Interview with Lorenzo Bertocchi, a scholar of the history of Christianity Antonio Gaspari ROME, Monday, May 17, 2010 ( ZENIT.org) .- How many cases of child abuse were reported to ' interior of the Catholic Church? And how are those occurring in society? Those who promote a culture of pedophilia? And how did this culture also contaminate parts of the Catholic Church?
To answer these questions as to other on such a delicate and thorny Francis Agnoli, Introvigne, Julie Guzzo, Luca Volonte Bertocchi and Lorenzo have just published the essay " Survey pedophilia in the Church" (published by Faith & Culture)
To explore the theme in question, ZENIT interviewed one of the authors, Lawrence Bertocchi, a scholar of the history of Christianity, writing for the blog and Personal Freedom.
How many cases of pedophilia in the Church?
Bertocchi: If there was only one case is already clear that it would too much within the Church who is proved to have very clear ideas in this regard it is Benedict XVI. In those circumstances I think it is helpful to understand the dimensions of the phenomenon and the first part of the book ("Survey on pedophilia in the Church" - Ed Faith and Culture) Introvigne helps us to understand the problem. In the U.S., for example, according to authoritative academic surveys, from 1950 to 2002 priests accused of pedophilia are actually 958 on over 109,000 priests, but the sentences are drastically reduced to a number slightly less than 100.
Father Lombardi, in his statement of 10 March, cited the case of Austria where, in the same period of time, the charges found e riconducibili alla Chiesa ammontano a 17, mentre per altri ambienti si sale a 510. Questi numeri possono dire molto o nulla, tuttavia mostrano senz’altro una tendenza che permette di sgonfiare l’ipotesi che per la Chiesa Cattolica vorrebbe fare “di tutta l’erba un fascio”.
Meriterebbe poi un discorso a parte il tema delle false accuse, come ad esempio i casi di don Giorgio Covoni, di due suore bergamasche, di padre Kinsella e suor Nora Wall in Irlanda, tutti accusati di abusi e poi assolti. Questi fatti sono importanti perché testimoniano le dinamiche non sempre chiare in cui prende corpo l’accusa.
E nella società?
Bertocchi: Leggendo i dati sembra che la piaga pedofilia sia veramente diffusa e impressionante. In un rapporto dell’OMS - Global Estimates of Health Consequences due to Violence Against Children (Ginevra, Organizzazione Mondiale della Sanità, 2006) - si indica ad esempio che per il 2002 nel mondo si potevano stimare circa 150 milioni di bambine e 73 milioni di bambini minorenni costretti in diverse forme di abuso nell’ambito sessuale.
Un rapporto ONU, presentato all’Assemblea generale il 21 luglio 2009, focalizza, invece, l’attenzione sulla situazione nel web: su scala mondiale il numero di siti on-line di natura pedo-pornografica cresce a ritmi vertiginosi, ad esempio se nel 2001 erano 261.653, nel 2004 se ne recensivano ben 480.000, tendenza che viene confermata anche consultando Association's annual reports Meter Don Di Noto. This figure
Internet seems paradigmatic view of the role now assumed by the web in our society. It takes consistency so the idea that the type of conduct for media campaign to pass the Catholic Church as the place par excellence of pedophilia contains a good deal of injury.
What culture promotes pedophilia?
Bertocchi: At the heart of the problem is that "culture of sex that, especially since the so-called '68, promoted a revolution aimed at" abolishing the taboo. " The spread of pornography, that somehow the flag represents of this revolution is there for all to see. The prevailing mentality now is that underlying the practice of sexual unions of all kinds, the result of a thought that has its roots in De Sade, Freud, Fromm, Reich, Marcuse, and so on., What we might call the exaltation of the prophets 'orgasm.
In our book is Francis Agnoli leading examples of how this culture is still alive and the case is representative of the Dutch party pro-pedophile recently wound up by a lack of signatures and not for legal prohibition. In the root of the sexual revolution of those years set the goal of attacking any kind of authority, from that of God, and unfortunately, this has also left a mark within the Church.
How, when and why the culture in favor of pedophilia has entered the seminary and the Church?
Bertocchi: A claim can provide the right the letter Benedict XVI wrote to the Catholics of Ireland where, in addition to addressing the problem of pedophilia cases in the Irish clergy, the Holy Father seeks the roots of the phenomenon. In his argument he refers to the fact that "the program of renewal proposed by Vatican II was sometimes misunderstood." Surely there is an allusion to the period of the 60s and 70s of last century when the so-called "openness to the world" led la Chiesa ad un indebolimento della fede e ad una progressiva secolarizzazione.
