FRANCE
IOL
March 11 2013
AFP
Paris – Putting the blame for paedophilia on the Roman Catholic Church is a way of avoiding the issue, a top French cardinal says.
“There is a kind of opinion that is an easy way of ridding (society) of the issue of paedophilia by putting it on the Church,” Andre Vingt-Trois, the archbishop of Paris, told AFP in an interview.
“We shouldn’t be duped. It’s easy because that prevents asking the question within society itself,” said Vingt-Trois, 70, one of the 115 cardinals set to elect the next pope in a conclave starting on Tuesday.
“Paedophilia is not solely a Church problem. Eighty percent of victims of paedophilia are in families, and we don’t talk about that,” he said, rejecting what he called a “fascination” over the issue in connection with the Church.
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