Celibacy is not root of child abuse scandal

MARRIAGE is not a natural law and Jim Carson (Letters, 13 March) is surely not insinuating that all unmarried people are potential child sex abusers.

Therefore, to equate celibacy to child sexual abuse is very wrong; there is absolutely no evidence that the priests responsible for this type of abuse were not sexually active either at the time of their crimes or before they entered the Catholic Church.

The perpetrators were in most cases known within their local confines and one can only recoil at the active collusion that must have been taking place.

Paedophiles have their own channels of communication and it is more probable that the opportunities for abuse were a stronger attraction than the call of faith.

The attitude of the Church to this depravity is not credible and to suggest devils and their exorcism as a solution shows a level of mentality and concern that says little for the Christian faith.

JIMMY WILSON

John Street

Dalbeattie, Galloway

The logic that celibacy within the Catholic Church needs to be examined in the light of the current abuse crisis is flawed in that it assumes that the Church's problems with paedophilia result from its celibacy rules. Paedophilia is not a normal alternative to heterosexual or homosexual adult sex and should not be confused in this respect.

The difficulty facing the Catholic Church is not one of errant priests but that it has fostered conditions which have attracted paedophiles into the priesthood. The consequences of this are only now beginning to catch up with it.

One has to ask why this has been allowed. The commonly given response is that the Church has been anxious to protect its reputation, but a more sinister question hangs unasked over this process.

The investigation into the Metropolitan Police's handling of the Stephen Lawrence murder identified a culture of institutional racism in the force and illustrated that any organisational culture, for good or bad, can exist only with the consent and connivance of its hierarchy.

To what extent and nature is the Church's own hierarchy implicated in its institutionalised paedophilia?

A further issue is the extent to which paedophilia should now be seen as a problem across the global Church. I suspect that we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

M DUNCAN

Craigie Road

Perth