Wednesday, December 07, 2005

The trouble with the Vatican's edict on gay priests...

From a December 9th article in the National Catholic Reporter posted online now (full article here):
Sexual offender researchers Nicholas Groth and Frank Oliveri studied more than 3,000 sex offenders and did not find even one homosexual man who shifted from an attraction to adult men to a desire for minors. Conversely, they found that men who were nonexclusively fixated on children, or who regressed from an attraction to adults to an interest in children, all described themselves as heterosexual and, in addition, usually were homophobic. Similarly, Minneapolis psychologist Peter Dimock concluded that most minor boys are abused by heterosexual men, some of whom are indifferent to the gender of their victims, choosing either girls or boys based on the minor’s availability and vulnerability. Perhaps more sexual predators abuse boys than once was thought but are reluctant to say so and be perceived as homosexuals.
And, from an opinion piece published in the Boston Globe on December 4th (full piece here):
Where is the long-awaited Vatican policy that would protect women and girls from priests who cannot control their ''heterosexual tendencies?"

Where is the plan to evaluate every heterosexual seminarian to ''assure that the candidate does not have sexual disorders that are incompatible with priesthood?"

Where is the National Conference of Bishops' Un-Holy Activities Committee to ensure that no man is ordained a Roman Catholic priest who has not ''clearly overcome" anything more than a ''transitory" sexual interest in the opposite sex?

Where, in short, are the witch hunters for the girls' team?

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