UN preaches to the Vatican

The UN has demanded that the Vatican "immediately remove" all clergy known to be, or suspected of being, child abusers and turn them in to the civil authorities.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said in an unprecedented and scathing report issued yesterday that church officials had imposed a "code of silence" on clerics to prevent them reporting child abuse to the police.

They are accused of moving abusers from parish to parish "in an attempt to cover up such crimes".

The committee said that the Holy See must hand over an archive of evidence about the abuse of tens of thousands of children, and take measures to prevent a repeat of scandals such as that centred on Ireland's church-run Magdalene laundries, in which girls were forced to work.

The Vatican responded quickly with a statement saying that the Roman Catholic Church would study the report and was committed to "defending and protecting the rights of the child".

But, shortly after the report was made public, Vatican diplomat Archbishop Silvano Tomasi condemned it as distorted and unfair. He said there were rules and procedures the church had made in the past 10 years to protect children.

The exceptionally blunt report - the UN's strongest attack on the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church - followed its public grilling of Vatican officials last month.

"The committee is gravely concerned that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address cases of child sexual abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies and practices that have led to the continuation of the abuse by, and the impunity of, the perpetrators," the report said.

Pope Francis has called sexual abuse of children "the shame of the church".

The report said a commission that Francis set up in December should invite outside experts and victims to participate in an investigation of abusers "as well as the conduct of the Catholic hierarchy in dealing with them".

"Due to a code of silence imposed on all members of the clergy, under penalty of excommunication, cases of child sexual abuse have hardly ever been reported to the law enforcement authorities in the countries in which such crimes occurred," it said.

Barbara Blaine of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said the report was a "wake-up call".

"For the safety of children, we hope every head of state on the planet reads this report and acts on it," she said.