Here's my comment:
Actually, the only reason we are “having this conversation” and the only reason this “code of silence” has been broken now and on Guam is because of a few people who actually cared enough to reach out and assist the victims at great personal cost and risk to themselves, and not because of people who sit around writing bills and columns about it. And by the way, Apuron’s sexual molestation of these minors does not qualify as pedophilia, but Ephebophilia. Mr. Pesch may want to look that up.
I looked it up. Ephebophilia is attraction to post-pubescent youth; pedophilia, to children. Mr. Quintanilla, for one, was 12, hardly post-pubescent? Is pedophilia really the incorrect term?
ReplyDeleteSociety draws a line between childhood and adult hood at an arbitrary age of 18. However, nature draws a biological line at the point where males and females become capable of sexual reproduction - otherwise called “puberty”: 11-12 for girls and 12-13 for boys.
DeletePedophilia is a sexual attraction to males and females who have not reached the age of puberty. Ephebophilia is a sexual attraction to males and or females who have. Biologically they are adults.
Three of Apuron’s living victims have stated their ages at the time they were molested by him as 12, 13, and 15. The age of Mrs. Concepcion’s son at the time he was molested is not known, but it is possible that he could have been younger.
Per the ages of Apuron’s living victims, Apuron falls into the category of the vast majority of clergy who have been accused of sexual molestation.
The 2002 John Jay College of Criminal Justice Study into the clergy child abuse phenomenon in the U.S. Catholic Church revealed that most of the cases of abuse did not involve pedophilia, children who had not reached puberty, but ephebophiia, children who had.
Because of our reluctance to address a “protected” issue, we have failed to identify the source of the problem - and inadvertently (maybe not) permitted some to be “champions” for our cause who not only should not be, but contribute to the problem.
I choose to not go farther than this at this point, other than to say when Benedict XVI first became pope, his first order of business was to cleanse the seminaries of it.
According to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, pedophilia is "intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children (generally age 13 years or younger)." Ephebophilia is not a diagnostic category in the DSM.
ReplyDeleteMrs. Concepcion said in a news report her son was even younger than 12 when he was abused. Is pedophilia a legally recognized term while ephebophilia is not?
You are correct, ephebophilia or hebophilia are terms not included in the DSM. Nevertheless, because the John Jay College of Criminal Justice Study was commissioned to get to the bottom of the clergy sex abuse scandal, the investigators did not limit themselves to terms deemed politically correct by a psychiatric association. Their intent was to "find the criminal" and name him.
DeleteSadly, despite the most comprehensive study ever completed on the matter, the findings were mostly shelved by the U.S. Bishops who did not want to confront the real problem. The had a vested interest in continuing to characterize the problem as pedophilia. I will let readers draw their own conclusion...for now. Here's the link to the study:
http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/child-and-youth-protection/upload/The-Nature-and-Scope-of-Sexual-Abuse-of-Minors-by-Catholic-Priests-and-Deacons-in-the-United-States-1950-2002.pdf