POLAND
Daily Mail (UK)
Paedophilia is caused by divorce, says Poland’s top Catholic bishop as he blames parents for not bringing up children properly
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
The top Catholic bishop in Poland today blamed divorce for encouraging paedophilia by damaging young people.
Archbishop Jozef Michalik said that sex abuse was the result of people ‘looking for love’, and appeared to suggest that divorce could be just as harmful to children as paedophilia.
The controversial claims come as Poland’s Catholic church faces mounting allegations of priests sexually abusing children.
‘Many of these cases of molestation could be avoided given a healthy relationship between parents,’ Archbishop Michalik told the PAP news agency.
‘We often hear that this inappropriate attitude [i.e. paedophilia], or abuse, manifests itself when a child is looking for love.
‘It clings, it searches. It gets lost itself and then draws another person into this.’
While condemning paedophile priests ‘whom neither the Church nor anyone else can accept,’ the cleric also spoke out against divorce as being harmful to children.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.