Earth Times
Posted : Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:06:59 GMT
By : dpa
Brussels – European Union leaders should slam the Vatican over its reaction to the paedophile accusations that have hit its clergy, members of the liberal-democratic grouping in the European Parliament (ALDE) said on Wednesday.
On Monday, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, said that “many psychologists and psychiatrists” had found a “relationship” between homosexuality and paedophilia.
Earlier in April, the pope’s personal preacher, Raniero Cantalamessa, had said that attacks against the Catholic Church over the sexual abuse scandals reminded him “of the most shameful aspects of anti-Semitism.”
“Declarations connecting paedophilia with homosexuality or blaming Jews for fomenting the crisis are extremely serious,” ALDE leader and former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt said in a statement.
The document was addressed to European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, EU president Herman Van Rompuy and to the head of the parliament, Jerzy Buzek.
“I am asking EU leaders to condemn these declarations in the most unambiguous terms and to make representations to the Catholic Church leadership to make clear that such declarations are wrong and undermine our European values,” Verhofstadt added.
Fellow ALDE deputies Sarah Ludford, Renate Weber, Sophie In’t Veld and Leonidas Donskis said they are planning an oral question to the commission and to the EU’s presidency at an upcoming debate in the European Parliament’s plenary.
The EU lawmakers would ask both institutions to issue an “unambiguous condemnation” and to “immediately express their concern officially to the authorities of the Holy See,” according to a draft text published by ALDE.