L’attacco sociale condotto al principio di autorità, famoso lo slogan “vietato vietare”, si è insinuato nella Chiesa e così nei seminari dove una certa interpretazione ha finito per confondere la disciplina con il dialogo; il risultato è stato una maglia più larga nella selezione dei candidati al sacerdozio.
Il Card. Caffarra a tal proposito ha precisato: “che la Chiesa si dia dei criteri per discernere chi ammettere e chi non ammettere al sacerdozio è un diritto che nessuno può ragionevolmente negarle” (“La Verità chiede di essere rivelata” – Rizzoli 2009). Oggi più che mai questo diritto va esercitato. Chi pensasse però che il problema è il celibato dei preti dovrebbe quantomeno spiegare come mai nel clero protestante, che può sposarsi, vi siano casi di abusi sessuali non inferiori a quelli del clero cattolico.
Perché la pedofilia organizzata e praticata con il turismo sessuale non fa rumore e non si riesce a fermare?
Bertocchi: Una indagine dell’ECPAT ha rilevato che nel mondo circa 80 milioni di turisti all’anno si muovano in cerca di un’offerta sessuale. Secondo Intervita – Onlus italiana – sarebbero 10 milioni i minori coinvolti in questo mercato planetario che muove un giro d’affari stimato in 12 miliardi di dollari.
L’indagine University of Parma ECPAT designed to indicate the identikit of the "tourist type" which is certainly not a monster in 90% of the cases between 20 and 40 years old, of medium to high culture, good level of income, is very often married. The victims, however, are aged between 11 and 15 years in the case of girls and 13 to 18 for males.
This kind of "tourism" in many countries is considered a crime, but nonetheless it is an industry very robust, and precisely because they are "industry" makes it difficult to stop the phenomenon. But there is also a more fundamental reason that it investigated the "culture of sex" I mentioned earlier, there are political expressions that are standard-bearer of subjects born in the "culture" and move like a real lobby.
Where is the line between reality and false moralism?
Bertocchi: Most of our post-modern society now accepts or justifies the destruction of embryos because they do not consider them human beings, trade in eggs and sperm as if they were biscuits, theorize masculinity and femininity as cultural labels simple, spreading the pornography as a form of entertainment and would make assisted dying a noble choice.
By a kind of perversion of the truth, today we are faced with a confusion ethics of such proportions that the reality is lost in subjectivism. So indeed we see that the condemnation of the immoral behavior of men comes from the same cultural environment that is ready to accept the arbitrariness of the individual. The reasons are ideological, but also an economic one as those studies show that American lawyers have made billions of dollars through the use of the charge of reckless child abuse.
How to evaluate the line of zero tolerance adopted by Pope Benedict XVI?
Bertocchi: The determination of the Holy Father seems to want to make clear example, shows a way of transparency not only applies to the Church, but it should be for everyone sectors of society that have or have had to do with this sad phenomenon.
In the meditations for the Via Crucis of 2005, the then Cardinal Ratzinger clearly showed the need to "make clean" within the Church, but will not executioner, but a desire for true justice to shine even more than the Bride of Christ "a , holy, catholic and apostolic. "
This "style" you can find around the teaching of Benedict XVI, his recipe purification moves to 360 °: the hermeneutics of continuity, the expansion of rationality, the example of the Curé d'Ars for 'Year of the Priest, attention to the liturgy, zero tolerance against pedophilia scandal, and so on. The problem is to read his teachings, taking only what is closest to their ideas, failing to consider fully.
How the Catholic Church will overcome the shock and distrust so widely diffused among the people?
Bertocchi: All Catholics are called to return to the fundamentals of faith to be authentic witnesses of the Risen Lord, or, as Luke says Williams, "clearly must be the conscience of the company of Christ" that accompanies us every day. In his recent apostolic visit to Fatima, the Holy Father said that the Church Cases suffering from "internal".
certainly made reference to the wounds caused by sexual abuse, but I also believe the need for doctrinal clarity essential for a return to basics. Today, unfortunately, this clearly is not obvious and this confuses people.
I agree with the conclusions then that indicates the Angels in the essay: prayer, recovery of the sense of the supernatural, effective exercise of the government of the Church, adding that the recovery of a deep sense of sin. "The real enemy to be feared and fought is sin, the spiritual evil, which sometimes, unfortunately, also infects members of the Church" Benedict XVI said after the Regina Caeli on May 16.
Disgraziatamente in molta catechesi il tema “peccato” è sempre meno di moda, travolto da tanta psicologia e tanta sociologia. Riconoscersi peccatori però è la via per accogliere la Misericordia di Dio. Carità nella Verità, non c’è altro modo per donare speranza agli uomini del nostro tempo.
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