When I wrote "Vatican VI," I had not yet read the article in today's New York Times, which shows the Vatican's response going from bad to worse.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State and second only to the pope in the hierarchy, has said that homosexuality is "a pathology" and linked it to pedophilia. A Vatican spokesman responded quickly to the outraged protests by "distancing the Vatican" from Bertone's statements.
What does it mean to have to "distance the Vatican" from statements by its #2 person? They just don't get it.
What's their rationale for the comments? Bertone has said that many psychologists and psychiatrists "have shown that there is a relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia."
He is likely referring to the bogus, thoroughly discredited reports by Paul Cameron, which the right-wing, anti-gay zealots and reparative therapists love to quote. Cameron has been kicked out of both the psychological and sociological professional organizations, and his claims bear no relation to scientific methodology. Even a high school science student would recognize the lack of validity. But people quote his claims without even looking at his "data."
Then a Vatican spokesman went on to cite their own statistics of the abuse cases: of the 3000 abuse cases handled by the Vatican in the past decade, 60% involved priests attracted to adolescent boys; 30% involved priests in heterosexual relations; and 10% concerned pedophilia.
So?
This proves nothing. It might suggest that a very high percentage of priests are gay -- and their attraction would naturally be to boys, not girls. But that is not an indictment of homosexuality but of inappropriate boundaries in a relationship of trust. Why does the 30% heterosexual figure not lead them to indict heterosexuality -- at least at the 30% level?
This is just going from bad to worse.
Ralph
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3000 abuse cases in 10 years = almost 1 case every day.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's only the ones "handled" by the Vatican. Most were at the diocese level and came to the Vatican if defrocking the priest was sought.
Why didn't they realize this was a Big Problem?
Fierce pro-choice critic Katha Pollitt, writing in The Nation, draws a stark contrast between the Catholic Church's reluctance to defrock abusive priests and the ease with which they excommunicated a woman in Brazil for seeking an abortion for her 9 year old daughter who was raped and impregnated with twins by her stepfather.
ReplyDeleteExcommunication is far worse than being defrocked. The latter just means you are no longer in the priesthood; the latter means, by their definition, that you are no longer a member of the church or of God's family.
ReplyDeleteAnd, if I understand them right, unless this woman in Brazil repents and does whatever they say she has to do to regain her relation to God, she will spend eternity in hell.
Question: Was the step-father who raped his step-daughter also excommunicated? Or is this a guy-thing?
An online news service, LifeNews.com, reports that the excommunication was carried out by the bishops in Brazil and that there was some divided opinion in the Vatican about it.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the Brazilian bishops responded that they had "treated the pregnant girl and her family with all charity and tenderness," and did what they could to "avoid the abortion and thus save all three lives." And they added:
"We are convinced that the disclosure of this therapeutic penalty (the excommunication) will do much good to many Catholics, making them avoid this grievous sin," they wrote.
Ah, yes. It's all about "sin," not crime.