U.N. panel grills Vatican officials about abuse of children

[unhappycamper]

http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-vatican-united-nations-abuse-children-20140116,0,5561107.story

U.N. panel grills Vatican officials about abuse of children
By Tom Kington
January 16, 2014, 10:16 a.m.

ROME -- In their toughest and most public questioning to date about sexual abuse of children by members of the clergy, senior Vatican officials came under heavy criticism Thursday from a United Nations committee over their handling of such cases and promised that changes were underway.

"The Holy See gets it," Msgr. Charles Scicluna, the Vatican's former sex crimes prosecutor, told the Committee on the Rights of the Child at a meeting in Geneva.

But Scicluna and a colleague maintained the Vatican’s position that, while it is responsible for responding to abuses committed within the confines of the Vatican state, it is up to local law enforcers to punish abusive priests around the world.

"Priests are not functionaries of the Vatican," said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's envoy to the U.N. in Geneva. "Priests are citizens of their own states, and they fall under the jurisdiction of their own country."

[niyad]

1. codswallop. it is plain that the "breath of fresh air" is still coming from the dung heap.