The number two head honcho in the Vatican hierarchy, the Pope’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, claims there is a link between homosexuality and child sex abuse. 

Cardinal Tarcisio just informed the world that the child rape scandal enveloping the Catholic church is all due to gay people. He went on to allege something that was debunked almost forty years ago, that homosexuality and pedophilia are linked. You have to love how AP handled that little chestnut:

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, made the comments during a news conference Monday in Chile, where one of the church’s highest-profile pedophile cases involves a priest having sex with young girls.
Oops.

“He has, in effect, blamed gay priests for the paedophile scandal that has engulfed the Church,” said human rights campaigner, Peter Tatchell, who is a spokesperson for the UK ‘Protest the Pope’ campaign.

“Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone is a blatant distorter of the truth and an outrageous homophobe. His vile smears against gay people bring shame and dishonour to the church,” added Mr Tatchell.

Most everyone knows that sexual orientation has nothing to do with rape, child or otherwise. It’s stunning that the number two in the Vatican would either outright lie to the world, or be so uneducated and ignorant as to be spreading forty-year old blood lies about an entire class of human beings (so much for infallibility).

But getting back to Cardinal Bertone. If he thinks the Catholic church’s child rape scandal is being caused by gays, and we now know that the Pope played a significant role in aiding and abetting the rape of those children, then is Cardinal Bertone suggesting that the Pope himself is gay?

Peter Tatchell’s petition to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, against the Pope’s State Visit to Britain in September, is on the Downing Street website.

It already has over 12,000 signatures:     Protest The Pope

Further information: Peter Tatchell 0207 403 1790