ITALY
The Daily Beast
Barbie Latza Nadeau
ROME — Errant priests are dropping like flies in Italy these days. Last weekend, Polish Monsignor Krysztof Charamsa was relieved of his services to the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith after a coming-out press conference here in which he nuzzled his boyfriend and announced a pending book deal for his tome outlining the Vatican’s “institutionalized homophobia.”
This week, it’s a 75-year-old parish priest in the northern city of Trento who justified pedophilia by victim-blaming, telling Italy’s La7 television channel that often it is needy children who cause weak priests to succumb to their urges.
“Unfortunately, there are children who seek affection because they don’t get it at home and then if they find some priest he can even give in. I understand this,” the Rev. Gino Flaim said. When the shocked TV reporter asked if he was saying it was the child victims’ fault, he said, “In many cases, yes.” Then he closed the interview by saying that while he somehow understood the cause of sexual violence against minors, he simply couldn’t wrap his head around the phenomenon of gay priests. “Homosexuality, I don’t know,” he said. “I think it’s a sickness.”
Flaim’s comments understandably enraged the Vatican, which is in the midst of a crucial summit of bishops that is meant to focus on the woes facing Catholic families—from birth control to Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics—but has been largely sidetracked by the issue of same-sex unions and how priests must minister to the LGBT community. Pope Francis has not escaped the mud-slinging, after first admitting to a meeting with gay-marriage opponent Kim Davis on his recent trip to the U.S., which his press machine followed up with the clarification of the meet-up as a “brief encounter” and an announcement that he also had a cordial audience with a longtime friend and his same-sex partner.
The trouble in Trento couldn’t come at a worse time as the Vatican tries to control its message in Rome. The elderly priest was stripped of his duties—but not his collar. On Thursday, Flaim told La Repubblica that he had no idea what he said that was so upsetting. “I said that I understood them, not that I condone them,” he said. “It’s very different.”
That may be, but support groups for victims of clerical sexual abuse say Flaim’s “preposterous and hurtful” comments reflect a commonly held sentiment among the clerical community. “Time and time again, for decades, we’ve seen priests and bishops make this claim,” David Clohessy, national director for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests known as SNAP told The Daily Beast. “Hundreds of clerics have publicly blamed kids for their own victimization. And we suspect that thousands more privately hold these self-serving attitudes but are smart enough to hide their views.”
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