The Church has put out a statement:
The statement, read out by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's permanent observer to the UN, defended its record by claiming that "available research" showed that only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse.He also quoted statistics from the Christian Scientist Monitor newspaper to show that most US churches being hit by child sex abuse allegations were Protestant and that sexual abuse within Jewish communities was common.
Melissa McEwan notes that the Vatican is trying to pin this on the gays, again:
The statement said that rather than paedophilia, it would "be more correct" to speak of ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males. "Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90% belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17."
She vents:
The Catholic Church has a problem with priests who rape children below the age of consent. That is a fact which is not changed by what name it's called. And, at this point, the last thing any thinking person with a conscience wants to hear from the Vatican is a bunch of bullshit technicalities being substituted for any serious acceptance of accountability. But, as usual, that's all we're gonna get.
But this is Ratzinger's real view: that the sex abuse crisis was basically a liberal plot to discredit the Church, rather than what it was, an international conspiracy for the molestation of children, enabled by the Vatican.
(Photo: Benedict XVI, by Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty.)
The Dish 