Is Pope Francis Parsing Words

Seth H. Langston
July 14, 2014

http://sethlangsonlaw.com/blog/pope-francis-parsing-words.html

Is the Pope Parsing Words?

Pope Francis told an interviewer that two percent of Catholic Priests were “pedophiles”. For decades Dioceses around the country have routinely claimed in priest sex abuse cases that they had absolutely no idea that the abusing priest was a “pedophile”. Of course, they never informed the public that pedophilia is defined as the fantasy or act of sexual activity with prepubescent children..

If a priest was attracted to, or abused older children, he would be accurately described as suffering from ephebophilia. This term applies to adults whose primary sexual interest is in children between fifteen and nineteen years old. This often meant that the Church’s pronouncements on the lack of knowledge of the priest being a pedophile was often technically correct.

Studies by the Catholic Church and data collected by Bishop Accountability show that the percentage of child molesting priests was significantly higher than two percent.

Is the pope relying on flawed data or merely continuing the Catholic Church’s long history of parsing words? Will Pope Francis state that the number of priests who are child abusers, pedophiles or suffer from ephebophilia, was also two percent. I will not hold my breath.