"On Monday and Tuesday, a United Nations committee in Geneva asked the Vatican very tough questions about its track record on preventing and punishing acts of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The Committee Against Torture and international human rights law have long understood rape and sexual violence as forms of torture because, as one international tribunal observed, rape "strikes at the very core of human dignity and physical integrity." Most of the Committee's questioning was directed to the Vatican's handling of widespread and systemic sexual violence by clergy...."

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