The Vatican came under heavy criticism by a U.N. Committee today for the way it handled the global sex abuse crisis involving priests.

A former sex crimes prosecutor for the Vatican acknowledged that the church had been slow to and failed in addressing the problem in the past, but that it is committed to facing the crisis. He said there was no excuse for the failure to protect children.

The committee questioned why, if the church is said to have a zero-tolerance policy on such things, priests were transferred and their actions covered up, instead of being prosecuted fully. Critics allege that the church enabled thousands of children to be abused by hiding the actions of pedophile priests to protect the image of the Catholic church.

“I think it’s time for the church to stop this secrecy,” Teodoro Pulvirenti, who said he was abused by a priest, told The Associated Press in New York. “I believe the church puts too much its reputation before the victims and you know the pain of this abuse that we carry.”