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	Homosexuality to Blame for Abuse Crisis: Top Cardinal By Charles Lewis National Post April 14, 2010 http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2903550 The Vatican's second-in-command says the pedophilia scandal plaguing the Roman Catholic Church can be blamed mainly on homosexuals in the priesthood, remarks that have outraged gay rights groups and rekindled criticism over the Church's history with homosexuality. "Many psychologists, many psychiatrists have demonstrated there exists no relationship between celibacy and pedophilia," Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, said in Santiago on Monday. "But many others have demonstrated, and have told me recently, that there is a link between homosexuality and pedophilia. This is true, this is the problem." The controversial view has been expressed by other conservative Catholics. In a recent full-page ad in The New York Times, the U.S. Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights also blamed homosexual priests as being the underlying cause of the crisis. There is no "pedophilia crisis" but a "homosexual crisis," the ad read. "While homosexuality does not cause predatory behaviour, and most gay priests are not molesters, most of the molesters have been gay." Critics suggest that such remarks say more about the Church's history and the Vatican's attempt to distance itself from the current crisis. "The truth is that Bertone is clumsily trying to shift attention to homosexuality and away from the focus on new crimes against children that emerge every day," said Aurelio Mancuso, former president of an Italian gay rights group, in response to the Vatican official's statement. Thomas Plante, a professor of psychology at Santa Clara University in California, said the concern about gay priests likely starts with the Church's basic view of homosexuality. "The Catholic Church sees homosexuality differently than the mental-health community," he said. "It's not a disorder and we're pretty adamant about that." The Church describes homosexuals as "objectively disordered," though it states homosexuals "must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity." It also calls on homosexuals to live a life of chastity. Prof. Plante also noted a 2005 Vatican instruction that discouraged the ordination of men with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies." The instruction said those tendencies "gravely hinder [homosexuals] from relating to men and women." Prof. Plante helps the Catholic Church screen candidates for the priesthood and has interviewed more than 600 men over the past 20 years as well as dealing with abusive priests. "Before 2005 I would ask candidates their orientation to make sure they had a healthy psycho-sexual development, to see if they were mature enough," Prof. Plante said. "Now we don't ask because some seminaries will reject them for being gay." He said there is no scientific proof that homosexuals have more trouble remaining celibate than heterosexuals. And the one aspect he agreed with Cardinal Bertone is that there is no link between celibacy and pedophilia. "Just because someone is celibate doesn't make little kids appealing," Prof. Plante said.
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