The Pulpit of Ignorance: Pedophilia and Cardinal Napier

Facebook was abuzz about a week ago after a certain Cardinal Napier, from the Catholic Church of South Africa, articulated that pedophilia is not, as seen from the above picture, a criminal condition but rather a mental illness. Many people were, from the Facebook posts I saw, seething with heavenly indignation after hearing such moronic and obtuse insinuations. And rightly so, such medieval perspective are intolerable and expletive inducing in a contemporary 21st century milieu simply because most nations that believe in the rights of the children actually have enacted laws that criminalize having sexual intercourse, consensual or otherwise, with persons who are at in most countries below 18 years old.

From the way Cardinal Napier stated his words, I am just wondering whether he seems to imply that since it is "not" in his view a criminal offense, that such acts be nevertheless not condemned? And by extension, should then be left unpunished?

Assuming, arguendo, that indeed pedophilia is not a criminal offense, hence not a criminal condition, say in South Africa (maybe because they do not have criminal statutes punishing sexual intercourse with children below 18 years old), then he cannot suffuse to say that it is not A criminal offense and condition in other countries, lest of all most countries. Of course, I am assuming here that what Cardinal Napier actually meant was that pedophilia is even considered NORMAL in ALL countries. Most countries in fact consider sex with a certain group of people below a certain age, in most cases, as stated beforehand, below 18 years old. Except probably for some Muslim countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, where children as young as 8 can be legally married (hence in these countries it is NOT a criminal "condition" to actually copulate with a, say 9 year old, as long as of course the parties are married as defined by their tribal and religious tradition), most countries actually consider it a criminal condition.

Psychologists and psychiatrists are one in saying that although it is in fact a mental illness, most civilized people's also consider it a criminal condition in that it infringes on the rights of the child to adequately develop a normal self-concept and most of all, children have yet to develop a mature decision making perspective to adequately consent to sexual intercourse, especially since almost all sexual intercourse with children involves violence, fraud, intimidation, threat and abuse of trust and confidence of the one initiating the sex. This is what civilized peoples are trying to protect, the innocence of those of our society who have yet mastered the requisite skills to fend for what is best for them.

Such tragedy that such prince of the church would say something so uneducated and callous. Much like Benedict XVI's pronouncements in the early part of his papacy that the use of condoms actually SPREAD HIV-AIDS. The problem with the Catholic Church is that it keeps on making pronouncements in realms where it has no expertise to begin with.