But the Vatican issued a statement saying some parts of a long article in the left-leaning La Repubblica were not accurate, including one that quoted the pope as saying that there were cardinals among the abusers.
The article was a reconstruction of an hour-long conversation between the pope and the newspaper's founder, Eugenio Scalfari, an atheist who has written about several past encounters with the pope.
It would appear the allegation is actually "in the Catholic Church" and is not a statistic restricted to Catholic priests. Also in the article it says:
The pope was quoted as saying that, while most paedophilia took place in family situations, "even we have this leprosy in our house".
Note, "most paedophilia took place in family situations" - this would not be related to priests. So the number of two percent relates to ALL cases, most of which are "family situations" so the number of priests involved would be much smaller - AND - the Vatican also has a zero tolerance for this. Also in the MSN article the Pope is reported as saying:
He vowed zero tolerance for abusers and said bishops would be held accountable if they covered up crimes by priests in their diocese.
So, if there is "zero tolerance" there would not be any known and "active" priests involved.
We need to be careful about what we read and especially about what we might repeat.
John Bugay posted this on Triablogue:
ReplyDeleteBBC: “Pope Francis: ‘About 2%’ of Catholic clergy are paedophiles”
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28282050
Pope Francis has been quoted as saying that reliable data indicates that "about 2%" of clergy in the Catholic Church are paedophiles.
The Pope said that abuse of children was like "leprosy" infecting the Church, according to the Italian La Repubblica newspaper.
He vowed to "confront it with the severity it demands". …
In the interview, Pope Francis was quoted as saying that the 2% estimate came from advisers. It would represent around 8,000 priests out of a global number of about 414,000.
This seems low, based on “a church-sponsored report based on diocesan records” in which “4,392 Catholic priests in the United States have been accused since 1950 of sexually abusing minors. Updates have increased the USCCB's count to 6,275 priests accused through 2012”.
"Among the 2% who are paedophiles are priests, bishops and cardinals. Others, more numerous, know but keep quiet. They punish without giving the reason," Pope Francis was quoted as saying.
"I find this state of affairs intolerable," he went on.
This is one of the first articles I’ve seen that mentions “the Roman Catholic Sex Abuse Enablement Network” of bishops and higher-ups who enable these monsters to continue to be predators.
Will anything be done about it? The Vatican officially is denying that the pope was quoted accurately.
I responded: Actually, what the pope said was there was a 2% incidence of pedophilia in the Church - most of which were in family situations (not involving priests). He was taken out of context (again) and a big story was made from something quite small.
It also always amazes me when we see "facts" which point to "accusations" (not convictions) and those point back to 1950! Since the average age of a priest when he first gets out of seminary would be in his late 20's or early 30's, if some of these "accused" are even still alive, they would be in their 80's to 90's - assuming that they were so "accused" right out of the seminary. These "facts" get rather silly when looked at objectively.
I wonder if this comment will remain posted on Triablogue? It is there now, perhaps because this article is not under moderation yet. I posted a comment to another article recently and it never showed up.