Vatican under fire for linking gays to pedophilia

Pope’s number two calls homosexuality a ‘pathology,’ prompting outrage

By Philip Pullella


VATICAN CITY - Gay groups and politicians condemned Pope Benedict's number two on Wednesday for calling homosexuality a "pathology" and linking it directly to sexual abuse of children.

The comments made by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone during a visit to Chile, and the controversy they caused, were splashed on mainstream Italian newspapers on Wednesday.

The French foreign ministry and some Catholic blogs that support the pope also condemned the cardinal's remarks.

Full article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36501110/ns/world_news-world_faith/

I can't wait for the catholic church to become obsolete.

...except they're assholes all the year and not just one day of it.

and the bishops and cardinals are the clowns. What fucking joke.

Sad. All about Abortion and everything else is head-in-the-sand no matter how absurd or rediculous.

This cat's ilk was one of the reasons why I left...

which the Pope is against.

They pick the messages they like,and ignore those they don't, but then claim the Pope has moral authority.

They just aren't as vehement about that one...seldom as obnoxiously so...

Perhaps for a different reason than you might think.

The celibacy requirement of the church does not "create" or "cause" pedophilia, but it does create and advertise an environment where sexual expression (healthy sexual expression and unhealthy sexual expression) are equally suppressed.

This can be unconsciously attractive to individuals who legitimately have a desire to suppress unhealthy sexual urges (ie, pedophiles).

Rather than seeking treatment, these individuals try this form of "self-medicating" by committing themselves to an environment and culture where they will have support and encouragement to suppress their sexual expression. I think this attraction to the enforced celibate lifestyle can be attractive on a completely unconscious level.

But repression of sexual urges and desires is not easy, whether healthy or unhealthy, and many fail. Obviously.

There is no other environment or culture where an adult person is expected to not engage in any type of sexual expression.

is no celibacy.

I am not sure if we can reliably measure the prevalence of pedophiles in the church or the general population.

The only time they are identified is when they are reported, which makes it tough to get reliable data - especially when the church conceals the reports.

For now, I guess I have to stick by my anecdotal evidence that the celibacy requirements at least can contribute to creating an attractive environment for individuals wanting to suppress their sexual urges.

At any rate, the church knows damn well that pedophilia has no relationship with homosexuality. Just as they know the Earth really travels around the sun.

a comparison of reporting patterns rather than the crime itself.

Tough call.

Sooner or later the Evangelicals will have their
wave of sex abuses to contend with.

We've only seen the surface debris there.

And is "linked directly to the sexual abuse of children", then THAT means all this "sexual abuse of children" that is occurring in the church is a direct result of a bunch of a pathological Priests, Bishops and Cardinals, that the church is KNOWINGLY aiding and abetting to help conceal their crimes.

A few days ago an abuse case made the news in my area. Reporters interviewed Catholics at the priest's church. Not one parishoner seemed troubled by the charges. To a person, they said the man was lying about the abuse that happened when he was a boy. And believe me, if the reporters had found anyone willing to say that the victim might be telling the truth, they would have aired it.

I understand that being Catholic is much more than just being a member of any old church. I understand family tradition and the great bond Catholics feel belonging to the oldest Christian church on earth.

But I also understand that turning a blind eye to abuse is flat out wrong. Of course there may have been instances of false charges. But there have been thousands of cases which have proven to be true. To automatically say that any victim is lying and that the priest is innocent simply defies logic. Yes, innocent until proven guilty. But that also goes for the victim. They all condemned him as a liar right away.

Celibacy and the pretense of unhealthy repression of natural urges is far more the cause.

Celibacy inherent in the abhorrent denigration of the divinity within basic womanhood by the obtuse folly of the virgin/whore myth is far more related to causality. IMHO

Cart before the horse anyone. . .?

To cite a silly and not entirely unrelated metaphor reflecting Christian hypocrisy from Gary Larson once again. . ."Ray guns don't vaporize Zorbonians. Zorbonians vaporize Zorbonians."

unchecked that is the problem.

Beyond that, it ain't about love.

Therine lies the deeper problem.

whether they are 4 or 14. Altar girls are a recent innovation, and nuns usually run the girl's schools.

Girls have also been abused by priests, but the majority are boys here, simply because of the system's segregation.

Pedophilia has nothing to do with homosexuality.