Vatican tries to defuse anger over its claim scandals are tied to homosexuality, not celibacy

Vatican tamps down uproar over homosexual comment

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican is trying to defuse anger over remarks by the pope’s top aide that the priest sex abuse scandals are linked to homosexuality.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, told reporters in Chile this week that the clerical abuse scandals are linked not to the church’s celibacy requirement for priests but to homosexuality.

The French government on Wednesday condemned the association as unacceptable and gay rights groups contend the Vatican is trying to shirk responsibility for the abuse.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi indicated Bertone wasn’t making a psychological or medical assertion when he said psychologists have demonstrated no links between celibacy and pedophilia.

Lombardi cited statistics from a Vatican prosecutor that most cases involved abuse of adolescents and 60 percent involved homosexuality.