Cardinal Bertone

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Bertone has stated at a press conference in Chile that there is a relationship between paedophilia and homosexuality. This is not the first time the Catholic Church has attempted to blame a small and marginalised section of society for the actions of priests who sexually abused young boys and girls and the bishops who covered up for them.

Nor is it the first time we have seen members of the Catholic Hierarchy misrepresent to the public, the views of the medical profession. For many years members of the Catholic Hierarchy claimed that they only reassigned priests who had abused children on receipt of medical advice to the effect that it was safe to do so; the Ferns, Murphy, Philadelphia Boston Reports and others, show that claim to be untrue.

My advice is that the medical profession does distinguish between pre and post pubescent paedophilia and refers to the latter as regressive paedophilia which is widely considered to me more treatable.

As someone who was sexually abused as a child and who is a gay man today, I condemn any attempts by the Catholic Church to dishonestly misrepresent medical opinion in order to continue to avoid taking responsibility for its own actions and inactions in covering up the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests.

END - 13/04/2010