“On Tuesday, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi questioned [Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone’s] decision to discuss the matter, but also detailed its ‘statistical data’ on the abuse of minors by priests. ‘Church authorities do not consider it their responsibility to make general statements of a specifically physiological or medical character, which is why they naturally refer back to experts’ study and ongoing research on the subject,’ he said. According to the satistical [sic] data collected by the Congregation for the Doctrine the Faith, ‘about 10% of cases were paedophilia in the strict sense, while 90% were cases of ephebophilia [i.e towards adolescents]’, he added. ‘Of these approximately 60% referred to individuals of the same sex and 30% of heterosexual character.'” That means 54 percent of all cases were of the same-sex variety. Happy now? [BBC]
REBELComx
Strange how their distinction between paedophilia and ephebophilia are the exact opposite of the other study done, showing that more than half the victims were under the age of 12 when molested.
And again, just because the molestation occurred between members of the same sex, that doesn’t mean the predator is or identifies himself as a homosexual. The Vatican sure enjoys fudging details and changing even their own definition of things to suit their scapegoating ploy. Not surprising as they’ve done it for nearly 2000 years
Swellster
Also missing is what orientation the offender identifies with and how prevalent that orientation is among priests. If 70% of priest are “gay” then that means gay priests are less likely to offend than “straight” priests even using the vaticans f’ud up numbers.
Cam
Also, they aren’t counting the numberous incidences of baby’s fathered by priests being adopted out and hushed up through the local diocese. They are ONLY studying the incidents that made it far enough up the chain to be reported. Who is more likely to report? A parishoner who’s little boy is raped, or one trying to hide the fact that their daughter just had a baby out of wedlock?
Additionally, the Catholic church’s rules for Priesthood were SET UP so that gays would join. The joke for decades amoung Irish Catholic familes was “Oh, your son can’t throw a ball? Thank gof for the Priesthood.” Due to the fact that if you were gay, didn’t want to date girls, and weren’t going to give your family any grandchildren, what better excuse for not marrying than to go into an organization that expressly forbid marriage?
Timothy
Fabulous… except it’s a flat out lie.
According to the John Jay report (the Church’s own report) 22% of victims were 9 or younger and over half were between the ages of 10 and 14, with the median being 12.
Sorry, Papa Ratzi, but that isn’t ephebophilia, that’s kiddie diddling. And gay men (who are by definition attracted to other men) aren’t the ones chasing 11 year old girls and boys.
plz
The church needs to stop talking about hetero or homosexuality with regard to the scandal…they are pedophiles, that’s it. The only thing after that which could group this particular crime is the moniker priest.
Steve
The Vatican seems to have its very own version of statistics. All of the statistics professors at all of the universities in the world use things called “numbers” and even “percentages”. The Vatican statistics priests use “prayer” and “bluff”.
I take “statistics” at far less than face value, with very few exceptions. I read somewhere years ago that 87 percent of all statistics on the internet are just made up out of whole cloth. In that previous sentence, the “87” could be any other number, and it would be just as true.
The only statistics I actually believe are the ones published in the conclusions sections of peer-reviewed papers in the official journals of actual scientific societies. The Vatican is none of those things.
Any “statistics” cited by priests, are not to be believed. They have become so accustomed to lying, they really do not understand what it means to tell the truth.
Marilyn
A Research Study Conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice revealed that 81.9 % of sex crimes committed against young people by Catholic priests (and brothers) during the past 52 years involved men (priests or brothers) preying on boys.
Only 5.8% of victims were under age 7; 16% percent were between ages 8-10; and over 78% were between the ages of 11-17.
44% of the accused priests were accused by more than one person, and contrary to the suggestions implied by the media, the victims have not been pre-adolescent children; they were generally teenage boys.
A few more facts (source link here): http://www.americancatholic.org/news/clergysexabuse/johnjaycns.asp
Four percent of priests serving over last 50 years accused of abuse. The study listed the main characteristics of the sex abuse incidents reported. These included:
An overwhelming majority of the victims, 81 percent, were males. The most vulnerable were boys aged 11 to 14, representing more than 40 percent of the victims. This goes against the trend in the general U.S. society where the main problem is men abusing girls.
A majority of the victims were post-pubescent adolescents with a small percentage of the priests accused of abusing children who had not reached puberty.
Most of the accused committed a variety of sex acts involving serious sexual offenses.
The most frequent context for abuse was a social event and many priests socialized with the families of victims.
Abuses occurred in a variety of places with the most common being the residence of the priest.
Pedophiles are attracted to children without the secondary sex characteristics that develop at the onset of puberty. 78% of the victims were between 11 and 17. That’s after puberty, for the most part.
The scandal was never, largely, a pedophilia problem, despite the media’s love for that label. Most of the victims were boys at or past puberty. You can call it homosexuality or ephebophilia, but at least be honest about what it is instead of pretending it’s something else.
Mike in Asheville, nee "in Brooklyn"
Per Mark Twain: “Figures often beguile me particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to [British Prime Minister Benjamin] Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: ‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'”
Don’t worry all, in 500 years, the Church will forgive itself for its dastardly homophobic bigotry, just like the 500 years it took them to acknowledge that Galileo was right, the Earth orbits the Sun.
ewe
Does this distinction even matter? The church is trying to blame the victim. They are prepping everyone to think that all young teens wanted it.