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	Vatican Massively Confused about Nature of Sex, Says Therapist Mike Lew By Danny Rose News.com.au April 15, 2010 http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/vatican-massively-confused-about-nature-of-sex-says-therapist-mike-lew/story-e6frfku0-1225854187670 IT is "nonsense" for the Catholic Church to draw a link between paedophilia and homosexuality, says a visiting US expert in counselling male survivors of child abuse. Mike Lew, a therapist and author of the landmark 1988 book Victims No Longer: The Classic Guide for Men Recovering from Sexual Child Abuse, has counselled thousands of childhood victims. He said the Vatican's remarks blaming homosexuality, not celibacy among the clergy, for the scandal now gripping the Catholic Church were incorrect and should be renounced. "If a man abuses a little boy it is no more a homosexual relationship than a man abusing a little girl is a heterosexual relationship," Dr Lew told AAP. "Healthy gay men have sex with other men, healthy heterosexual men have sex with women, neither have sex with children - that's child abuse. "And anyone who can't see that is massively, or perhaps wilfully, confused about the nature of sexuality." Dr Lew said in the majority of cases of child sex abuse, the perpetrator was a heterosexual men. There was another common factor, he said, as perpetrators were also often members of a church, boarding school or other type of "closed institution" that featured "hierarchy, patriarchy and secrecy". The abuse was particularly damaging when perpetrated by the clergy because the victim could be left feeling "abused by God". The act was "always for the gratification of the adult", he said. When a young person was developmentally ready for sex they would "experiment with their peers" first. "So this is a distraction technique. The church would like to lay the blame onto gay men, but it is nonsense," Dr Lew said. His comments follow those made earlier this week by the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who said "many" psychologists and psychiatrists believed there was a "link between homosexuality and paedophilia" and "no relationship between celibacy and paedophilia". The Vatican has since issued a statement saying church officials were not competent to speak about such issues in psychology. It is also grappling with a broader scandal that has reached to Pope Benedict XVI, with accusations the church hierarchy covered up abuses for decades in the United States and Europe. Dr Lew said it could take many years for a person to gather the courage to reveal they were abused as a child. Those coming forward now could represent abuses perpetrated years ago though "unfortunately it is still going on today". "If there's one message that I'd like to get out to survivors everywhere is that recovery is possible, there are resources and there are allies, use them." Dr Lew is in Australia to speak at events across the capital cities in a tour sponsored by the support group Adults Surviving Child Abuse.
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