Dear Agrarian,
The overwhelming number of underage victims in the recent scandals in the Catholic Church have been males. If I recall correctly, about 90% of the victims were males.
It has primarily been a problem of permitting homosexuals into the priesthood, as homosexuals appear to offend at a rate significantly higher than heterosexuals (in the general population, even though homosexuals make up perhaps 1 - 3% of the population, they commit approximately 1/3 of sexual offenses against minors under the age of consent).
However, it is correct to say that most of the offenses have not been against pre-pubescent children, but rather against boys on the verge, or well into puberty. Apparently, this may be part and parcel of the "gay culture," which encourages "chicken-hawking"; the sexual use of boys-on-the-verge-of-manhood.
sitetest
I agree.
sitetest: There is no such thing as a "homosexual" or "gay" unless you are referring to a person by a label based on their actions, as if they are somehow different from their sin of preference from another group of men who are "heterosexuals". "Homosexuality" is a construct of 19th century German study of sexual psychology, created by Richard Freiherr von Kraft-Ebing. It only exists in the mind of those who love labels of categorization.
In reality, there are perverted men who enjoy the sins of passive and active oral and rectal sodomy, and there are people who are free of this phyisco-mental sickness thanks to the grace of God.
The larger majority of those involved in these moral crimes would be called heterosexuals, because they practice them with women, having not had occasion to look into such feelings with a man. However, it is unclear in my mind how the female mouth or rectum is actually different from the male, and so what prevents someone accustomed to these crimes with women from seeking out the same with men should the feeling or limitation of choice push them in that direction. Hence, the propensity of many so-called "heterosexuals" to suddenly engage in "homosexual" acts in prisons, on ship, and in the armed forces. In reality, its the same perversion with a different person, the genitalia of that person ultimately being irrelevant, since it is not the point of interest of the sexual perversion.
It seems to me that even screening out so-called "homosexuals" ultimately does not do the job, as there are plenty of "heterosexuals" who've discovered a "homosexual" love interest when pushed in that direction by force of circumstance. We've discovered as much here in Philadelphia, where, despite the policy of excluding homosexuals from the seminary, we still have had priests bugerring boys.
I attribute this to poor moral formation, where certain tendencies in mid 20th century moral theology showed a willingness to look askance at male-male sexual sins. Thus Fr. Jone, writing of sodomy makes the claim: "The malice of sodomy consists in the perverted affection towards the wrong sex or in the attraction towards the wrong method of sexual gratification. If there is no such affection or attraction there is no question of sodomy, though two persons suffe emission from mutual touches or unnatural contact." (#228, p. 149). Further on: "Touching the semi-private parts of a person of the same sex is generally a venial sin at most." (#235, p. 155). And: "It is venially sinful to glance at the private parts of another of the same sex or to look at them out of curiosity ... to look at the private parts of a person of the opposite sex is gravely sinful, unless ... it is a question of little children." (#237, p. 156) Lastly, "Homosexuality is the abnormal sexual attraction towards persons of the same sex. It must be distinguished from the sins committed by persons of the same sex which are sometimes committed by those who have no occasion to have relations with persons of the opposite sex." (#243, p. 161) Then to top it all off, Fr. Jone refers us to the mitigating influence of passion, where antecedent concupiscence, which is the involuntary movement of the concupiscipble apetities "always lessens imputability and at times even destroys it entirelyy accordin as one is hindered in the use of his reason ... by passion." (#24 and 25, p. 9).
This sort of formation is not an encouragement of homosexual perversion per se, but rather, almost an invitation to use this sort of moral code to salve a guilty conscience and convince oneself one is still normal. Which is also probably why so many of the criminals in the Priesthood were ordained in the 1950's and 1960's well before the homosexual takeover of certain seminaries in the 1970's and early 1980's.