But the TS is wrong in saying that it was homosexuality that caused priests to molest 12-14 year olds. It is a disorder. 99% of homosexuals don’t do that, so obviously it isn’t homosexuality that caused it. It would be just as valid as saying “A lot of the priests doing the molesting had brown eyes, so we should treat the problem of having brown eyes.”
Here’s the problem, though.
In many places in the world, the age of consent is 14. In some places (like
Spain), the age of consent is 13. In a couple, the age of consent is as low as 12 (such as the
Philippines, except for prostitution, which is 18).
On the other hand, the age of consent can be over 18 some places in the US, if there is an authority relationship between the perpetrator and the victim (such as teacher/student)
Does a 25 year old boy who has sex with a 16 year old girl or a 23 year old boy who has sex with a 14 year old girl have the same condition as a 16 year old boy who has sex with an 7 year old girl? There is a nine year difference of age in all cases and in the latter two, the girl is below the age of consent (in the US).
Do the 25 year old and the 23 year old have the same condition as the 16 year old? No. They failed to control their heterosexuality. Our society has determined that it is unacceptable to our mores to allow those kind of relationships, particularly in the case of the 23 year old with a 14 year old. Other societies have differing ideas. Do you realize that
the universal Church law (can 1083) would allow both of these couples to be
married?
But there is no civilized society in the world that would condone or even tolerate the relationship between the 16 year old and the 7 year old. The genus is distinctly different than that of the other two relationships.
The real difference is that the girls in the first two cases had reached or passed puberty.
There are pedophile priests. And, interestingly enough, the distribution of victims was fairly equally divided between male and female when dealing with pedophile priests. Once the victims pass puberty, though, the percentage of victims that were male shot up. Like with the 25 year old and 23 year old above, it seems that the priests in question were unable to control their homosexuality.
Does that mean that all homosexuals are going to seek out post-pubescent boys? No, not hardly. Nobody is asserting that. But one thing to remember is that the
Church has defined homosexuality as being intrinsically disordered. The instinct, normally ordered toward marriage and procreation, cannot ever reach that end in the case of a homosexual (unless he goes against his instinct and marries a woman, despite his inclinations). And we’re not even getting into the heavier spiritual implications of the relationship between Christ and His Church here.
The point is that the homosexual man has far greater temptations as a priest than the heterosexual one. He starts off bearing a cross that none of us have to deal with: a sexuality that is intrinsically disordered in a society that says right is left and up is down. And then he deals in a largely male-oriented faith. (lives in common with other men, trains altar boys, communes with the Knights, and so on). Bearing his cross in that circumstance has got to be tough. But the fact of the matter is that dealing with that cross and then subjecting himself to far more situations that, for him alone, would be near occasions of sin, would, of course, result in more stumbles.
