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Monday, March 25, 2002 2:04 p.m. EST
Leo: Sex Scandal Priests Not Pedophiles
The sex scandal rocking the Catholic Church has
been wrongly characterized as one of pedophilia, says U.S. News & World
Report columnist John Leo.
"True pedophiles are rare," he contends, citing
statistics that show 5 percent or less of priests accused of molesting children
actually fit that description.
"Most sexual victims of priests are teenage boys,
according to one estimate. A study of Chicago's 2,200 priests identified 40
sexual abusers, only one of whom was a pedophile."
The distinction may have important legal
implications. The church expects to be hit with an avalanche of lawsuits filed
by victims who assert officials acted irresponsibly by merely reassigning
offending priests to different parishes after psychiatric treatment.
But, notes Leo, "Abusers of teens are generally
treatable. Pedophiles aren't." That argument could let church officials
reasonably claim that they believed priest-abusers who had received treatment
had been rehabilitated.
So why aren't church officials themselves pointing
out the distinction? "Most likely because opening up the issue of
sexually-active gay priests is itself explosive, even apart from charges of
abuse," surmises Leo.
Still, even if the church manages to weather the
legal storm, the scandal's impact is likely to be long and profound, predicts
the columnist, adding, "Confidence in the integrity and basic honesty of church
officials is basically gone."
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While we were sleeping, the enemy came and sowed
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Matthew 13:25 Archibald Bard
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