Outcry after cardinal links homosexuality to abuse

GAY groups and politicians condemned Pope Benedict’s number two for calling homosexuality a “pathology” and linking it directly to sexual abuse of children.

The comments were made by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone during a visit to Chile.

The French foreign ministry and some Catholic blogs that support the Pope also condemned the cardinal’s remarks.

As the scandal over sexual abuse of children by priests has spread, some in the Catholic Church have called for a review of the Church’s rule that prohibits priests from marrying, saying marriage would allow priests to enjoy a healthy sex life.

Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, who is sometimes called the “deputy Pope,” told a news conference in Santiago: “Many psychologists and psychiatrists have shown that there is no link between celibacy and paedophilia, but many others have shown, I have recently been told, that there is a relationship between homosexuality and paedophilia.

“This pathology is one that touches all categories of people, and priests to a lesser degree in percentage terms,” he said.

“The behaviour of the priests in this case, the negative behaviour, is very serious, is scandalous.”

Gay rights activists reacted with derision and outrage.

“This is a scientific absurdity. The World Health Organisation calls homosexuality a variation of human behaviour. It is paedophilia that is a pathology, a crime, not homosexuality,” said Franco Grillini, a former parliamentarian who was at the vanguard of Italy’s gay rights movement.

“Because they have their own problems with the abuse crisis and don’t know how to handle it, they are trying to pass their ‘cross’ from their shoulders on to ours,” Grillini told Reuters.

The French foreign ministry called it an “unacceptable linkage that we condemn”.

Some pro-Vatican Catholic blogs said more controversy was the last thing the Vatican needed.

“Paedophilia and homosexuality: Bertone trips up — again — on gays,” read a post in the Italian-language Blog of the Friends of Pope Ratzinger.

It said the Pope might now have to “clean up the mess made by his right-hand man”.

Vatican spokesman Rev Federico Lombardi issued a statement in which he tried to douse the fire caused by the latest mishap. He said Church leaders were not trying to make “general affirmations of a specific psychological nature” and offered Church statistics that two-thirds of incidents of abuse by priests involved homosexual priests.

The Pope did not make any direct reference to the crisis facing the Church during his weekly general audience.

He may address the issue when he visits Malta this weekend. Ten Maltese men suing three priests for alleged child abuse have requested a private meeting with the Pope.