UNITED STATES
Los Angeles Times
MICHAEL MCGOUGH
WORD HAS leaked from Catholic Church sources that the Vatican may soon harden its policy against ordaining homosexuals, even those who promise to remain chaste.
Aha! some Catholics will say, the church is finally dealing with the root cause of the pedophilia scandal — homosexuality.
As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Ann Rodgers reported recently in an article about a Vatican evaluation of American seminaries, the pedophilia-homosexuality connection is a matter of faith with some church officials.
"The fact that 81% of the [child-abuse] victims were male, coupled with reports of a 'gay culture' at some seminaries, led some bishops and Vatican officials to conclude that the underlying problem was homosexuality," Rodgers wrote.
But she added that "there have been mixed signals. In April 2003, top Vatican officials heard presentations from eight international experts on pedophilia who said that homosexuality did not cause men to molest minors."