Outrage, clarification follow Cardinal Bertone's linking homosexuality to abuse
April 14, 2010
Amid worldwide cries of protest that greeted Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone's statement that the Church's sex-abuse problem is linked to homosexuality, the Vatican has issued a clarification of that statement by the Secretary of State.
"We refer here of course to the problem of abuse by priests and not in the general population," said Father Federico Lombardi, the director of the Vatican press office. He pointed out that the Church does not "make general statements of a specifically physiological or medical character," and Cardinal Bertone did not intend to speak on the relationship between homosexual orientation and pedophile offenses.
However, Father Lombardi continued, in a statistical examination of reports on clerical abuse, the Vatican's chief prosecutor has found that only 10% of the cases involved true pedophilia (abuse of small children), while 90% were cases of ephebophilia (abuse of adolescents). He added that 60% of all cases involved same-sex victims.
That 60% figure falls significantly short of the statistics for the United States, where a thorough analysis in the John Jay report showed that more than 80% of the reported instances of abuse by American Catholic priests involved boys.
For all current news, visit our News home page.
Further information:
- Vatican Statement Regarding Comments by Card. Bertone (Vatican Radio)
- Vatican No.2 'didn't mean gays outside Church' (ANSA)
- Vatican Under Fire For Linking Gays to Pedophilia (Reuters)
- Vatican goes into damage control mode over abuse (AP)
- Cardinal Bertone: Homosexuality is the problem, not celibacy
All comments are moderated. To lighten our editing burden, only current donors are allowed to Sound Off. If you are a current donor, log in to see the comment form; otherwise please support our work, and Sound Off!
-
Posted by: drl12501082 -
Apr. 15, 2010 5:58 PM ET USA
Hysterical opinion cannot rule the truth. The media itself is full of lies and hypocrisy. The Church must hold to the truth.
-
Posted by: jp796848 -
Apr. 14, 2010 5:38 PM ET USA
I don't know the figure of priests who have engaged in this. I do know that after Vatican II many seminaries dropped the background check they used to do on candidates for the seminary. That meant that just about anyone who had an interest in becoming a priest was allowed in. Many (not all) of those men should never have been ordained. We are seeing the results now. This was told to me by a very holy priest who is now with the Lord but his cause has been started. God is Good!
-
Posted by: Lucius49 -
Apr. 14, 2010 5:32 PM ET USA
Well is homosexuality in the general population any different than in a person in Holy Orders? The difference should be that ordination should not have been conferred but is the nature of the disorder different? I think not. The disorder of homosexuality is more intense in that it "less natural" than the sexual disorder of fornication, adultery etc. The statistics and their meaning have to be faced despite the uproar of the usual suspects.
