Pope Francis: 'About 2%' of Catholic clergy paedophiles

BBC News ^ | 07/14/2014

[SeekAndFind]

Pope Francis has been quoted as saying that reliable data indicates that "about 2%" of clergy in the Catholic Church are paedophiles.

The Pope said that abuse of children was like "leprosy" infecting the Church, according to the Italian La Repubblica newspaper.

He vowed to "confront it with the severity it demands".

But a Vatican spokesman said the quotes in the newspaper did not correspond to Pope Francis's exact words.

The BBC's David Willey in Rome says there is often a studied ambiguity in Pope Francis' off-the-cuff statements.

He wants to show a more compassionate attitude towards Church teaching than his predecessors, but this can sometimes cause consternation among his media advisers, our correspondent adds.

In the interview, Pope Francis was quoted as saying that the 2% estimate came from advisers. It would represent around 8,000 priests out of a global number of about 414,000.

While the incidence of paedophilia as a psychiatric disorder in the general population is not accurately known, some estimates have put it at less than five percent.

[piusv]

Here's the missing word that neither +Francis (if this report is accurate), nor the media can bring themselves to say; homosexual.

Well, we wouldn't want to judge them. ;-0

[free_life]

Hopefully this Pope will do what has to be done to end it and end the denials and willful blind eyes to this evil in the RCC.

[jacknhoo]

Exactly.

[onedoug]

The BBC's David Willey in Rome....

That figures.

[Alex Murphy]

Pope Francis has been quoted as saying that reliable data indicates that "about 2%" of clergy in the Catholic Church are paedophiles. The Pope said that abuse of children was like "leprosy" infecting the Church, according to the Italian La Repubblica newspaper. He vowed to "confront it with the severity it demands". But a Vatican spokesman said the quotes in the newspaper did not correspond to Pope Francis's exact words. The BBC's David Willey in Rome says there is often a studied ambiguity in Pope Francis' off-the-cuff statements.

PFL

To be sure, the contents of the letter to Ryan weren’t just a product of Dolan’s need to appease both sides in the intra-Church struggle. It was also a classic example of a style of ecclesiastical document that the Vatican employs in complicated situations....This style of writing aims at “studied ambiguity,” a Vatican diplomat explained to me, noting that the people who write such letters are trained to think in terms of centuries, not sound bites. “So you always need to be able to say fifty years on, ‘Well, of course we never meant that,’” the diplomat said.
-- from the thread Mixed Blessing: The Ryan budget and the raging battle within the U.S. Catholic Church