FILE - In this Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2012 filer Monsignor Charles Scicluna meets journalists in Rome. The Holy See on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2014, will be grilled by a U.N. committee in Geneva on its implementation of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which among other things calls for signatories to take all appropriate measures to protect children from harm and to put children’s interests above all else. The Vatican will be represented by its most authoritative official on the issue, Scicluna. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, file)
January 16, 2014 - 1:43 AM
GENEVA - The Vatican has acknowledged there can be "no excuse" for child abuse, confronted for the first time at length and in public over the global priest sex abuse scandal.
At a U.N. hearing, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's representative in Geneva, says "such crimes can never be justified" whether committed at home, school, sports activities or in religious organizations and structures.
Tomasi told a U.N. committee Thursday the Holy See welcomes any suggestions that could help it in promoting and encouraging the respect of the rights of the child.
He spoke at the beginning of a hearing at which the Vatican is being challenged with allegations it enabled the rape of thousands of children by protecting pedophile priests and its own reputation at the expense of victims.
News from © The Associated Press, 2014