Vatican
representatives on Monday sought to limit the Catholic Church's
responsibility for the global priest sex abuse scandal, claiming it
hasn't violated a UN convention against inhuman or degrading treatment.
It is the second time the Vatican has been grilled over possible
violations of the UN Convention Against Torture, which it ratified in
2002.
Vatican representatives testified before the United
Nations and asserted the Holy See's responsibility extends to the
territory of the Vatican only, not the entire globe.
"The
Holy See intends to focus exclusively on the Vatican City State,"
Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's UN ambassador in Geneva was
quoted as saying by the AP.
"State authorities are
obligated to protect and, when necessary, to prosecute persons under
their jurisdiction," he told the committee.
Thus the
Vatican admits its responsibility to implement the convention within the
confines of the world"s tiniest state, Vatican City, with an area of
less than half a square-kilometer in size and a population fewer than
1,000 inhabitants. The Vatican's chief spokesman Federico Lombardi
claimed last week that the Convention was one of the most important in
the UN.
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