Vatican Statement Regarding Comments by Card. Bertone
(14 Apr 10 - RV) Director of the Vatican Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, issued
a statement today to respond to journalists’ questions following remarks by the Vatican
Secretary of State made during an interview yesterday. Cardinal Bertone was speaking
from Chile, where he is currently on a visit.
In his statement, Fr Lombardi
said:
Church authorities
do not consider it within their competency to make general statements of a specifically
psychological or medical nature, but refer to research studies undertaken by specialists
in these matters.
With regard to their competency in the area of the causes
of abuse of minors by priests in recent years, they refer to statistical data quoted
by Mgr.Scicluna of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in an interview
that addresses this issue.
According to the data, 10% of abuse cases can
be classified as pedophilia in the strict sense. 90% of cases are better defined as
Ephebophilia (ie attraction towards adolescents). Of these, approximately 60% are
reported as same-sex attraction and 30% of a heterosexual nature. Obviously this data
refers to the problem of abuse by priests and not to statistics regarding the general
population.