takes the focus off of them.

Are they asking anyone in Thailand to specifically report individual people so that they can release the children from sexual exploitation or from prostitutes? Because THAT is the situation of these children right now. The UN is doing nothing for them. Can the See be prosecuted for any priests, nuns or other religious personnel if they release their names? No.
IS this admittable evidence in a criminal court of law to charge these individuals? No. What this is a basis for a group of attorneys to get an admission that yes, we have a list of people who we believe might have sexual issues (like homosexuality) so we can put these people up as witnesses against the Holy See under international laws so we can maybe get at least 60 or more percent of the take of culpability.
Tell me, what does this do for those children being exploited right now? It TAKES THE FOCUS OFF OF THEM.
The UN HAD a great program to on track to stop sex trafficking of women and children. It has been derailed. The attorneys are very forward about what they want and why they are doing it. They want the UN to go after the SEE. They have no interest in sexually abused children no adults more than beyond contingency. It is a business.

The UN wants all of the countries to report. Under pressure from the UN:
In Thailand, the Ministry of Justice has established practice guidelines for organizations related to the prosecution of foreign offenders who have allegedly committed acts of sexual harassment against children in Thailand are based on existing practices of each organization, and prescribe cooperation for effective law enforcement. Significant aspects of these guidelines are: (a) coordination with foreign Governments, in relation to the arrest and prosecution of foreigners, whereby a notice shall be sent to the embassy, consulate and the national central office of Interpol of the country in which the alleged offender is a national, for the purpose of exchanging information and the creation of a network; (b) prevention of absconding on bail, whereby the inquiry officer or the public prosecutor shall prepare complete and precise information for the opposition to the bail request, and may suggest an increase in the amount of bail; and (c) close coordination between the inquiry officer and the Department of Social Development and Welfare under the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, for the care and protection of child victims, and for compliance with the law governing inquiries and the taking of evidence from child witnesses.
52. Most countries, however, have not taken such measures and the few existing laws to combat child sex tourism still contain inconsistencies and some difficulties have been encountered in their implementation. The differences between national legislation still represent a considerable challenge in combating of CST, i.e., a cross-border crime. The proper harmonization of national legislation with international standards will increase the effective protection of children from commercial sexual exploitation and the chances of prosecutions taking place in cases of CST.

And then we have this:
33An unprecedented UN study of 10,000 men in Asia and the Pacific, released today, found that, on average, half of those interviewed reported using physical and/or sexual violence against a female partner, ranging from 26 per cent to 80 per cent across nine sites studied in six countries (Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Papua New Guinea). Nearly a quarter of the men interviewed reported raping a woman or girl. - See more at: http://www.unwomen.org/co/news/stories/2013/9/half-of-men-report-using-violence-and-a-quarter-perpetrate-rape-according-to-un-survey#sthash.RlbsqCoQ.dpuf

Let's see if the Vatican does anything first.

Bona dea,

I was baptized and confirmed a Catholic and most of my extended family is Catholic. I joined the LDS Church in my mid-teens.

Pope Francis seemed to me to be a breath of fresh air, and I had high hopes for his gradual reforming the old boys club. I have second thoughts now.

He is the spiritual ruler of the 1 billion Catholics on earth. As the ruler, he and the Holy See act as spiritual and temporal governors of the Catholic Church.

In 1964, under the reign of Pope Paul VI, the Holy See invited itself into the United Nations.

The Holy See (Catholic Church) is the only religion on earth that has this privilege - the privilege to circulate documents, to speak and to reply in the General Assembly of the United Nations. (Nonmember State Permanent Observer Status).

In this capacity, it signed off on The Convention of the Rights of the Child in 1990, was late in submitting its 2nd periodic report in 1997, and took until 2012 to submit it online, with reservations due to its views on family planning.

So, now, all of a sudden, the Holy See refuses to continue their active participation in the U.N. Rights of the Child treaty when it comes to allegations of sexual abuse in their own Catholic Church.

Now that the Vatican has formed its own investigative committee, Pope Francis and his Cardinals will be the foxes guarding their own pedophilia tainted hen houses.

Can we afford to "wait and see" when children are suffering?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/2013 05:04PM by Senoritalamanita.

You go girl. This mess seems to me that Francis is gilding the lily with his "good pope" versus Ratz "bad pope" gig.

