In a petulant written statement Tomasi, identified in media reports as the Vaticans representative to the U.N. but known within the Vatican by the strange title of Ambassador to Nowhere, became the Ambassador from Hell, repeating nearly every shibboleth the Vatican and its apologists have used to minimize clergy sexual abuse over the past decade. And Tomasi's statement also exemplified the odd role that the Vatican plays in the U.N. He was exercising the Vatican's "right to reply" as a "Non-member State Permanent Observer" to a complaint brought by an NGO. But is the Vatican really a state? For a long time, the Vatican has sought to have its cake and eat it too, enjoying the privileges of statehood without the responsibilities. Now the issue of child abuse has laid the contradictions bare.

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The 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States defined the four criteria of statehood -- permanent population, defined territory, government and the ability to enter into diplomatic relations. On the first count, the Vatican fails miserably. There is no permanent population at all. There are fewer than 1,000 residents and "citizenship" is temporary. One holds it only so long as one has a job or function related to the Vatican. Its territory is defined, though it occupies less than half a square kilometer in the center of Rome, but its governing capacity is minimal. The Vatican depends on the Italian government for most civic services, from garbage collection to healthcare and policing. And while the U.N. has no requirement that governments be democratic, the idea of a government run by an infallible head of state elected for life by a small group of men is a bit strange.

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n many areas, the Vatican uses its special privileges to obstruct more modern consensus on the usual issues -- contraception, condoms, womens rights and stem-cell research. And although the Vatican signs some U.N. treaties and conventions, it refuses to be held accountable.

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It will be interesting to see if the United Nations will have any greater success or even try to get the Vatican to comply with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Wasnt it Jesus who said "suffer the little children to come to me" and "what you do unto the least of mine, you have done unto me"? Who would have thought it would take the U.N. to get the Catholic church to listen?

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