MALTA
Times of Malta
by Fr Joe Borg
Yesterday the Curia lambasted Minister Helena Dali’s reported speech in Parliament of April 2nd wherein she stated that paedophile priests and paedophile laymen are treated differently and this has to stop.
Minister Dalli seems to have repeated what she had written in her March 28 column in The Times of Malta titled “Matters pertaining to the state”. She most quoted from an article she had written three years ago: “ The situation is such whereby a priest abusing children and teenagers may be treated differently to a lay person committing the same crime in that the former may simply be prosecuted internally within the Church structures“.
This is manifestly not true and a member of the Cabinet is expected to know that this is not true. It was only a few months ago that two priests were handed a prison sentence because of sexual abuse of minors. There is a difference in the sense that priests are condemned by both Church and civil/criminal courts while laymen are judged only by the criminal/civil courts.
I however agree with another point made in the article she quoted from, that is, abusive priests should also be reported to the police.
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