15th December 2009: Today, national child protection charity the Lucy Faithfull
Foundation has responded to the custodial sentences imposed upon Vanessa George
and Angela Allen by calling for greater acknowledgment of the presence of female sex
offenders in today’s society.

http://www.lucyfaithfull.org.uk/media/27684/child%20protection%20charity%20calls%20for%20recognition%20of%20scale%20of%20female%20sexual%20offending.pdf

The RC Church has a lot to do to restore trust in their clergy, whether they can while their victims are still alive remains to be seen.

The practice itself could also be seen as lust, which in RC parlance is a deadly sin, and answerable for, but is it a mental illness?

Its one thing understanding that it might be, and such things are beyond control of the ‘sufferer’, but tolerating it is another matter.

Its rather like the current statement uttered over here over too lenient sentences where ‘a hard childhood’ is blamed for criminal activity and allowances made.

Below link is an informative one page read. The Catholic Church should have read this many, many years ago, as under the ‘Symptoms’ paragraph in one sentence note: “Potential pedophiles may volunteer their services to athletic teams, Scout troops, or religious or civic organizations that serve youth.” There have been scandals over here with those found working with the Boy Scouts, also.

I agree with you they should be put away from society permanently. We do execute those who actually kill the child. Then some states had execution for those who committed the abuse without killing the victim; but the Supreme Court over turned their laws in a case brought before it in the past year.

It does no good for citizens to take the law into their own hands even if they disagree and think it is too lenient in some cases. That case over here many years ago a mother shot and killed the man who was sexually abusing her daughter and she got charged and sentenced to 4 years in prison. The Judge had no choice but to put her in prison and used the most lenient sentence he could.

http://www.minddisorders.com/Ob-Ps/Pedophilia.html

Is it a mental illness, or just a perversion from the norm. Is amorality or even immorality beyond self control or just a free choice that when caught becomes ‘mental illness’?
If it is a real illness then shouldn’t such people , when caught, be permanently detained away from children?

A couple of years ago on TV a young man in his 20s was interviewed, who was a paedo and killed one of his numerous victims, was sitting on death row and when interviewed said he had waived all his appeals as he knew if he got out of prison he would go after children again. He had started victimizing children in his teens.