A few days ago it was reported that the Vatican will be brought before the “U.N. Committee Against Torture, which is expected to address the Holy See’s handling of its churchwide sexual abuse scandal and its infringement on human rights.”
On the independent news broadcast Democracy Now! they featured some of the individuals involved along with some who were there to report on what happened. Needless to say, the church made excuses and has yet to satisfactorily respond to this very serious issue.
In addition, it was also reported that the Protestant denomination has a similar issue of child abuse within its ranks. In response, the grandson of Billy Graham has set up an organization called GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment). While I’m happy to see someone who is as influential as he is trying to tackle this issue, I don’t care much for the name. After all, the bible allows rapists to get away with their crimes and often the victim is punished (the same disgusting sequence of events that often happens in today’s churches). Along with this cognitive dissonance regarding the name the woman being interviewed noted how individual churches must voluntarily hire GRACE to conduct investigations, which is pretty much another form of the insular nature of the church structure. If a group does not come in involuntarily to report on any abuse and what’s being done about it, this is going to help very little. If they changed the way they went about their activities I would say it would have a much better impact.
I hope the UN can force the Vatican to do something more substantial. It’s about time greater international pressure is being brought against these immoral child abusers and enablers.
Click the links above to watch the two news segments dealing with both of these stories.
