Explaining the priests

Andrew Sullivan writes a perceptive piece about the Catholic church pedophilia scandals and the perception within the priesthood that sexually abusing children was a a sin not a crime.

imagine you are a young gay Catholic teen coming into his sexuality and utterly convinced that it's vile and evil. . .
If this is the 1950s and 1960s, it's into the Church you go. You think it will cure you. In fact, it only makes you sicker . . .
They have never had a sexual or intimate relationship with any other human being. Sex for them is an abstraction, a sin, not an interaction with an equal. . .
They barely see these children as young and vulnerable human beings, incapable of true consent. Because they have never had a real sexual relationship, have never had to deal with the core issue of human equality and dignity in sex, they don't see the children as victims. Like the tortured gay man, Michael Jackson, they see them as friends. . .
In this self-protective environment, these priests do not even see the children as fellow humans. They remain like those solitary abstract images in their heads. So they cannot fully grasp the enormity of the crime they are committing and see it merely as another part of the vortex of their sexual sin.

Sullivan thinks the Pope is going to have to resign.