Posted on 03/16/2013 12:59:25 PM PDT by mojito
A South African cardinal who helped elect Pope Francis has described paedophilia as a psychological illness and not "a criminal condition".
The Catholic Archbishop of Durban, Wilfrid Fox Napier, said that people who were abused as children and became paedophiles were not criminally responsible for their actions in the same way as somebody "who chooses to do something like that".
Cardinal Napier, who was among the 115 cardinals in the conclave at the Vatican that elected Pope Francis earlier this week, called paedophilia a "psychological disorder".
He said: "What do you do with disorders? You have got to try and put them right. If I as a normal being choose to break the law knowing that I am breaking the law, then I think I need to be punished ...
"From my experience, paedophilia is actually an illness, it is not a criminal condition, it is an illness."
The cardinal spoke of two priests he knew who were abused as children and went on to become paedophiles.
He told the BBC: "Don't tell me that those people are criminally responsible like somebody who chooses to do something like that. I don't think you can really take the position and say that person deserves to be punished when he was himself damaged."
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
OK! He’s outta here.
Next!
Testing the limits.
Is that his excuse?
The dudes been reading too many “Church Traditions” and catechisms instead of the Bible. Jesus said it would be better to have a millstone around ones neck and thrown into the sea rather than lead a little one astray.
You don’t throw people in jail for “criminal condition[s],” anyway. You do it because of specific acts. And mental states, but only as they relate to the act.
String him from a tree.
Exactly how long has this Cardinal been diddling little boys?
Tactics from the playbook “How The Homos Mainstreamed Sodomy”.
All the kiddy rapers need is a nicer sounding word for what they do and what they are.
The same way that homos got “Queer” replaced with “Gay”.
It’s a mental illness that results in criminal acts / behavior that has devastating results to the victim. I wonder how many times prison wardens have been told, “but I’m not guilty”. I’m not surprised to hear this explanation after so many of the priests were charged with pedophelia in the last decade.
It is odd the Cardinal would say such a thing, since the Church has such a long history of diligently aiding in the criminal prosecution of priests accused of molestiing boys.
SAMBLA?
This Cardinal Napier has either been misquoted, OR is a teacher of error. Everybody has an inborn inclination to do one sort of evil or another; that's called "concupiscence," as this Cardinal should know, and it is an innate feature of our fallen human nature.
We are all born ith these characer flaws (ref: "Original Sin"), and it is our responsibility --- with the grace of God --- to overcome them.
That's in the Catechism.
If one accepted this "totally therapeutic" account of human action -- "It's just a sickness" --- one would have to say nobody is responsible for anything, because we are neither responsible for our genetic inheritance nor our early childhood development and environment.
It was wrong for Napier to say this. It was in violation of what Christ teaches us through the Catholic Church about human freedom and responsibility. I shows a failure to protect children from the predations of others.
It was anti-Biblical.
It as anti-Catholic.
And it was just plain stupid.
Acting upon those inclinations, however, is a crime.
If this guy really said this, I fully expect the next news item to be all about his immediate removal from the Church. Anything short of that would be unacceptable and fuel for the sickness and criminal act.
That doesn't make them any less criminal and it doesn't mean we don't punish them.
For whatever it's worth (and in this case it's not worth anything) "Wilfrid Fox Napier" is a very posh English or Irish monicker.
I was surprised to find out that the cardinal is actually non-white (not that it should matter to anybody who's not a genealogist).
You’re not paying attention. Now that Homosexuality edges more acceptable as ‘normal’, Pedophilia is seeking such social acceptance.
A.P.A. Publishes a New Study:
Not All Pedophile Relationships are Harmful
Few laymen are aware that the American Psychiatric Association recently redefined the criteria for pedophilia. According to the latest diagnostic manual (DSM—IV), a person no longer has a psychological disorder simply because he molests children. To be diagnosed as disordered, now he must also feel anxious about the molestation, or be impaired in his work or social relationships. Thus the A.P.A. has left room for the “psychologically normal” pedophile.’
Just a matter of time, probably in our lifetime that children will be recognized as ‘sexual beings’.
My heart breaks, I can barely take any more of this.
It may be a mental illness but that’s totally different form saying that the actions are not criminal. The headline is misleading and gives a wrong impression. Just like PTSD is a mental illness but killing oneself or others as a result of it doesn’t make the actions innocent.
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