Vatican attacked over cardinal's claim of homosexuality and paedophilia link

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Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Pope Benedict's number two, said homosexuality - not celibacy - is linked to paedophilia

Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent, and John Hooper in Rome guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 April 2010 20.03 BST

Gay rights groups have condemned the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, for claiming that the Catholic church's sexual abuse crisis was linked to homosexuality and paedophilia and not celibacy among priests.

Bertone, who is considered Pope Benedict's number two, sparked the controversy on a visit to Chile when he suggested gay sexuality was to blame for the church's child abuse scandals.

Homosexual associations in Italy reacted with anger and indignation. The biggest group, Arcigay, called the cardinal's words "shocking and irresponsible". The president of the gay media service, Gaynet, said if senior church officials "feel constrained to dump the blame on homosexuals, it says a lot about the current state of desperation in the Vatican".

Gay rights advocates in Chile also waded in. "Neither Bertone nor the Vatican has the moral authority to give lessons on sexuality," Rolando Jiménez, president of the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation in Chile, told AP.

No reputable study exists to support the cardinal's claims, said Jiménez added. "This is a perverse strategy by the Vatican to shirk its own ethical and legal responsibility by making a spurious and disgusting connection."

The cardinal, who is known for his blunt and sometimes tactless manner, made the remarks at a televised press conference in Chile's capital Santiago.

He said: "Many psychologists and psychiatrists have shown that there is no link between celibacy and paedophilia but many others have shown, I have recently been told, that there is a relationship between homosexuality and paedophilia. This pathology is one that touches all categories of people, and priests to a lesser degree in percentage terms. The behaviour of the priests in this case, the negative behaviour, is very serious, is scandalous."

In apparent embarrassment, the Holy See's official daily, L'Osservatore Romano, did not mention Bertone's remarks in its report on the press conference.

Five years ago the Vatican implicitly linked homosexuality and paedophilia when, following the child abuse scandals in the US, it banned men from studying for the priesthood if they "showed deeply rooted homosexual tendencies".

But the connection was questioned last year in the preliminary version of a report commissioned by the American Catholic bishops, which is due to be published in December. They said the data they had studied so far did not support a link between a homosexual identity and a higher probability of sexual abuse.

Cardinal Bertone's remarks in Chile may have been prompted in part by renewed calls in Latin America and elsewhere for the church to drop its celibacy rule. Costa Rica's president Oscar Arias last week urged the Vatican to "correct that error".

The church is also under pressure in Argentina, Mexico and other Latin American countries which have ignored its injunctions against granting civic rights to same-sex couples.

Santiago was not an ideal venue for the cardinal's remarks given that one of the Chilean church's highest-profile paedophile cases involves a priest having sex with young girls. Despite multiple complaints the church hierarchy kept Father José Andres Aguirre, known to parishoners as Father Tato, serving at several Catholic girls' schools in the capital.
 
Normal human nature is the presence of sexuality, not the absence of sexuality. In the strictured environment of priesthood, I can imagine that any outlet is a relief, and there are some more accessible than others. All the church has to do is recognise that human sexuality is normal, and deal with it. Suppressing it not normal and leads to situations such as the one they are now experiencing.

P.
 
Here is my own theory. It is supported by a late friend of my mother's, a gay man who once studied for the priesthood before he wisely decided to drop out.

The theory is this: Catholic priests are expected to be celibate, asexual beings. That kind of lifestyle, these days, appeals to only one type of person--a person who is ashamed of his sexuality, and wants to be rid of it. And who is ashamed of their sexuality? Pedophiles, of course. Therefore, the priesthood, by its very nature, attracts men who have pedophilic tendencies.

Of course, once a man becomes a priest, he makes the awful realization that his sexuality hasn't disappeared, like he hoped that it would.

By the way, there is no real theological reason why Catholic priests should be celibate. The practice only dates back to the Middle Ages, when the church decided to forbid priests to marry because it didn't want church property to be shared with priests' wives and children. It was a calculated play to maintain the church's power and wealth.

