Cardinal’s ambiguity - Paedophilia is always a crime

As the celebrations to mark the election of Francis as pope continue, the millions upon millions of Catholics who hope his pontificate might lead to a renewal of their Church must despair at the remarks of the Catholic Archbishop of Durban, Wilfrid Fox Napier, who said on BBC radio last week that paedophilia is a psychological illness and not “a criminal condition”.

It may be a psychological illness but the instant it becomes active then paedophilia is most certainly a crime as well.

That despair can only deepen because South African Cardinal Napier, 72, is one of the 115 cardinals who elected Pope Francis at last week’s Vatican conclave. That such ambiguity persists so very close to the heart of Catholic power can only provoke the deepest concern amongst those who had hoped that clarity and honesty had replaced denial and collusion among the hierarchy on this issue.

The cardinal’s remarks are so misguided, so out of kilter with the demands of this society, that even those who oppose the Catholic Church might feel sympathy for the great number of Catholics, lay or ordained, who have worked so very hard to eradicate the culture that led to so many devastating reports on this active evil over the last decade.

The remarks, unfortunately, mean that Cardinal Napier’s peers around the world must either refute his position or endorse it. There hardly seems any room for a grey area, especially in societies where the horrors of the past are still unfolding. That the remarks came from one of the leaders of an institution still paying out millions in compensation to the victims of clerical paedophiles only make the remarks all the more astonishing and incomprehensible.

It is hard to understand what Cardinal Napier was trying to clarify, what he was trying to explain, when he said that people who were abused during childhood and became paedophiles were not criminally responsible for their actions in the same way as somebody “who chooses to do something like that”.

With even the most generous of interpretation of his remarks, and even with the greatest generosity towards — and support for those abused as children — this hair-splitting, this fowl-of-one and flesh-of-another demarcation does not stand up in any moral or legal sense. It certainly would not assuage the pain and terror felt by a victim.

One of the beautifully reassuring and powerful teachings of Christianity is that we should love the sinner but despise the sin, but even that grand principle surely does not offer a defence for those who knowingly inflict an evil inflicted on themselves on an innocent child?

The very worst aspect of Cardinal Napier’s bizarre statement is that it may offer comfort and encouragement to a paedophile who was abused as a child. It may suggest a freedom, a licence to behave like some of the monsters uncovered as the vile history of child sexual abuse in this country was uncovered. It is impossible to believe that that is what the cardinal intended, but it is undoubtedly a consequence.

If Cardinal Napier’s remarks go unchallenged by the Vatican, then the optimism provoked by the election of Francis will be diminished even before it has had time to have any positive impact.