Leaders of the Catholic Church face another public grilling over the global scandal of child sex abuse by priests, with a UN panel meeting in Geneva on Monday and Tuesday expected to examine the church’s record on preventing torture.
This comes three months after another UN human rights panel, the Committee for the Rights of the Child, savaged the church for having put its own interests ahead of victims by shielding priestsinvolved in the rape and abuse of tens of thousands children around the world.
The Vatican ratified the UN Convention against Torture in 2012 but argues it is responsible for enforcing it only within the boundaries of its geographic state, the tiny Vatican City in Rome, and that it does not apply to the actions of priests around the world.
