The Hague court decided in July 2006 that the pedophile party Diversity, Freedom and Brotherly Love

(PNVD, acronyms Netherlands), "can not be banned, as it has the same right to exist than any other party." The
objectives of this political party were: lowering the age of consent (12 years) for sex, legalizing child pornography,
supporting the hardcore porn broadcast on daytime television and allow bestiality (zoofilia). The party has just
dissolved this week. Apparently, has been the success of a "tough campaign" launched on all fronts, including
internet, by Catholic priest F. Di Noto, relentless in the fight against pedophilia.

The good news - whose hero is a Catholic priest - match another poor, which also starred priests of this confession. I
mean the media storm sparked by some priests that committed sexual abuse of minors. These are the details: 3,000
cases of diocesan priests involved in crimes in the past fifty years, although not all found guilty of conviction.
According to Charles J. Sicluna - something like the attorney general of the Vatican responsible for these crimes -:
"60% of these cases are 'ephebophilia', or being sexually attracted to adolescents of the same sex, 30% are
heterosexual relations, and 10%, acts of pedophilia true and proper, that is, sexual attraction to prepubescent
children. The latter are about three hundred. They are always too many, but we must recognize that the phenomenon
is not as widespread as they say. "

Indeed, if one considers that today there are about 500,000 diocesan and religious priests, these data-without ceasing
to be sad - put both percent not more than 0.6%. The most solid scientific work that I know of no Catholic author is
Professor Philip Jenkins, Pedophiles and Priest, Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis (Oxford University Press). His
thesis is that the proportion of clergy with sexual disorder problem is lower in the Catholic Church than in other
confessions. And above all, much less than in other organized institutional models of coexistence. If the Catholic
Church is now more highlighted - and earlier also - is because of the centralization by the church of Rome, which
allows collection of information, accounting and know the problems with more immediacy than in other institutions
and organizations, religious or not. There are two recent examples that confirm the analysis of Jenkins. The data,
which the Austrian authorities just facilitated, indicates that, in the same period, cases of reported sexual abuse in
church-related institutions have been 17, while in other settings were 510. According to a report published by Luigi
Accatoli (a classic of the Corriere della Sera), from the 210,000 registered cases of sexual abuse in Germany since
1995, only 94 correspond to people or institutions of the Catholic Church. That represents a 0,045%.

I get the impression that an artificial climate of "moral panic" is being generated, which is not strange to some
pandemic or literary media focused on the "clergy sexual deviations," turned into a kind of moral swamp. Nothing
new, on the other hand, but now reaches disproportionate levels, following of the announcements a few days ago
about the cases in Germany, Austria and Holland. The campaign recalls the black legends about the topic in
medieval Europe, the Tudor England, revolutionary France or the German National Socialist. I do agree with
Jenkins when he observes: "the power of the continuing pedophile propaganda issue was one of the means of
propaganda and harassment used by politicians, in their attempt to break the power of the German Catholic Church,
especially in the field of education and social services. " This idea is illustrative, if you think about this comment by
Himmler: "Nobody knows what is happening behind the walls of the monasteries and in the ranks of the community
of Rome ..." Also today information and data are mixed and caused by provoked insinuations and
misunderstandings. In the end, the impression is that the only blame for this sad situation is the Catholic Church and
its sexual moral.

Said this, it is clear that the problem is serious enough to tackle it without obliquity's. Lets see their causes. I must
admit I was struck by the emphasis made by Benedict XVI as he repeated condemnation of these abuses on his
journey to America. Analysts, of course, were expecting some reference to the subject. But surprisingly, he four
times alluded to these scandals. And that is, in fact, that this issue has its roots in the sixties and seventies, but broke
early in the new millennium with its economic impact and the reparation for the victims. Something, I thought it
belonged to the past. A past which coincided with the flare of the sexual revolution of the sixties. It is when it was
discovered, among other likes and dislikes, the "novelty" of pedophilia, noting, inter alia, the demolition of the
"walls" erected to prevent erotic contact between adults and minors. Who does not remember - around that time - the
Mrs Robinson and Lolita ...? If one delves a bit, then one can see that some of the most current inflexible "moralists"
were the active apostles of the sexual liberation in the sixties / seventies.

This revolution marked a culture and his era, leaving a deep imprint, which also caught some clerical environments.
Thus, some Catholic Universities in America and Europe developed a misconceived teaching about human sexuality
and moral theology. As a generation, some of the seminarians were also not immune and then acted in an
undignified way. John Paul II strongly confronted against such corruption, canceling the permission to teach at those
universities to some teachers, including a Charles Curran, a qualified example of that trend.

Benedict XVI, despite the ancient roots of the problem, decided to act with zero tolerance against something which
tarnished the honor of the priesthood and the integrity of the victims. Hence his repeated references to the issue in
United States and rapid reaction to Rome calling those responsible, when the issue erupted in some dioceses of
Ireland. In fact, a strong letter just made public to the Church in Ireland, where the Pope is calling "traitors" those
guilty of abuse and announced, among other things, a rigorous inspection in dioceses, seminaries and religious
organizations. It is a sarcastic attempt to engage him now in priest sex scandals in the diocese ran by the Archbishop
Ratzinger for years. Especially if you think that it was precisely the Cardinal Ratzinger, who as prefect of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, signed on May 18, 2001 a circular of ' delictis gravioribus' ("most serious
crimes") with tough enforcement action against those behaviors. The very fact that it reserved to the Holy See the
right to judge cases of pedophilia (along with the attacks on the sacraments of the Eucharist and Confession)
underscores the gravity that they confer, and the purpose of the trial does not appear "conditioned" by other local,
potentially more influenced.
Of course they bake beans everywhere. Nigel Hamilton has written about the U.S. presidency: "In the White House
we've had rapists, moths, and, to put it mildly, people with unusual sexual preferences. We had murderers, slaves,
cons, alcoholics, gamblers and addicts of all kinds. When a friend asked why President Kennedy allowed his lust to
interfere in national security, said: "I can not help it."

Faced with the problem, the Church is one of the few institutions that had not closed the windows and barricaded the
doors until the storm passes. Has not been huddled in itself like "the barbarians to retire to the woods." But stood up
to the problem, has toughened its laws, has apologized to the victims, have given compensation and has become
ruthless with the aggressors. Lets denounce the errors, of course, but let's be fair to those who did want to, unlike
Kennedy, avoid them.

Rafael Navarro-Valls
BIO (spanish):
http://sites.google.com/site/rnavarrovallsweb/
…this article recently appeared in the Spanish newspaper -El Mundo-. The translations is my own, an is not
authorized.
This is the link to the original article in Spanish:
http://elmundo.orbyt.es/2010/03/21/tu_mundo/1269204013.html
(must be registered)