Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the papal ambassador in Geneva, told a United Nations committee that the “culture of the time” in the 1960s and 1970s viewed those who sexually abused children as people who could be treated psychologically rather than as criminals.

Barbara Blaine, the president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) accused Mgr Tomasi of dodging the issue. She said: “Everyone knew that raping children was a crime and that it should have been reported to the police.”

Mgr Tomasi used another diversionary tactic when he described the sexual abuse of children as “a worldwide plague and scourge”. Instead of sticking to the reason why he was asked to testify before the UN committee, namely the sexual abuse of boys by Catholic priests, he tried to divert the discussion to the worldwide abuse of children.

As long as the Catholic Church continues to justify itself, and to use excuses and diversionary tactics, as the papal ambassador did, it will never regain its credibility.

Reference was also made in the same article in the local media (8 May) to another UN committee which had accused the Vatican in February of systematically turning a blind eye to decades of abuse and attempting to cover up sex crimes committed by Catholic priests. The Vatican called this report unfair and biased.

Jesus would not have thought it “unfair and biased”.

On the contrary, He came down hard on those who scandalized children. He said they should tie a millstone around their neck and drown themselves in the bottom of the sea.

John Guillaumier

St Julian's