A new United Nations report regarding torture and sexual abuse concluded that the Vatican exercises control of its bishops and priests worldwide and did not fully comply with the U.N.'s global anti-torture treaty.

The U.N. Committee Against Torture said in its report released Friday that the Roman Catholic Church did not properly report abuse charges. It also found that the Vatican failed to discipline the priests but rather relocated them and also did not pay adequate compensation to abuse victims, Al Jazeera America reported.

The U.N. panel's vice chairperson, Felicia Gaer, did not say that the Holy See violated the anti-torture treaty but argued that it was implicit in the 10-member panel's report.

"Legal scholars will tell you that when the committee addresses the problem and makes a recommendation, it see the state as not meeting the requirement of the convention," Gaer said. "It's absolutely clear what we're saying."

The Vatican, however, called the panel's conclusion "fundamentally flawed" and claimed it does not have direct power over its priests in what many lawyers insist is a top-down hierarchy. Amid the numerous scandals of priests who have been charged with raping and molesting children, the Vatican has tried to distance itself from those acts.

The Holy See told the U.N. committee earlier this month that since 2004 it had defrocked 848 priests and placed lesser penalties on 2,572 others. However, those numbers only reflect the complaints the Vatican directly handled and not the cases its dioceses handled, Al Jazeera reported.

The Holy See has argued that bishops and the leaders of congregations should handle all legal responsibilities while the Vatican remains legally liable for the actions that happen within its city's confines.

The committee found that the under the treaty and the Vatican's own laws, the Holy See is responsible for all of its representatives worldwide. The panel concluded that the Vatican and other ratifying parties to the torture treaty should "bear international responsibility for the acts and omissions of their officials and others acting in an official capacity or acting on behalf of the state."