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A United Nations committee concerned with children’s rights is requesting that the Vatican provide complete details about every accusation it has ever received of the sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy. The Committee on the Rights of the Child, which monitors implementation of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, published on July 1 a list of issues it found lacking in the Vatican’s latest report on its compliance with the international obligations it accepted when it ratified the convention. Among many other items, the Vatican is being asked to provide: “detailed information on all cases of child sexual abuse”; how it has responded to victims and perpetrators of abuse; whether it ever investigated “complaints of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” of girls in the Magdalene laundries in Ireland; and how it dealt with allegations that young boys who were part of the Legion of Christ were being separated from their families.

This article appears in July 29-August 5 2013.