Posted on 03/17/2013 7:44:11 AM PDT by James C. Bennett
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A South African cardinal who helped elect Pope Francis this week has told the BBC pedophilia is an illness and not a crime.
Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier, the Catholic Archbishop of Durban, told BBC Radio 5 on Saturday that pedophilia was a "disorder" that needed to be treated.
"From my experience, pedophilia is actually an illness. It's not a criminal condition, it's an illness," he said. Napier said he knew of at least two priests who became pedophiles after they were abused as children.
"Now don't tell me that those people are criminally responsible like somebody who chooses to do something like that. I don't think you can really take the position and say that person deserves to be punished. He was himself damaged."
The Catholic Church has had its image deeply tarnished by a widespread child sex abuse scandal. Napier was one of the 115 cardinals in the Vatican conclave that elected Pope Francis on Wednesday, the BBC reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
So far, everyone has read his statement incorrectly.
He’s saying that in those people that become peds after they themselves were raped, it’s a disorder. You should know that a significant number of boys that are raped become themselves child rapists. They were not born that way. That is the second half of the horror of it all - the poor victim himself becomes a victimizer. Stopping that person is absolutely required, but saying he’s just a perv isn’t enough - he got screwed up like a perverted PTSD.
Read what he’s saying, as if he were not an ignorant just blabbing, like you.
Wanna bet they were abused by Catholic priests...Or a cardinal...
Birds of a feather flock together...
“The Church” deals with “SIN”. Society defines “crime”
This is the next step towards turning it into a sexual orientation.
I cannot believe that the Creator is going to give much time for this excuse making by those that claim they speak for Him. Christ did say things would become worse than Sodom and Gomorrah ... we should be filled with ‘pride’!!! (NOT)
If it is an illness, I seriously doubt that it is curable. If a cure exists, it might exist as something like a bullet to the head.
But of course a school teacher doesn't claim to be a intermediary between God and man or His spokesman, nor do the Boy Scouts, etc.
One idiot expousing the liberal mindset of the 70s and 80s that social conditioning causes all societal ills does not justify condemning the Church. The real enemy is sin which is clearly defined by Church dogma and this sames sin darkens the mind and weakens the will. Our enemy is the current culture of death defined by sin and championed by the libs.
Acting on it sure is a crime for a @#%@ing good reason.
The 'enemy' is within... sadly the deception is so immersed the dogma is tainted. This is what happens when an organization becomes the object of worship instead of the Creator that owns everything, all souls included. Long term it would be a far better thing to clean house now instead of waiting for the LORD to do it Himself..
Yeah, it was amusing reading the replies upthread, posters taking wild tangents in impotent attempts at distracting from the ground reality of a senior church official who voted to select the pope, making excuses for paedophiles.
Maybe the cardinal was thinking about some of his best friends.
What brand of HATE are you peddling?
I’m really shocked at the attacks on my Church by so many of the Freepers. What is going on? You sound like a pack of wild leftists. I wonder why all this is so prevalent now?
The Catholics are a democrat voting block and always have been, they empower the pro-abortion movement and are the hopes of the left for the future, for instance the left’s hope that the Catholic voters can do to Texas what they did to California.
With millions of new Catholic voters colonizing the United States, conservatives are forced to look at the denomination.
It most certainly is a crime. It is not an illness any more that adultery is an illness. It’s a choice that an individual makes. An illness doesn’t leave room for choice. Stop being fooled by liberals.
I'd say it's pretty clear that it's your cardinal and cohorts who are doing the peddling...
You shouldn't worry about me...You should be worrying as to why your religion allows and condones these kinds of people into leadership positions...
Clearly projecting...
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