FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MAY 4, 2004

LES FEMMES CALLS BISHOPS TO LIVE IN REAL WORLD:
TARGET PRIESTS FOR PROGRAMS, NOT CHILDREN

Les Femmes, a group of Catholic activists in the Diocese of Arlington, called on Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde today to scuttle plans to implement classroom touching programs for young children. According to a recent ZENIT interview with Catholic psychiatrist Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons, “The most pressing need [in response to the clergy sex abuse problem] is not for programs for elementary school children but for human and spiritual formation programs for priests and seminarians….The John Jay report has revealed clearly that the crisis in the Church is not one of pedophilia, but of homosexuality.” Dr. Fitzgibbons, a principal contributor to the Catholic Medical Association's statement on Homosexuality and Hope, welcomed identification of the “basic root cause of the problem” and called for “new steps…to protect the Church, the priesthood and teenagers and children.”

In the wake of the child sex abuse scandals, the bishops of the United States have rushed to mandate classroom “safe environment” programs for children as young as four years old. These programs include content that would violate the bishops’ own Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People if a priest were to show it to a child.

“The bishops are in denial,” said Mary Ann Kreitzer, president of Les Femmes. “Instead of addressing the real problem, they are endangering our children by violating the latency period which is clearly forbidden by the papal document, Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality. Last week our new Victim Assistance Coordinator told a group of Catholic educators that children are ‘safer with homosexuals than with heterosexuals.’ Should we make homosexuality a requirement for the priesthood? Her statement is absurd! Over 80% of the victims were adolescent boys. It’s time for bishops and chancery officials to live in the real world. Until they address the link between dissent and disobedience and the sex abuse scandals, we will not see an end to the crisis in the Church. We call on our bishops to teach the faith. Real Catholics don’t rape children.”

Kreitzer affirmed Dr. Fitzgibbons’ summary of the situation. He said, “A serious worry of many parents and Catholic mental health professionals is that programs presently in use or proposed for children on this issue fail to protect the innocence and emotional health of children…they impose premature sex information on children that can damage them psychologically and rob them of their innocence; they teach in a public setting intimate matters that belong to the family; they usurp parents’ involvement and supervision of the program; and they fail to address the root cause of the crisis – homosexuality.”

For more about Catholic opposition to touching programs see the Les Femmes website at www.lesfemmes-thetruth.org, www.chaste-environment.org, and www.catholicparents.org/.

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