The report issued Feb. 5 by the United Nations’ Committee on the Rights of the Child, while lambasting the Catholic Church for not being sufficiently forceful in curbing clerical sex abuse, does not, however, give adequate credit for the reforms the Church has already made.

It bluntly faults the Vatican for “systematically” putting the Church’s reputation above the protection of children. The Church, including its long tradition, systematically opposes the sexual abuse of children by anyone. Blessed John Paul II denounced the clerical abuse of children as an “appalling sin.” Benedict XVI promised to rid the Church of such “filth.” And Pope Francis has ordered prosecutors and bishops to “act decisively” to ensure that minors are protected and abusers held to account. He has referred to abusers as “corrupt.”

The sex abusers within the Church do not reflect its moral teachings. This is not an insignificant point. The Church exists for sinners in the sense that she ministers to them, offering forgiveness and the grace and guidance they need to amend their lives.

It should not be surprising, therefore, that even its ordained ministers can commit horrific sins. The world outside the Church is hardly without sin. The daily news announces a broad range of moral iniquities that include rape, murder, arson, corruption in business, grand larceny and acts of terrorism. The U.N. committee can hardly assume that it operates on a loftier moral plane than does the Catholic Church and has the right to dictate its morality to her.

The fact that the report oversteps its bounds is blatant enough for even the secular press to notice. An editorial in The Toronto Star, for example, points out that “the report overreaches. It urges the Vatican to soften its stand against abortion, for example. That is expecting too much.”

But there is far more than that. The report requests that the Holy See amend canon law, which in Canon 1398 calls for excommunication for those who procure abortion. It also charges that Church teachings on homosexual behavior “contribute to the social stigmatization of and violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender adolescents and children raised by same-sex couples.”

The report does not acknowledge the physical and emotional harm homosexual activity imposes on those who engage in this behavior.

In protecting what the committee members believe to be the rights of the child, they advise parents to allow their children to indulge in sexual relations apart from marriage, use contraception and have free access to abortion. By failing to endorse these sexual liberties, the report accuses, the family is in violation of human rights.

The report is actually telling parents that they do not have the duty to raise their children properly. The committee confers upon itself the duty to tell parents that they have no right to raise their children with good Christian values. The arrogance of the committee is completely intemperate, bringing to mind the adage, “Give him an inch, and he thinks he’s a ruler.”

It is interesting how the U.N. committee can become so moralistic when it notices a so-called failing in another but remains oblivious to a far greater failing of its own. The Church does not condone child abuse. The U.N. does condone, and even promotes, child abuse in the form of abortion. What greater abuse of a child can there be than deliberately killing it in the womb?

The U.N. committee wants the family to share in its own moral hypocrisy. Yet, if the family became as morally reckless as the U.N. committee wants it to be, the kind of adults it would produce would be fair candidates for being child abusers themselves. If the U.N. committee had any moral sense, it would recognize that it is in a loving and morally conscientious family that children are raised to become responsible adults.

The United Nations has in mind a travesty of a family in which the children have all the rights and the parents have none of the responsibilities. It has shown to the world, once again, and in embarrassing detail, that it woefully lacks the wisdom to be a voice of moral authority.

Donald DeMarco is a senior fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Canada, an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut, and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review.