Cardinal: Vatican needs to ‘face the problem of homosexuality in some clergy and religious’

A Venezuelan cardinal has correctly underscored that homosexuality is the main “problem” that should be discussed in this week’s Vatican summit on clerical sexual misconduct with minors.

In a statement released to the National Catholic Register, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino, the Archbishop of Caracas, stated that 80 percent of abuse victims were male. 

“ ... It is important to address also the problem of the sexual abuse itself, which is a sinful transgression of God’s law, and a failure to observe and to live the virtue of chastity consecrated to Our Lord, broken by immoral and criminal sexual activity,” the cardinal wrote.  

“It is necessary also to face the problem of homosexuality in most clergy and religious, as many studies show that about 80 percent of the abuse has affected male minors,” he continued.

“The large number of accusations of sexual abuse also indicates a decline or fall in necessary high standards of moral life in those individuals in both the clergy and consecrated life.”

The Venezuelan cardinal’s highlighting of homosexuality is in contrast with the words of Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, who refused to say that homosexuality was a cause of the clerical abuse of underage boys.

Because Chicago is pro-Democrats and very pro-homosexual. 

Another problem that Cardinal Urosa Savino highlighted as a root cause of clerical sexual abuse was “clericalism,” for which he gave a precise definition.  

“It is important to study and attack the problem of clericalism, understood here as the abuse of power by clergy and religious, which surrounds the sexual abuse of minors,” he wrote.