Cardinal Bertone's attempt to blame gay priests for the church's scandals is foolish and wrong
Prudence is a cardinal virtue, but not a virtue always shown by cardinals in Rome. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, recently refuted a link between clerical sex abuse and celibacy, but then claimed "a relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia" which, he said, "many psychologists and psychiatrists have shown". His remarks were greeted with horror, as well they should have been, for they implied that homosexuals were more inclined to sex abuse of minors than heterosexuals, which is simply false.
I don't know which psychologists Cardinal Bertone has been reading, but the consensus among reputable mainstream ones is that sex abuse of minors cannot be and should not be conflated with homosexuality. As Pope Benedict XVI himself said, in a mid-air news conference with reporters en route to his first trip to the United States in 2008, paedophilia was "another thing" to homosexuality.
Homosexuality is about orientation – same-sex attraction. Sex abuse of minors is about malformed sexual orientation, immaturity and power. The same statistics which disprove any link between celibacy and sex abuse of minors – almost all of which takes place within the family, often by married men and women – are the same which should undermine any attempts to conflate sex abuse and homosexuality. Read more - by Austen Ivereigh – guardian.co.uk
In deep appreciation to Austen Ivereigh and guardian.co.uk, for being a voice of sanity and clarity – extremely beneficial to children, MSK
Someday, maybe, there will exist a well-informed,
well-considered, and yet fervent public conviction
that the most deadly of all possible sins
is the mutilation of a child's spirit.
No comments:
Post a Comment