O Demônio Reside no Vaticano?

Texto do DailyWire aponta frases do famoso exorcista Gabriele Amorth (falecido em 2016) que costumava dizer que muitos cardeais adoravam ao demônio e que o demônio morava no Vaticano.

Agora com o amplo problema de casos homossexuais e pedófilos na Igreja Católica dos Estados Unidos, volta-se ao tema de apostasia de cardeais e mesmo adoração ao demônio.

O autor do texto ressalta, no entanto, que não se tem comprovado em estudos técnicos que pedofilia e casos gays sejam mais significantes entre padres. O autor, Michael Knowles, lembra, por exemplo que pesquisas mostram que casos de pedofilia em escolas são "100 vezes mais comuns" e que os casos de padres não são maiores do que os casos entre homens em geral.

Em todo caso, como os casos nos Estados Unidos envolveram muitos cardeais (que praticaram crimes ou silenciaram diante das evidências), lembra-se Amorth, e também lembra-se que os padres têm de mostrar solidez moral bem maior do que a média das pessoas.

Vejam parte do texto de Knowles:

The Devil Resides In The Vatican

ByMICHAEL J. KNOWLES

Before his death in 2016, the Vatican’s chief exorcist for over a quarter century, Father Gabriele Amorth, observed, “The Devil resides in the Vatican, and you can see the consequences.” We are seeing the consequences now from Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. all the way up to the College of Cardinals. Fr. Amorth described “cardinals who do not believe in Jesus and bishops who are linked to the demon.” 

The Pennsylvania grand jury report relates one instance of ritualized, satanic abuse of a young boy by four priests. There is some ambiguity regarding the precise nature of the incident owing to page-long redactions in the report. Another priest rinsed out the mouth of a nine-year-old boy he had sodomized with holy water. Yet another priest sodomized yet another boy with a seven-inch-long crucifix.

Fortunately most of the 301 priests listed in the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report are now dead, and many have been dead for decades. If so horrific and widespread a crime can be said to have a silver lining, it is that the vast majority of sexual assaults took place decades ago, during the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. Their incidence seems to have waned substantially in recent decades, which complicates justice in its own way: because so much time has passed, statutes of limitations will protect most abusive clerics still alive from prosecution.

On what can we blame the abuse? Some will blame priestly celibacy, or else the prevalence of homosexuality among the clergy. But the social scientific data, including a five-year study by John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, show no link between either celibacy or same-sex attraction and child abuse. Further, these studies show that sexual abuse of children is no more prevalent among priests than among the general male population.

Is there something wrong with the Catholic faith itself? According to findings of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, child abuse is no more prevalent in the Catholic Church than in any other religious setting. Companies that insure various Christian denominations affirm those findings. One executive explains, “We don't see vast difference in the incidence rate between one denomination and another. It’s pretty even across the denominations." In fact, sexual abuse appears to be far more prevalent outside of churches and synagogues. One study prepared for the U.S. Department of Educations found that “the physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests.”