Vatican Cites Role of Homosexuality

Yesterday, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, said that “there is a relation between homosexuality and pedophilia.” The number-two Vatican authority cited psychologists and psychiatrists as having made this claim.

Responding is Catholic League president Bill Donohue:

It should be obvious to everyone that homosexuality does not cause predatory behavior, and nothing that Cardinal Bertone said contradicts that fact. But he is right, and his critics are wrong, to say that there is a link between homosexuality and the sexual abuse of minors. To be specific, homosexuals are indeed overrepresented—for whatever reason—as child molesters [click here for the evidence].

The authorities in a free society have a moral obligation to protect homosexuals from bullying and unjust discrimination. But no amount of political correctness justifies a cover-up: if any group is overrepresented as contributing to a social problem (as are the Irish in relation to alcoholism), then it must be dealt with squarely.

To the extent that practicing homosexuals find it more difficult to enter the priesthood (and this has been true for some time), the sexual abuse scandal will check itself. As a matter of fact, it already has.

Jeff Field is the Director of Communications for the Catholic League. This press release was originally issued on April 13, 2010.