Church pedophilia scandal grows in Latin America

Church pedophilia scandal grows in Latin America

By TALES AZZONI, Associated Press Writer Tales Azzoni, Associated Press Writer – Tue Apr 20, 6:47 pm ET
SAO PAULO – The detention of an 83-year-old priest in Brazil for allegedly abusing boys as young as 12 has added to the scandals hitting the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America, even as Chile's bishops asked pardon Tuesday for past cases.

The allegations against Monsignor Luiz Marques Barbosa — and two other Brazilian priests — have made headlines throughout the world's most populous Catholic nation and come amid accusations of sexual abuse by priests around the world.

The scandal erupted when Brazilian television network SBT last month broadcast a tape of Barbosa in bed with a 19-year-old that was widely distributed on the Internet.

The station said the video was secretly filmed in January 2009 and sent anonymously to the network. It was not clear if the 19-year-old, identified as a former altar boy who had worked with Barbosa for four years, had previous sexual relations with the priest.

SBT reporters went to Barbosa's house and confronted him. Asked if he ever abused boys, Barbosa said he could only answer such a question "in confession" and cut off the interview.

Brazil's legislature launched a sex abuse investigation, which produced allegations that Barbosa molested boys. The elderly priest was detained late Sunday. Prosecutors will now decide whether to file child abuse charges.





http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100420/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_brazil_church_sex_scandal

How barbaric! That travesty, that violation would NEVER happen in America!

(Yes. This post is 100% facetious)

Feeding the controversy, Pope Benedict XVI's second-in-command outraged many last week in Chile when he said homosexuality and not celibacy was the primary reason for the abuse.

"Many psychologists and psychiatrists have demonstrated that there is no relation between celibacy and pedophilia. But many others have demonstrated, I have been told recently, that there is a relation between homosexuality and pedophilia. That is true," Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone told reporters April 12 at a news conference in Santiago. "That is the problem."

The comments by Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, were condemned by gay advocacy groups, politicians and even the French government.

Studies show that it is males who sexually abuse children --

and that hetereosexual males are 100X more likely to sexually abuse children --

Also : The right-wing "Family Research Council" notes/confirms findings that "almost all child sexual abuse is committed by men."






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From "same-sex -- marriage in the United States
Focus on the Facts" -- Sean Cahill, PH.D
Lexington Books -- 2004
See: Footnote

A 1998 Study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 90% of pedophiles are men, and 95% of these individuals are hetereosexual.

Research has indicated that gay men and lesbians are less likely than heteeosexual to sexually abuse children.

Perhaps the most egregious and damaging claim promulgaed by anti-gay groups is the claim that homosexuality is intrinisically linked to pedophiia and child sexual abuse.
The social science research on sexual orientation and child sexual abuse clearly disproves the claim that homosexuals are more likely to molest children. A 1998 study in the Journal of the American Medical Assocation found that 90% of pedophiles are men, and 95% of these individuals are hetereosexual. One researcher explained this statistic by noting, "Gay men desire consensual sexual relations with other adult men. Pedophiles are usually adult men who are sexually attracted to pre-pubescent children. They are rarely sexually attracted to other adults. In fact, research has indicated that gay men and lesbians are LESS likely than heterosexuals to sexually abuse children. Two studies that examined the sexual orientation of convicted child molesters found that less than 1% in one study and 0% in the other were lesbian or gay. One psychologist reviewed the existing social science literature on the relationship between sexuality and child sexual abuse and found that "a gay man is no more likely than a straight man to perpetrate sexual activity with children." Further, "cases of perpetration of sexual behavior with a pre-pubescent child by an adult lesbian are virtually nonexistent."

Gay rights activists, like all advocates for children's welfare, oppose child sexual abuse and support equitable age of consent laws that help prevent and punish such abuse.

At least 110,000 children are waiting to be adopted in the US. Approximately 588,000 children are currently in foster care. Barring gay men and lebians from adopting or foster parenting decreases the number of potential suitable homes for children in need.
Children who remain in foster care for much of their childhood, as do tens of thousands of American children, are more likely to have emotional problems. Some children in foster care live in 20 or more homes by the time they reach the age of 18. Barring gay men and lesbians from adopting or foster parenting is not simply unjust and unethical; it also decreases the number of potential suitable homes for children in need.
Research shows that children raised by gay and lesbian parents are not disadvantaged vis-a-vis their peers raised by hetereosexual parents.

Footnote 65 -- p.123
A review of 352 medical records of children evaluated for sexual abuse during a 12-month period at a Denver chidlren's hospital found that less than 1% had been abused by a gay man or a lesbian. Of 269 adult perpetrators of child abuse identified among the 352 cases of abuse, only two were gay or lesbian. The vast majority of the children in the study (82%) "were suspected of being abused by a man or a woman who was, or had been, in a hetereosexual relationship with a relative of the child." And the review concluded that in this sample, " a child's risk of being molested by his or her relative's heterosexual partner is over 100X greater by someone who might be identifiable as being homosexual, lesbian, or bisexual."
Jenny, C., and Roesler, T.A. (1994)
Are children at risk for sexual abuse by homosexuals? Pediatrics. 94(1).p.44.
In an earlierstudy of convicted male child molesters in Massachusetts, none of the 175 men were found to have an exclusively homosexual adult sexual orientation orto be primarily attracted to other adult men.
Groth, A.N., and Birnbaum, H.J. (1978).
Adult sexual orientation and attraction to underage persons.
Archives of Sexual Behavior.7(3).pp.175-181.

Also : The right-wing "Family Research Council" notes/confirms findings that "almost all child sexual abuse is committed by men."