Looking behind the Catholic sex abuse scandal [BBC]

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ConfusedTim said:
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8654789.stm

The BBC is at last beginning to look for some balance after the onslought of reporting against the church of a few weeks ago.
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If the BBC sought balance, then they could have done better than solicit the opinion of ex-Jesuit Michael Walsh. In a previous BBC interview, when asked whether the Holy Father should resign, Walsh replied that the Holy Father should never have been elected in the first place. :mad:
 
Don’t see anything new here that hasn’t been discussed before. But, it is a decent overview without an incendiary tone. For my part, there are far too many assumptions in almost all of the reporting of the abuse regardless of which “side” is making a case. I would prefer more hard evidence, but that’s the main stream media for you.
 
Earlier this month Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, rejected any relationship between abuse and celibacy, linking it instead to homosexuality.
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The remarks caused outrage among gay groups, and while research shows that most US victims were teenage boys, that is thought to be because this was the group to which priests had most access. “The vast majority of child abuse [against] both male and female is carried out by men who are heterosexual, and many of whom are married,” notes Ms Smith.
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She said she had been asked by a bishop whether there was a greater risk of abuse from homosexual candidates for the priesthood. “I said ‘no, our research does not sustain that.’”
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Bears out what I’ve been saying all along.

Time to stop vilifying homosexuals and start drilling down to get to the real causes of a system that could have allowed such abuses to flurish.

I also cant help wondering of there’s a connection between the timimg of this article, the recent foreign office blunder, and the preperations underway for the Pope’s visit.

The next John Jay report will make interesting reading.
 
Earlier this month Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, rejected any relationship between abuse and celibacy, linking it instead to homosexuality.

The remarks caused outrage among gay groups, and while research shows that most US** victims were teenage boys**, that is thought to be because this was the group to which priests had most access. “The vast majority of child abuse [against] both male and female is carried out by men who are heterosexual, and many of whom are married,” notes Ms Smith.

She said she had been asked by a bishop whether there was a greater risk of abuse from homosexual candidates for the priesthood. “I said ‘no, our research does not sustain that.’”
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Guyonthestreet said:
Bears out what I’ve been saying all along.

Time to stop vilifying homosexuals and start drilling down to get to the real causes of a system that could have allowed such abuses to flurish.

I also cant help wondering of there’s a connection between the timimg of this article, the recent foreign office blunder, and the preperations underway for the Pope’s visit.

The next John Jay report will make interesting reading.
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The problem is that the author, and others, are mixing group of data. Teenage boys aren’t children. There is no data regarding the sexual preference of the priest perpetrators, so you can’t assume that they are “heterosexual” - certainly they aren’t married.

One quote - right before the segment you quoted - that is spot-on is:
But he also raises the “hypothesis” that paedophiles - who only represent a small minority of abuses - might “become priests because they want to be protected against their hidden ideas”.
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The fact remains that the majority of the cases are teenage boys being abused by men. There is, indeed, reason to suspect same-sex attraction as a key issue. It stands to reason that there may be a higher percentage of homosexually-oriented men in the priesthood than in the normal population, since the Church requires chastity for someone with same-sex attraction. If it were teenage girls who were primarily being sexually abused, I would assume it was heterosexually-oriented priests. Why is it such a stretch for some people to believe that a homosexually-oriented man would find a teenage boy sexually desirable?

I’m happy that the Church has attacked the problem from all angles. Guidelines for discernment of homosexually-oriented candidates to the priesthood were tightened, and most diocese have implemented some form of child safety program and reporting method for future cases - regardless of pedophilia or hebophilia.
 
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