Vatican shifts responsibility to victims

According to its own figures the Vatican has recorded around 3,000 cases of child abuse in the Catholic Church in the last nine years. According to Charles Scicluna, representative of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, ten percent of these were cases of paedophilia on the part of the clergy but for the most part they were "homosexual contacts" between members of the clergy and pupils who were already over 15. The daily Le Soir is astounded by so much shamelessness: "The Vatican's banalisation of illicit relations with youths over 15 ... is striking. Either Monsignor Scicluna believes paedophile priests who abuse children are less responsible for their behaviour due to the age of their victims, or he's insinuating that the sins of the flesh committed by the priests were provoked by the young victims. ... Above and beyond these questions, the Catholic Church must now recognise that sexual relations, whether as child abuse or joyous contact with consenting adults, are common among its priests. ... More than the question of whether the clergy may marry, which boils down to entering a contractual relation with a partner, the Church must face the question of the forced (and hypocritical) abstinence imposed on clergymen. Clearly it is impossible to respect such a slavish regime."

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