The Vatican wants the world to know that it need not worry about the sexual abuse that has rocked the Catholic Church over the last few years.

In a statement read by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the United Nations, Vatican officials wanted the world to understand these enlightening facts.

• Only 1.5% to 5% of the Catholic clergy were involved in child abuse.
• The problems with clerical sex abuse in other churches are just as bad, if not worse.
• Sex abuse is more likely to be committed by family members, babysitters, friends, relatives or neighbors and male children than a priest.
• It is not accurate to describe the sex abuse problems in the Catholic Church as pedophilia. Ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males, is a better description.

How is that for facing responsibility head on? This is how I understand the statement.

It is only 5% of the priests who committed the wrongs, and they are not pedophiles because all they wanted was sex with adolescent boys. Besides, the real pedophiles are in other churches, your neighborhood or your family. Now say three Hail Marys and pray that it all goes away.

Here is Tomasi in his own words.

“Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90% belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17.”

Just in case anyone thought that the Vatican was going to take full responsibility for the acts of its priests, here is the last part of the statement.

“As the Catholic Church has been busy cleaning its own house, it would be good if other institutions and authorities, where the major part of abuses are reported, could do the same and inform the media about it.”

Someone needs to point out to the great moral minds in the Vatican the part in the Bible about not throwing the first stone. Along the way, it also needs to be pointed out that a true confession means admitting responsibility and not pointing the finger.

At least the Vatican did not blame those sexy teenage boys for leading the priests astray.