Also, all of the research that I have heard on the topic concludes that there is no link between healthy adult homosexuality and pedophilia. In fact, from what I've heard, many, if not most, true pedophiles (that is, people who are attracted to pre-pubescent children) don't distinguish between male and female children. They prey on whatever sex of child is most convenient for them at the time.
 
Normal human nature is the presence of sexuality, not the absence of sexuality. In the strictured environment of priesthood, I can imagine that any outlet is a relief, and there are some more accessible than others. All the church has to do is recognise that human sexuality is normal, and deal with it. Suppressing it not normal and leads to situations such as the one they are now experiencing.

P.

So you are saying that celibacy leads to pedophilia?
 
So you are saying that celibacy leads to pedophilia?

I said nothing of the sort.

I said that the absence of sexual outlet is abnormal. If you are a sexually frustrated priest, you are going to find the most vulnerable, the easiest prey for your outlet.

Sexual activity is normal. It's human. Priests are human. The situation they find themselves in makes any trusting and vulnerable outlets for their sexuality targets.

P.
 
I said nothing of the sort.

I said that the absence of sexual outlet is abnormal. If you are a sexually frustrated priest, you are going to find the most vulnerable, the easiest prey for your outlet.

Sexual activity is normal. It's human. Priests are human. The situation they find themselves in makes any trusting and vulnerable outlets for their sexuality targets.

P.

Someone that simply needs a sexual outlet is not going to turn to a child. They would have to be a pedophile in the first place. The Church is using the issue to attempt to condemn homosexuality, but what you are implying is that celibacy will make one more susceptible to engaging in pedophilia. You can't really say what is "normal" sexual behavior.
 
Here is my own theory. It is supported by a late friend of my mother's, a gay man who once studied for the priesthood before he wisely decided to drop out.

The theory is this: Catholic priests are expected to be celibate, asexual beings. That kind of lifestyle, these days, appeals to only one type of person--a person who is ashamed of his sexuality, and wants to be rid of it. And who is ashamed of their sexuality? Pedophiles, of course. Therefore, the priesthood, by its very nature, attracts men who have pedophilic tendencies.

Of course, once a man becomes a priest, he makes the awful realization that his sexuality hasn't disappeared, like he hoped that it would.

By the way, there is no real theological reason why Catholic priests should be celibate. The practice only dates back to the Middle Ages, when the church decided to forbid priests to marry because it didn't want church property to be shared with priests' wives and children. It was a calculated play to maintain the church's power and wealth.

Also, all of the research that I have heard on the topic concludes that there is no link between healthy adult homosexuality and pedophilia. In fact, from what I've heard, many, if not most, true pedophiles (that is, people who are attracted to pre-pubescent children) don't distinguish between male and female children. They prey on whatever sex of child is most convenient for them at the time.
Yeah,cardinal probably meant James Rennie case.
 
Priests are human. The situation they find themselves in makes any trusting and vulnerable outlets for their sexuality targets.

May I propose a reform?

sexy-nun-425px.jpg
 
I

Sexual activity is normal. It's human. Priests are human. The situation they find themselves in makes any trusting and vulnerable outlets for their sexuality targets.

That's just nonsense.
 
It gets better/worse after this pic:
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Normal human nature is the presence of sexuality, not the absence of sexuality. In the strictured environment of priesthood, I can imagine that any outlet is a relief, and there are some more accessible than others. All the church has to do is recognise that human sexuality is normal, and deal with it. Suppressing it not normal and leads to situations such as the one they are now experiencing.

P.

That would be a start but hardly enough when you consider that too many lay people are f**king their wives and their children and other people's children (the occasional woman is paedophiliac but they're more likely to offend by omission, standing by their man).

Having set themselves up as a moral authority under sway of the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Church heads have been entrusted by millions to lead them in social behaviour. All this time they should have been denouncing child abuse; agitating for secular organisations to implement child welfare guidelines more scrupulously; providing special assistance to abused children and their proofed guardians, and unmercifully casting out from their ranks priests who offended, taking them immediately in the first instance to the law. Instead they're skidding around like a pack of possessed Fr Dougals making idiotic defensive excuses, an example only to the prudent paedophile.

"And the church, all they want is your money". Oh yeah!:censored:
 
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