You can try to paint over the wrecked lives of untold numbers of abused children but it won't work.

As a once sexually molested kid, The Catholic Church seems like a literal kid eating beast.

Pagag,

Please see my reply below. Thanks.

You don't if that will happen and,presumably, they are now keeping a better eye out to prevent further abuses.

I'm frankly not too surprised at the Catholic church snubbing the UN.
Remember those old bumper stickers GET US OUT OF THE UNITED NATIONS.

As long as the Catholics make a continued effort to clean house, fine with me.

Statistically, in a church which has 1.2 BILLLION members you can always expect some rotten apples.
Hopefully, they can be detected and deterred quickly from now on.

I don't think the UN is that effective either. So along as something serious is done,I am okay with it. I am not going to assume that the cover up will.continue or that the UN could.magicallysolve the problem

The internal discipline procedures of the Catholic church are really not a concern to me as long as the abuse is promptly reported to the police in the country where the abuse occurred. The abuser should also be removed from any position where s/he has contact with youth (I would hope that this would also be a matter of law in each country.)

No, it's not and that is where S. has a very good point. It was covered up for decades. Hell, as far as abuse goes every Catholic knows that nuns and priests used to whip themselves: physical abuse was good for your soul and good and often required for your children. Sex was not talked about because as a priest or a nun was concerned it would never happen. Catholic children didn't talk about sex. But every Catholic I know got hit by a nun at some point. Even the Blues Brothers shows it.

If we want to talk about churches and institutionalized sex abuse in SE Asia and Africa, the only church on a consistent and gigantic basis combating against child sex abuse, both privately and politically IS the Catholic Church. Thank God its gotten out of the gay marriage thing and back to where it should go.

My sister's a nun. We know these things.


But my issue, about Thailand and SE Asia is that it is there in the open, people's names are attached in the news, though not in the reports to the UN; Convicted US/British etc pedophiles are going over there and opening brothels for their fellow pedophiles in the US and Canada (and buying and exporting children)and these children are suffering now, getting AIDS now AND the UN DID start to make a political difference and now its basically dropped it over this attorney and his group. The See is fantastically wealthy.

Anyways, I talk too much.

Pagag,

I am deeply sorry that you suffered abuse as a child. I can relate to your pain.

Although I was never sexually abused, I was followed home for several miles by two men in a car in Los Angeles when I was 11 years old.

I was riding home on a bike from a friend's house when they followed me along the main boulevard and then on to the cul de sac where I lived. I was so scared that I threw my bike down in the middle of the road in front of my home to seek safety in the arms of my parents. The men stopped the car within inches of my bike.

As I tried to run toward my house, the man on the passenger side got out and scrambled toward me, intent on grabbing me and forcing me into the vehicle.

As he came toward me I could smell his foul breathe and body odor. I somehow managed to get away from his reach. Thankfully a neighbor had propped his front door open on the opposite side of the street (it was summer) and I was able to race inside to safety. The neighbor ran out and took the license plate down. This was possible because I lived on a dead-end street; the predators had to make a U-turn to turn their car around.

What haunts me to this day is the look of those two men in the car. They were about 40- 55. For the entire two miles, they laughed, jeered, rolled down the window and taunted me by saying vile things that a child should never hear. Telling me what they would do to me when they got hold of me.

I firmly believed that if they had managed to kidnap me, I would have been molested and killed and would not be typing this today.

The sad part of the story is this. Even though my father had the license plate number in his hand, he refused to call the police. He refused to protect me. Instead he minimized the incident and told me to get over it -- even when I was terrified to walk to school for months after the incident.

And the two men were free to traumatize, abuse, kidnap or murder others.

That is the unfortunate status of innocent children. They are powerless against the "adults" of this world.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/2013 08:51PM by Senoritalamanita.

Glad you survived that horrifying incident. I think of all the little girls who didn't.

My parents would not have called the police had I told them. There was a scout master and an assistant scout master. The scout master was sent to Utah State Hospital and his assistant to Utah State Penitentiary because this assistant molested the teenagers he worked with at Utah State Hospital and so the State of Utah threw their book at him. He, the assistant, was my perp.

A few times we had to go up to Utah State Hospital on "family night" to visit my old scout master. While he didn't molest me I had trouble looking at him. I knew my parents supported him more than the boys he touched.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/2013 08:02PM by Pagag.

