No sooner was the document on gays in the priesthood released than the critics went mad. What we could no longer tolerate was the perpetuation of the myth that there has been a "pedophilia" crisis in the Catholic Church, and that is why we issued the following news release:

"For 2000 years, the Catholic Church has been the subject of countless lies, especially on issues that touch on sexuality. Today, the biggest lie is that the Church suffers from a 'pedophilia' problem. And now that the Vatican has released its document on homosexuals in the priesthood, look for the lie to grow like a cancer.

"The findings of the National Review Board, appointed by the bishops to gather data on the problem of priestly sexual molestation, and the John Jay Report on this subject, conclusively said that most of the victims (81 percent) were male, and most of them were postpubescent. The National Review Board didn't mince words: 'we must call attention to the homosexual behavior that characterized the vast majority of cases of abuse observed in recent decades.'

"Yet in the past week, Voice of the Faithful and Call to Action (both Catholic dissident groups) have used terms like 'pedophilia' and 'child abuse' to describe the problem, respectively. This lie has deep roots: a Lexis-Nexis search linking 'pedophilia scandal' and 'pedophile scandal' with 'Catholic Church' (for all available dates in the U.S.) yields a total of 733 stories; linking 'homosexual scandal' and 'gay scandal' with 'Catholic Church' yields a grand total of 12 hits.

"Here's another lie. On the website beliefnet.com, there is an article by an anonymous priest that accuses the Vatican document of saying that 'gay men per se are incapable of relating to men and women.' The priest concludes that this is 'one of the most offensive things I have ever read in any church document about homosexuals.' But it's not true. The document clearly refers to 'those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called 'gay culture,' and not to gays per se as having this difficulty.

"Progress cannot be made unless we deal squarely with the facts. And the fact is that we've had a homosexual crisis in the priesthood all along."

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