Catholic Cardinal Says Pedophiles Who Had Been Molested as Children Shouldn’t be Criminally Prosecuted for Their Adult Pedophilia

BBC News reports:

The Catholic Archbishop of Durban, Wilfrid Fox Napier, has described paedophilia as a psychological “illness, not a criminal condition”.

The South African cardinal told the BBC that people who were themselves abused as children and then abused others needed to be examined by doctors….

Cardinal Napier referred to paedophilia as “a psychological condition, a disorder”.

“What do you do with disorders? You’ve got to try and put them right.

“If I — as a normal being — choose to break the law, knowing that I’m breaking the law, then I think I need to be punished.”

He said he knew at least two priests, who became paedophiles after themselves being abused as children.

“Now don’t tell me that those people are criminally responsible like somebody who chooses to do something like that. I don’t think you can really take the position and say that person deserves to be punished. He was himself damaged.” …

Michael Walsh, who has written a biography of late Pope John Paul II, said Cardinal Napier’s remarks were similar to the position once taken by the Catholic Church in the UK and the US.

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