Quote:
Originally Posted by Locke
It always amazes me, statistically speaking, how many priests are attracted to children.
I mean, isnt this amazingly high in relation to the general population? Did they just troll every sex offender ward for clergy candidates at some point?
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As a former-Catholic-turned-atheist, I'm not apologizing for the Church at all, so don't take the following comments that way.
IIRC, statistically priests are
not any more likely to be pedophiles than any other member of society. The Vatican has used this as a defense against criticisms that the Church has a greater problem with priests molesting children than the general public.
That said, should priests be held to a higher standard? They're presented as authority figures on issues of morality and conduct. They're also in a position where they're trusted to spend time with children. If a school teacher was found guilty of such a crime, there are zero-tolerance policies that would see the teacher fired and banned from ever having trust relationship over kids again. With priests, though, the Vatican just transfers them to a different parish and tries to sweep the issue under the rug.
So I don't think it's so much an issue that priests are more likely to be pedophiles, but rather the problem is the hypocrisy of the Church. Then again, when it comes to hypocrisy, it's hard to find a greater offender throughout history than the Vatican, so this is just business as usual.