It was in 2007, at a meeting of the Council of Europe in San Marino, that I first had the opportunity to say to an audience that it might be able to do something about the fact that organised religion was a major threat to human rights.

I was taking a risk in a chamber packed with men in various weird and wonderful hats and frocks that indicated their elevated religious rankings. It was therefore something of a pleasant surprise to find myself being warmly applauded by other NGOs and the senior diplomats who were present.

The representative of the Holy See (the Vatican’s alter ego in diplomatic circles), however, apparently complained about my remarks. I expected nothing less.

Since then, I have been preparing a detailed study cataloguing the many ways that religion threatens - and often actively abuses - human rights. And what a long depressing list it is. I have brought the fat dossier to the attention of the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency, on whose advisory panel I sit, with a view to tackling some of the issues.

The study revealed the Catholic Church to be by far the biggest offender. Even in the tiny country of Ireland, well over a billion Euros has been paid out - by Irish taxpayers - to compensate victims of child abuse carried out in Catholic institutions, and with the Church bearing less than ten percent of the cost.

The abuse continued for so long and on such a scale throughout the world because Church leaders condoned it, covered it up and shielded abusers from the law. In light of this, it becomes difficult to escape the conclusion that this problem goes to the very top of the Church.

And of course it was the Vatican itself that negotiated the Holy See’s accession to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Cynically, it specifically “reserved” (excluded) Vatican City from the Convention. This is both the Holy See’s entire geographic territory and the very place we believe all accusations of child abuse are supposed to be sent and dealt with in secret. And, shamefully, the Holy See had been allowed to get away with this exclusion.

It was such injustices that hardened my resolve to ask IHEU’s Roy Brown to help me take on the Holy See at the UN. The UN’s Human Rights Council (HRC) published our statement detailing our hard-hitting charges against the Holy See and the action we called for. Then, on 22 September 2009, came my opportunity to intervene at a plenary session in Geneva to hammer home our points before diplomats from around the globe.

It was a privilege to do this. I believe it is the first intervention at the UN ever to take the Holy See to task on anything. And we did not pull our punches, especially in the statement which we made available to diplomats along with the text of my speech.

We criticised the Holy See for breaking five Articles of the UNCRC, including one which required them to produce regular reports - yet reports covering fifteen years have still not been filed.

We emphasised that it was not the abuse itself, but the Church’s reaction to it that we were focussing on. We observed that the culture of institutional secrecy had directly enabled more abuse to take place by shielding abusers from justice. When abusers were found out, the hierarchy obligingly moved them to other dioceses, allowing them to continue abusing. We noted the Church had compounded victims’ agony by telling them in some instances that they were liars, and conniving to minimise the compensation paid them, if they paid any at all. Generally, compensation came with a gagging clause, so that the full horror of what had gone on remained secret - just the way the Vatican likes it.

I told delegates of the case of Bernard Law. Until 2002 he was Archbishop of Boston (the largest US diocese) and the centre of a massive cover-up operation. Despite Law getting into hot water in the courts, resulting in a crescendo of calls for him to resign, Pope John Paul II intervened – presumably on a day he mislaid his infallibility – and refused to let him do so. But the people of Boston had had enough.

Against such a clamour for Law’s resignation even Popes are now powerless and John Paul II brought the disgraced Law to Rome where he lives in luxury, still a Cardinal and on the Pontifical Council of the Family. Far from being damaged by his disgrace, Law’s stature has actually grown. He still enjoys the patronage of the current Pope who – let us not forget – was the chief enforcer of discipline in the Church from 1981 until his promotion.

No bishop or more senior official has ever been disbarred from the Church for involvement in child abuse. This fact, taken with the Vatican’s lauding of Law, demonstrates that the Church is not contrite, continues to make light of the matter and cares not a hoot about the public perception of their antics. The Vatican seems oblivious to the massive blows to its reputation and status around the globe.

And this may go some way to explain the evasive and complacent Right of Reply the Church made in the Chamber a few hours after my attack. The author of the rebuttal was H.E. Archbishop Tomasi, Apostolic Nuncio.

Tomasi’s opening shot was to deem it sufficient to include just one paragraph on child abuse by clergy in their grossly overdue report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. He made a point of saying the report was now finalised. So, the very first mention of any publication of their report only came after our challenge. Other states are pressurised to bring late reporting up to date and their undertakings are formally recorded, but the Holy See seems to be let off its responsibilities here as in so many other places.

The Archbishop’s reply went from bad to worse as he tried to deflect our criticism by quibbling at some length about the use of the word p[a]edophilia – a word that we hadn’t even used.

