Vatican Tries to Re-Brand Sexual Abuse
Following a meeting of the United Nations human rights council in Geneva, the Vatican has issued a statement requesting that Catholic priests who molest minors should no longer be referred to as 'pedophiles.' The term preferred by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's permanent observer to the U.N., is 'ephebophile.' "Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90 percent belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17,” said Tomasi. Pedophilia specifically refers to the 'love' of the prepubescent, whereas an ephebophile, by contrast, is attracted to minors who have reached puberty. So how many ephebophiles can dance on the head of a pin?
There is something to be said for exactitude of meaning. A recent article in Scientific American breaks down the different stages of 'erotic age orientation' or sexual attraction based on age. While pedophilia has become an umbrella term for sexual interest in children, such use is not, strictly speaking, accurate. Apart from pedophiles and ephebophiles, there are also infantophiles, hebephiles, teleiophiles, and gerontophiles. Infantophilia should be obvious if horrifying. Hebephile, a term that has recently been proposed as a new diagnostic classification, refers specifically to a sexual attraction to children at the 'cusp of puberty' (11-14 years old). Teliophiles are attracted to adults over the age of 17, and a gerontophile exhibits attraction for the elderly. Got it now?
In addition to the pedophilia re-branding effort, Archbishop Tomasi also wagged his finger at other churches and religions. He said, "As the Catholic church has been busy cleaning its own house, it would be good if other institutions and authorities, where the major part of abuses are reported, could do the same and inform the media about it." Tomasi also cited research showing that only 1.5 to 5 percent of Catholic clergy were involved in the sexual abuse of children. The U.S. Catholic Church has paid out more than $2 billion to the victim's of the Church's pedophiles, hebephiles, and ephebophiles.
Leaders of other churches and religions have not embraced the Vatican's efforts. For example, Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, head of the New York Board of Rabbis, said: "Comparative tragedy is a dangerous path on which to travel. All of us need to look within our own communities. Child abuse is sinful and shameful and we must expel them immediately from our midst." Now that we've got our new vocabulary in place, shall we continue to just call it 'wrong?'
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Comments
I've got a better idea.
I've got a term that better sums up the problem, and is certainly applicable.
Try this one on; it just rolls off the tongue.
"Rapist".
Vatican's Re-branding Sexual Abuse
My best advice to Msgr. Tomasi: When you are in a hole, STOP DIGGING!
Professionally as a clinical psychologist, I have often speculated that perhaps one of the reasons that Catholic priest 'ephebophiles' rape and sodomize, are sexually attracted to, children at the 'cusp of puberty,' is because it is at this stage where most priests' sexual development had been stunted or truncated. Most priests I have encountered did not have what most men experienced as normative sexual behavior in their early and late adolescents. In other words, these priest prey on children for whom they have repressed sexual interest dating to their own (pre-) adolescence before healthy adult sexuality developed.
The choice of mostly male victims by priest abusers may be connected more to what is available to adult males living a celibate life style. And, the predominant choice of male victims may be an artifact of an all-male Catholic priesthood being more attractive to men with homosexual proclivities than heterosexual.
It is my clinical experience that most of the credibly accused priests I have encountered began their religious and clerical training at about the age of 11-14 in what was then called 'the minor seminary' thirty, forty and fifty years ago when most of the priest abusers entered the clerical life.
We should not ignore the possibility that there is a darker reason for priests predation on (pre-) adolescents. The vast majority of sexual abusers were themselves abused. Maybe sexual predator priests are just re-enacting their own abuse they experienced as a child?
It would be more helpful, and more Christian I might add, if Archbishop Tomasi, instead of engaging in hysterical and defensive blame-shifting, would commit all of the resources of the church to investigate, research and study thoroughly, and objectively, the root causes and effects of sexual predation on children, wherever it is found in the culture.
Rabbi Potasnik is right: We should just call it 'wrong?' I'm sure Tomasi's rabbi, Jesus, would heartily concur.
Jim Jenkins
What does Msgr Tomasi hope to accomplish?
I've read the article twice now, and I don't understand one fundamental thing: What does the vatican aim to gain from this maneuver? As the author has pointed out, it's still quite obviously wrong no matter how old the child is. Is it some desperate ploy to insinuate that in Europe, where the age of consent for the most part is 16, the act is somehow less "wrong?" Or that the child is awakening to their own sexual feelings, and therefore might be willing although still unable to be responsible for their own choices? What is Msgr Tomasi trying to achieve with this declaration, since it seems too obvious to be simple misdirection - right?