An advocacy group for victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests has called for legal action after a devastating UN report denounced the Vatican for failing to stamp out the scourge.
The UN report "is a wake-up call, not to Catholic officials - who've known about and concealed abuse for decades and still do - but for secular officials, especially those in law enforcement," the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said in a statement.
Law enforcers "can and should investigate Catholic abuses and cover-ups and prosecute the church supervisors who are still protecting predators and endangering children," the statement by SNAP president Barbara Blaine said.
"For the safety of children, we hope every head of state on the planet reads this and acts on it," she added.
The reaction came after the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said "tens of thousands of children worldwide" had been abused systemically for years within the Catholic Church.
It called on the church to remove all clergy suspected of raping or molesting children.
"The quickest way to prevent child sexual violence by Catholic clerics is for Pope Francis to publicly remove all offenders from ministry and harshly punish their colleagues and supervisors who enabled their crimes," SNAP said.
"But like his predecessors, he has refused to take even tiny steps in this direction," the international group added.
The UN report followed a landmark hearing last month during which members of the committee - made up of 18 independent human rights experts from around the globe - grilled senior church officials and repeatedly questioned the Vatican's resolve.
The report cited a long record of cover-ups that protected abusers and questioned the real impact of the zero tolerance approach announced by former pontiff Benedict XVI and his successor Francis.
SNAP said the report "gives hope to the hundreds of thousands of deeply wounded and still suffering clergy sex abuse victims across the world".
"Now it's up to secular officials to follow the UN's lead and step in to safeguard the vulnerable, because Catholic officials are either incapable or unwilling to do so," it added.