The diversion looks to be part of an attempt to shift the blame onto homosexuals. Under Benedict’s papacy, priests with a homosexual orientation are now persona non-grata even if they are entirely sexually inactive.

His Excellency’s last major point was to imply through misleadingly presented statistics that child abuse was worse in the Protestant churches in America than in Catholic ones. As you can imagine, this has not won him many friends and the Jewish community whom he also dragged into this is up in arms.

The nearest he got to a mea culpa, the only response that would have been appropriate, was a reference that “the Catholic church has been busy cleaning its own house”. Its purpose was to serve as the prelude to a gloating rebuke: “it would be good if other institutions and authorities, where the major part of abuses are reported, could do the same”.

The clean-up has started in some places, but certainly not at the top - where it matters most of all. When is the Vatican going to open all its files on child abuse, or make it mandatory in Canon Law to report suspected child abusers to local law enforcement agencies and not shift them around or cover up their activities?

Examples of the Vatican admitting it made a major blunder are extremely rare, but becoming less so under the current, accident-prone, pontiff. I have evidence, though, that the Holy See’s press office admitted to the Vatican correspondent of one newswire that they had decided not to post Tomasi’s response to my “very hard and unjust attack” because they did not want to “add gasoline to the fire” on an already volatile topic.

Despite this, Archbishop Tomasi’s limp and ill-advised excuses were reported in fifteen countries around the world and in over fifty newspapers or major blogs. The arrogant tone of Tomasi’s rebuttal even infuriated loyal Catholics who could not make up their mind whether to be ashamed or angered by it.

The London Guardian repeated my admonishment “The many thousands of victims of abuse deserve the international community to hold the Vatican to account, something it has been unwilling to do, so far. Both states and children's organisations must unite to pressurise the Vatican to open its files, change its procedures worldwide, and report suspected abusers to civil authorities." Alongside this it printed a box with a huge “5%” – “Maximum percentage of Catholic clergy involved in child sex abuse, according to research quoted by the Vatican”.

One blogger picked this percentage up and estimated it “would put the number of clergy linked to abuse at roughly 27,500”.

And of course the 27,500 is just current clergy. Let’s hope they weren’t all as active as the head of Austria's Catholic Church, Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, who died in 2003, disgraced but of course never stripped of his Cardinal’s berretta. According to Das Buch Groer he had abused more than 2,000 young men over forty years. When we read this dreadful statistic we need also reflect on the sad fact that abusers often exploit the same person repeatedly. Groer certainly adds new meaning to the term “cardinal sin”.

It is somewhat sobering to discover that despite the stunning scale of this abuse, it was only exposed as a result of Groer remarking that “child molesters would not enter the kingdom of God”. This was the last straw for one of his myriad victims who proceeded to spill the beans. The effect on the Church in Austria has been devastating, as it has also been in Ireland and the United States.

Some of the responses to these articles and blogs have been revealing and heart-rending, for example:

“My first junior seminary - 11 priests on the staff over two and a half year period. 4 sexual abusers. 1 eventually imprisoned on 23 charges. He pleaded guilty after plea bargaining the charges down the way. Other three died before charges could be brought. Second junior seminary (different order) - three priests on the staff, two sexual abusers. Both dead before charges could be brought. At least five priests charged in my diocese. One admitted to over 120 cases of abuse. Only six of his victims came forward. A history of these guys being moved from parish to parish when complaints were made. ... Had I not come forward (naively thinking that the church would back me since I was after all, a priest), none of this would have come to light.”

Such examples suggest a massive scale of sexual abuse, which all too often has ruined the victims’ whole lives. And so much of this has gone unreported and unpunished. Nor should we forget the endemic, indeed legendary, physical and mental cruelty of the Christian Brothers and some orders of nuns. Just type “Magdalene Laundries” into Google.

Sadly, it is clear that the billions of dollars paid out in the US and billions of Euros in diminutive Ireland represent just the tip of the iceberg. So this is why I concluded my speech by pleading with the international community to hold the Vatican to account.

I would like to put on record my gratitude to Roy Brown, IHEU Main Representative at the UN in Geneva, without whom I could not have achieved the above.

Keith Porteous Wood is Executive Director of the (UK) National Secular Society which conducted six months of research which led to this exchange.

See also http://www.secularism.org.uk/uploads/unhrc-iheudoconholysee-(2).pdf; http://www.secularism.org.uk/uploads/unhrc-holy-see-pack.pdf gives Keith’s intervention, followed by how the Holy See responded, and some reactions. The above intervention can be viewed at http://www.un.org/webcast/unhrc/archive.asp?go=090922 (6th item under National Human Rights Institutions and Non-Governmental Organizations)