Posted on 04/24/2002 8:24:48 AM PDT by vance
Lay Group Calls on UN to Sanction Vatican Over Sex Abuse
By Lawrence Morahan
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
(CNSNews.com) - A Catholic activist group is calling on the United Nations to invoke the Convention on the Rights of the Child to denounce sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church.
Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC) announced it is launching a petition drive calling on Jacob Egbert Doek, chairman of the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, to "immediately demand a report from the Holy See on both the magnitude of the problem and its plans to end pedophilia and ephebophilia in the church."
The CFFC said neither the United Nations nor its member states could ignore what it calls the systematic abuse of children or violations of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by the Vatican, which has permanent observer status at the United Nations.
"The Holy See - the government of both Vatican City and the Roman Catholic Church - has an obligation to the world community to address this problem publicly and to take steps to ensure the safety of children in its care," the CFFC stated.
Frances Kissling, CFFC president, said the Vatican for years turned a blind eye to high-ranking officials who covered up the abuse. She described efforts underway by American cardinals and Pope John Paul II to find solutions to the problem as "a bit like asking the fox to guard the chicken coop."
Kissling called for the resignations of church officials who have covered up for offenders, including Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston and Cardinal Edward Egan of New York.
"The Holy See must demonstrate a zero-tolerance policy. Sexual abusers must be dismissed and defrocked promptly. High-ranking officials who have covered up abuse or impeded civil and criminal proceedings must resign or be dismissed," Kissling stated in a press release.
The CFFC said the church should "apologize to the world for the tragic child sexual abuse by its priests and its lack of action to end this abuse." It also called on the Vatican to reinstate its contribution to the United Nations Children's Fund.
Traditional Catholic groups quickly denounced the petition drive and accused the CFFC of using the scandal to harm the church.
"They will take any stick to beat the Catholic Church and they are riding on the suffering of adolescent boys in order to give a black eye to the church. It is a despicable effort," said Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute in New York.
"This is aimed less at the member states of the U.N. than at raising money for CFFC," he said.
Patrick Scully, a spokesman for the New York-based Catholic League, called the CFFC's petition drive a "most transparent attack on the Catholic Church" by "a group that has been twice denounced by the bishops as being fraudulent. They're not Catholic," he said.
The CFFC is a group without legal standing that has spent the last two years trying to get the Vatican kicked out of the United Nations, or at least have its status lessened, Scully said.
"Now they ask the U.N. to intervene in an internal church matter. This group is so transparent, it's sad," he said.
Both Scully and Ruse said Kissling was on record as saying she wants to overthrow the church.
"Their concern is not with the church," Ruse said. "Their concern is with overthrowing the church."
A spokeswoman for CFFC said Frances Kissling was unavailable for comment.
I pray for the church and have no love at all for CFFC, but Traditional Catholics are often the "enablers" that let the cancer spread.
That goes for heretics too, Frank.
We should deport and evict both the UN and Frances Kissling from the United States and send them to Zimbabwe where they can rule in obscurity.
Agreed.
Frances Kissling has also tried, unsuccessfully so far, to get the Vatican thrown out of the UN.
If "Catholics for a Free Choice" cared about children, they would care about them regardless of their age or gender. Instead, they play selective concern: they have no concern about the murder of innocents.
And their attack on the Pope is completely uncalled for.
But the key is: they didn't mention homosexuality once. Their agenda is obvious: support the homosexual agenda against the Church established by Christ in order to give authority to their heresy.
Cheers.
Chilling statement.
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