Monday, April 05, 2010

Why does William Donohue contradict the Pope while defending the Catholic Church?

In his eagerness to blame the gay community for the problem of child molestation in the Catholic Church, William Donohue of the Catholic League seems to have forgotten one very important thing about his charges.

The Pope already addressed the situation and said in fact that the problem with abuse has to do with pedophilia and not homosexuality.

It took place two years ago when Pope Benedict XVI was addressing the scandal of the abuse of children in American Catholic churches.

Now let's dismiss (for the extreme briefest of seconds) the sad fact that two years later, we are still talking about the abuse of children in the Catholic Church and take a look at what Pope Benedict XVI said (via The New York Times):

“It is a great suffering for the church in the United States and for the church in general and for me personally that this could happen,” he said. “As I read the histories of those victims, it is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betrayed in this way. Their mission was to give healing, to give the love of God to these children. We are deeply ashamed and we will do what is possible that this cannot happen in the future.”


Apparently drawing a distinction between priests with homosexual tendencies and those inclined to molest children, the pontiff said: “I would not speak at this moment about homosexuality, but pedophilia, which is another thing. And we would absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry.”

So why is Donohue trying to push a belief (the priests who molested the children were gay because the crimes were of a "same sex nature," ergo men who molest boys should automatically be assumed to be gay), which not only has been contradicted by the Pope but also (lest we forget) legitimate bodies such as the American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Academy of Child Psychiatrists and the Child Welfare League of America?

If I ever find out the answer to that question, I'm going to next ponder why isn't anyone from the Vatican communicating to Donohue that maybe his input isn't exactly helping and that he should talk a flying leap.
 
Huge hat tip to Box Turtle Bulletin.

Related post:

Expert: Donohue's claim that most abusive priests are gay is "unwarranted"




Bookmark and Share

1 comment:

Joel said...

So, if only god can fire the pope, and the pope hasn't contradicted Donohue, then can we assume that god approves of priests raping boys and catholics lying about it?