It’s not a new term. Pedophilia is sexual attraction to those 13 and younger. In fact attraction for >13 year olds i.e. people who have secondary sexual characteristics and can reproduce is common in history and was probably the norm for thousands of years. People lived into their 30s. They would marry in their early teens. It’s also not seen as a psychiatric disorder. It may be seen as a legal problem, but that depends on the age of consent. It’s also not sinful as far as I know. If a man of 30 was to marry and 14 y/o and then engage in relations with her, it would not be sin. I gather parental permission may be needed depending on secular law, but given that, it would not be sin.
But you’ve also missed my point. The point I wished to state was that pedophilia is quite rare in the church. Sexual relations between priests and 15 year old boys are not pedophilia. Pedophilia ends at 13. The media may however gloss over this difference and some people are happy to accommodate them in perpetuating the error and at the same time bashing the Church. The latter is also curiously very linked to gender with a predominance of male victims. The media of course does not harp about that at all.
One can argue that pedophilies are also not sex selective, but ephebophiles are different.
The priest was in error, but so are we all. We’re all sinners. Let’s not look at the priests’ moral stature, let that be a matter for the bishop and his confessor. We’re Catholics after all and not puritanical Bible thumpers. You would not want your sins to be broadcast publicly and your own internal justifications presented to anonymous internet confessors, even on Catholic forums.
See, now that’s what I, as a parent, find utterly disgusting…You are intertwining what you define as ‘non-sinful’ sexual behavior with discussion of sexual crimes and immorality. Leave aside the age issue for a while - what does normal, licit sexual activity have to do with sexual assault, far less assault on the same sex?
Not sure what century
you live in, but it’s been some time since 14 year olds were socially considered adults whether in terms of employment, education, entertainment, civic duties or marriageability. For all intents and purposes a teenager in our society is a child and as Christians, violating consent laws would be immoral regardless of whether we agree with their age limits or not. In addition, even with parental consent, such behavior would be generally considered deviant from social norms - one reason Muslim child marriages get a lot of flak on this forum (even though in many societies, their social mores are considerably less modern than ours).
Pedophilia is any sexual violation of a person legally considered a child, period. It may be sub-classified according to age, but it is still pedophilia and still immoral. Any attempt to make it seem less offensive than it is, is itself offensive. I have seen you post similar opinions before but have never seen you post any supporting statements to show that they are anything more than your personal views and THAT is what I find curious.
If a priest, charged with tending God’s flock, violates his vocation in such a horrendous manner, he
deserves to have to be publicly disciplined, both by the justice system and by the Church, if only to act as a deterrent to others and protect children in the future. I don’t see any problem whatsoever with that.
Humility and acknowledgment are two necessary components of repentance and hopefully, those were behind this priest’s confession. If people, priests or not, don’t want public humiliation, they should familiarize themselves with laws/social norms and respect them. It really is as simple as that. Besides, having one’s sins broadcast on the internet are not worse than being paraded in shame through the streets before being cast in prison, which is how the early Church reportedly treated such priests.
