In another controversial interview, Pope Francis said that Vatican research has found that 2% of priests–including bishops and cardinals–are pedophiles. That comes to 1 in 50 of the 414,000 priests. He also said that he planned to find a “solution” for priestly celibacy, noting as Protestants have always said, that the requirement was not instituted for the first 900 years of Christendom.
From BBC News – Pope Francis: ‘About 2%’ of Catholic clergy paedophiles:
In the interview, Pope Francis was quoted as saying that the 2% estimate came from advisers. It would represent around 8,000 priests out of a global number of about 414,000.
While the incidence of paedophilia as a psychiatric disorder in the general population is not accurately known, some estimates have put it at less than five percent.
“Among the 2% who are paedophiles are priests, bishops and cardinals. Others, more numerous, know but keep quiet. They punish without giving the reason,” Pope Francis was quoted as saying.
“I find this state of affairs intolerable,” he went on. . . .
Asked in the same La Repubblica interview about the celibacy rule for priests, Pope Francis recalled that it was adopted 900 years after the death of Jesus Christ and pointed out that the Eastern Catholic Church allows its priests to marry.
“The problem certainly exists but it is not on a large scale. It will need time but the solutions are there and I will find them.”
As in other interviews he has done in which he has said controversial things, the Pope’s Vatican minders are disputing the accuracy of the interview, particularly the part about the cardinals. (The journalist, the 90-year-old leftst Eugenio Scalfari, reportedly does not take notes or use recordings for his interviews but rather reconstructs them from memory.)
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