Thank you for posting this Senoritalamanita.

Despite all the gestures made by Francis to differentiate himself from Benedict, I think he should be dealing with the elephant in the room right now...first and foremost.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/2013 09:22PM by archytas.

Thank you again Pagag for sharing your story.

I don't know if you feel the same way about your folks, but at the time of the incident the blind love I had for my father as a young adoring daughter was enough to blot the pain. For a while at least.

It wasn't until my late 40s that the anger surfaced. After he died it was a raging fire. It was hard for me to forgive some of the things he did, like his idea of corporal punishment and when he joined Scientology for awhile after my mother died.

Blind obedience is how my parents rolled. How they were brainwashed as children. Although my folks weren't LDS, my father believed in keeping a stiff upper lip and not creating waves, or being overly emotional. I remember being punished if I cried.

The toughest thing was admitting that my dad had clay feet. And forgiving myself for being so angry at him for so long.

"the Vatican jubilantly announced that it is forming its own Committee to fight sexual abuse - consisting of the Pope and 8 Catholic Cardinals. (They have the nerve to call themselves a "panel of experts")."

How much more "expert" can you get than that? Nobody knows more about pedophilia than a gang of Catholic priests!

That's too bad. I want so much to like Pope Francis.

I like this Pope.
No earthly institution can ever give you a guarantee that a few members won't go rogue,life just does not work that way.

And you can't expect the Catholic Church to de facto submit themselves to the United Nations.

No more than than the U.S. would ever do so.

Because if we did that, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al would be tried as war criminals in The Hague.
Not gonna happen.

The best you can expect is for the Catholic Church to implement better guidelines and more supervision.
Which is what they seem to be doing.

And you can't expect the Mormon Church to de facto submit themselves to the United Nations. Why? Because they aren't a nation and neither is The Catholic Church.

"The best you can expect is for the Catholic Church to implement better guidelines and more supervision.
Which is what they seem to be doing."

Um, no. People can place the blame were it belongs - organizations which foster and protect pedophiles. Self government of such organization is a slap in the face to the victims that are a result of its practices.

Tacit approval is what I read in your post to let the status quo call the shots. It never works. Just ask the Catholics about The Reformation...

I get it, you don't like the Catholic church.

But harping endlessly on what happened years, decades or centuries ago is futile.

Let them move forward and do better in the future.
They don't need the United nations,of all things, for that.

And btw, the Vatican IS a sovereign state.

I get it that you approve of their fixing their own problem.

I don't agree and that was the issue not what I like and don't like.

It was intended to be a stronger opinion than likes and dislikes.

And thanks for the obvious information. I needed the review.

Leah,

The Vatican/Holy See is both Church AND State. It continues to aggressively push its religious agenda about reproductive health and sexuality into U.N. policy making.


Sexual abuse continues to happen in the Catholic Church today. The items mentioned were newsworthy this week - two days ago - mentioned in the press, worldwide.

It is an ongoing issue, an ongoing discussion. Something that many people care deeply about.

And I would bring up the same discussion about any church, anywhere, if children are being abused and the hierarchy in the church sweeps it under the rug and has the audacity to "self regulate" or "police".



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/06/2013 12:27PM by Senoritalamanita.

Senoritalamanita Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And I would bring up the same discussion about any
> church, anywhere, if children are being abused and
> the hierarchy in the church sweeps it under the
> rug and has the audacity to "self regulate" or
> "police".

And it calls itself a "State" and lets children's abusers free. What a great "State" to be a "citizen" of...

Sexual abuse is pandemic.

If you don't like the Catholic Church, don't join it.

Hopefully, they will indeed regulate from now on.

But no institution needs the UN to supervise them.

There was an article in the Tribune about the numerous cases of sexual abuse this year alone by teachers in northern Utah.Nobody talks about these on the boards. Sexual abuse is not confined to the Catholic church. Don't even get me started on the Mormon church or the scouts.The Catholic church needs to clean up its act,but they are not the only ones.Hopefully this pope will do.something. let's give him a chance .I just don't see the UN as the solution

Political influence of the Vatican is universally understood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diplomatic_missions_of_the_Holy_See

It is estimated that the Diplomatic Corps of the Vatican out number the actual population of the Vatican.