CANADA
Montreal Gazette
BY LA PRESSE CANADIENNE/THE GAZETTE JULY 14, 2014
One priest out of 50 being a pedophile isn’t a “huge number,” but one priest being a pedophile is already one too many, said former Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte in response to comments made by Pope Francis.
The pope said recent estimates have shown that as many as two per cent of clerics within the Roman Catholic clergy are pedophiles.
In an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica, he said that instead of being reassuring, the statistic had the opposite effect.
On top of that, Pope Francis said there are other people within the church, an even larger number of people, who are aware of the unforgettable actions taking place but who aren’t speaking out about it.
Turcotte, who retired a little more than two years ago, would not comment on the commonness of the phenomenon, which he says to have “always hated enormously.”
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