Catholic Cardinal Claims Paedophilia Is Not a Crime

By Jack Losh
The Sun
March 17, 2013

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4845021/catholic-cardinal-claims-paedophilia-is-illness-not-crime.html

Controversial ... Catholic Archbishop of Durban Wilfrid Fox Napier

Leader ... Pope Francis holds his first audience with the media in the Vatican earlier today

Archbishop Wilfrid Fox Napier says it should be treated as 'an illness'

THE new Pope faces more child sex abuse controversy after a cardinal today branded paedophilia an illness NOT a crime.

Catholic Archbishop of Durban Wilfrid Fox Napier defended paedophiles who had been abused as children, saying they were not criminally responsible for their actions as somebody “who chooses to do something like that”.

The South African – among the 115 cardinals at the Vatican who elected Pope Francis earlier this week – called paedophilia a “psychological disorder”.

Speaking out just days after the papal conclave, Cardinal Napier said: “What do you do with disorders? You have got to try and put them right.

“If I as a normal being choose to break the law knowing that I am breaking the law, then I think I need to be punished.

“From my experience paedophilia is actually an illness, it is not a criminal condition, it is an illness.”

The cardinal spoke of two priests he knew who were abused as children and went on to become paedophiles.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 live, he added: “Don't tell me that those people are criminally responsible like somebody who chooses to do something like that.

“I don't think you can really take the position and say that person deserves to be punished when he was himself damaged.”

The cardinal’s inflammatory comments come just three days after Pope Francis took up his new role.

Barbara Dorris, from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and was abused as a child by a priest, hit back at the remarks.

She said: “If it is a disease that's fine, but it's also a crime and crimes are punished, criminals are held accountable for what they did and what they do.

“The bishops and the cardinals have gone to great lengths to cover these crimes to enable the predators to move on, to not be arrested, to keep the secrets within the church.”

Cardinal Napier has made controversial statements before, maintaining that people should not use contraceptives to stop spreading HIV, but rather abstain from sex.