ITALY
Gazzetta del Sud
Trento, October 6 – A Catholic priest said Tuesday he can understand being a pedophile but not being gay. “I could understand paedophilia, (but) I don’t know about homosexuality,” Father Gino Flaim, a pastoral collaborator of the San Pio X church in Trento, told an afternoon talk show on La7 TV channel. “I have been to school a lot and I know children,” Flaim said when asked to explain. “Unfortunately some children seek affection because they don’t get it at home. And maybe they find a priest, and he gives in…I can understand that”. Asked whether children cause pedophilia, he answered “to a great extent, yes”. Flaim went on to say he believes being gay is a disease. The fact that homosexuality exists “doesn’t surprise me, because the Church is a community of sinners”. Asked whether he thinks homosexuality is an illness, he said “Yes, I definitely think so”. The Trento archdiocese stripped him of his duties soon after the interview aired. “The Trento Church dissociates itself fully from statements made by an elderly diocesan priest to La7 TV,” the archdiocese said in a statement. “He expressed positions that do not in any way represent the position of the Trento Archdiocese or the feeling of the ecclesiastical community as a whole”.
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.