Ah the
Vatican, truly the largest shit stain in the underpants of humanity.
Of course, now the Vatican is seeking to '
clarify' these comments. When did 'clarify' become a euphemism for 'hurriedly back pedal from the blatantly stupid, outrageously bigoted or utterly offensive by lying, obfuscating or just flat out pretending they didn't say what they did'?
What a bunch of fucking ignorant ass monkeys. Just to review the current list of Vatican stupidity, here's where they stand on the child sex abuse scandals:
First they covered them up, for decades.
Then they pretended they were nothing but petty gossip.
Then they compared the criticism of the Church to the Holocaust and by extension the critics to the Nazis.
Then they went back to claiming it was nothing but petty gossip.
Now they are claiming that there is no problem in the Church or with the priesthood, it was all done because people are gay and gay people molest children.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said:
Many psychologists, many psychiatrists have demonstrated that there is no relationship between celibacy and paedophilia but many others have demonstrated, I was told recently, that there is a relationship between homosexuality and paedophilia.
That is true. I have the documents of the psychologists. That is the problem.
Really? No. Don't be so fucking stupid.
But hey, the good cardinal was
told so recently, so it must be true. I mean, we know from their having spent decades covering up child abuse that Catholic priests don't lie, don't we? And hearsay is definitely a good reason for condemning an entire group of people in public when you hold one of the most powerful positions of authority in the world.
Now, I admit I am not as important as the Cardinal, but
I was told recently that Catholic priests eat babies and shag goats while drinking horse vomit, all as part of their ordination rites. You can take that to the bank.
But I digress, let me go back to the topic under discussion here. The Vatican, in its clarification, wants to make absolutely clear that it doesn't actually distance itself from the Cardinal's remarks, indeed it has the facts and figures to prove them. Allow me to quote the BBC article:
According to the satistical data collected by the Congregation for the Doctrine the Faith, "about 10% of cases were paedophilia in the strict sense, while 90% were cases of ephebophilia [i.e towards adolescents]", he added [Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi].
"Of these approximately 60% referred to individuals of the same sex and 30% of heterosexual character."
So, statistics gathered by the Vatican organisation
responsible for helping cover up child abuse in the first place prove that the Church isn't the problem. Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather. With impartial data like that there is nothing left to argue about, right?
Wrong.
So, and just bear with me here, if not all of the cases of abuse can be classed as homosexual then homsexuality can't be the reason for these cases of abuse, can it? I mean,
if homosexuality was the problem and
if homosexuality and pedophilia were linked, wouldn't all the cases be homosexual and wouldn't they all be pedophilia? But they aren't, are they? In fact, the Vatican's own figures quite obviously disagree with the conclusion they are trying to make.
So what is the common factor here? Oh yes, that's right -
being a fucking priest. So, given the data that we have available we can safely say that
100% of the children abused in these cases were abused by someone
connected closely to the Catholic church. Therefore, I was told recently, people connected with the Catholic church are more likely to abuse children than people not connected with it. The problem is not being gay, but being Catholic.
This is true, I have the documents to prove it. Being Catholic, that is the problem.
And I'm also forced to wonder what the other 10% were, according to the Vatican, since 60% + 30% != 100%
And just in case you need it spelling out, here are some quotes from the study I linked to:
Members of disliked minority groups are often stereotyped as representing a danger to the majority's most vulnerable members...
In a similar fashion, gay people have often been portrayed as a threat to children...
In recent years, antigay activists have routinely asserted that gay people are child molesters...
It has also been raised in connection with scandals about the Catholic church's attempts to cover up the abuse of young males by priests. Indeed, the Vatican's early response to the 2002 revelations of widespread Church cover-ups of sexual abuse by priests was to declare that gay men should not be ordained...
The distinction between a victim's gender and a perpetrator's sexual orientation is important because many child molesters don't really have an adult sexual orientation. They have never developed the capacity for mature sexual relationships with other adults, either men or women. Instead, their sexual attractions focus on children – boys, girls, or children of both sexes...
For the present discussion, the important point is that many child molesters cannot be meaningfully described as homosexuals, heterosexuals, or bisexuals (in the usual sense of those terms) because they are not really capable of a relationship with an adult man or woman. Instead of gender, their sexual attractions are based primarily on age. These individuals – who are often characterized as fixated – are attracted to children, not to men or women...
Other researchers have taken different approaches, but have similarly failed to find a connection between homosexuality and child molestation...
The molester was a gay or lesbian adult in fewer than 1% in which an adult molester could be identified – only 2 of the 269 cases (Jenny et al., 1994)...
The researchers found that homosexual males responded no more to male children than heterosexual males responded to female children (Freund et al., 1989)...
However, each of them failed to prove the alternative hypothesis that homosexual males are more likely than heterosexual men to molest children or to be sexually attracted to children or adolescents...
Reflecting the results of these and other studies, the mainstream view among researchers and professionals who work in the area of child sexual abuse is that homosexual and bisexual men do not pose any special threat to children.
So the sleazy lying bastards in the Vatican can go and fuck themselves with rusty pickaxes. Here's a free piece of advice for the Vatican:
If you don't recognise the problem, you are never going to fix it - stop blaming everyone else and accept your responsibility.
