I take enormous pride in the Catholic intellectual and moral tradition, from Augustine and Anselm to John Courtney Murray. And that, at least in part, is why this leaves me fairly well disgusted. Archbishop Silvio Tomasi, in response to criticisms over the Church's lackluster reactions to the sex abuse scandal, evidently had the following things to say:
- less than 5% of Catholic clergy were involved in abuse of children (hey, only one out of every 20)
- all kinds of religious institutions, to say nothing of babysitters and family members, also suffer from this systemic abomination (see, everyone's doing it)
- what we're talking about isn't really pedophilia; it's better described as ephebophilia, a particularly corrosive strain of homosexuality that involves an irresistible attraction to adolescent young men (don't even get me started).
I'm obliged to note here that I can't seem to find text from Tomasi's original statement, and all articles on this subject I can find ultimate source back to the Guardian article linked above. But under the presumption that it's an accurate representation, it's that last gem on the list that really makes it plain how Competence invariably becomes Depravity's bitch, and how necessary a willful stupidity is to a dilapidated moral compass. Not pedophilia, indeed.
The Archbishop may have a point that in the grand scheme of things, the Church is being held to a higher standard than other religious denominations and secular institutions. My response to that, as a Catholic, would be, damn right you are. Get it together, and next time, consider suffering your indignation in silence.
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