Vatican: Abusive Priests Not Pedophiles, but 'Ephebophiles'

When the Catholic Church took action on the pedophile priest scandal, it was to deny gay men entry into seminaries and, from there, into its priestly ranks--a move criticized by those who pointed out that pedophiles are not homosexuals.

Often, pedophiles are heterosexuals, even though they may molest children of either gender.

However, one Vatican official, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, who serves as the Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the Office of the United Nations, has made the claim that the clerical abuses that rocked the Catholic church and stunned the faithful the world over were not committed by pedophiles, but rather by "ephebophiles"--men attracted to adolescent boys.

In terms of the crude smearing of gays with the deeds of abusive priest, this may be a distinction without a meaningful difference.

Tomasi's claim was reported in an article posted Sept. 29 at Catholic Culture.org.

The article mainly reported on Tomasi's response to a call from the International Humanist and Ethical Union's Porteous Wood's call for the church to take meaningful action in terms of taking responsibility for the incidents of child molestation committed by its priests, as well as working to ensure that future abuses do not take place.

The article, which characterized Wood's call as an "attack," quoted Wood as saying, "The many thousands of victims of abuse deserve the international community to hold the Vatican to account, something it has been unwilling to do, so far."

Added Wood, "Both states and children's organizations must unite to pressurize the Vatican to open its files, change its procedures worldwide, and report suspected abusers to civil authorities."

Tomasi was reported to have responded to this by stating, "As the Catholic Church has been busy cleaning its own house, it would be good if other institutions and authorities, where the major part of abuses are reported, could do the same and inform the media about it."

Tommasi also suggested that because other faiths also have problems with pedophiles in positions of authority, the church's own pedophile scandal is not as serious as the media has made it out to be.

A Sept. 28 Guardian article reported that Tommasi read a statement after the UN human rights council had met in Geneva, noting that only a tiny minority of Catholic priests--around 1.5%--had been involved in abuses.

Tommasi also said that Protestant denominations had been affected by child abuse within their ranks, and that Judaism, too, had its share of such abuses.

The Guardian noted that Tommasi further made note of the fact that in many instances of child abuse, a relative or friend of the family is the perpetrator.

Tomasi went on to make his claim that the abuses had been committed by ephebophiles, rather than pedophiles.

"Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90% belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17," Tomasi asserted.

News media reports have tended to focus on the priests who allegedly abused much younger victims, sometimes serially so as their superiors shifted them around the country in order to avoid abuses coming to light.

The tragic side effect of that strategy was to expose more parishes to the predations of abusive priests.

Media accounts of the pedophile priest scandal and its aftermath have been full of accounts of men who claimed to have abused as young children, well short of their teenage years.

However, when those claims have involved "recovered" memories supposedly long dormant, some doubt comes into play; many mental health professionals and others have expressed uncertainty that such "recovered" memories are genuine.

The church has paid out billions in settlements around the world--about $2 billion in the U.S. alone--but even the financial remedies have been fraught with complications. Media reports have noted that some of the alleged victims of abuse who received large sums of money went into personal tailspins, with further anguish the result for themselves and their families.