U.S. bishops’ report reaffirms link between clerical abuse scandals and homosexuality
A new report from the U.S. Bishops on the clergy sex abuse scandal highlights the importance of Vatican guidelines barring men with "deep-seated homosexual intendencies" from the priesthood. While the clerical sex abuse has often been described as pedophilia to denote prevalence of prepubescent victims, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops ' 2016 annual report , released last week, shows the clear link with the problem of homosexuality in the priesthood. According to the report, 78 percent of the victims are male . And when the age of the victim was determined, only 15 percent were under age 10. The report confirmed as well that this year’s findings were "similar to those reported for year 2015," where 81 percent of the victims were male . The 2013 report showed the number of male sex abuse victims at 80 percent . The numbers support direction from the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI and other high-ranking prelates that the admission o