Childhood

"Pedophiles will remain hidden if they continue to be hated and feared, which would impede efforts to better understand this sexual orientation and thereby prevent child sexual exploitation."

"Catholic kids are stupid; they don't know how to handle a pedophile priest. Here's what you do: First of all, you don't get all scared and do whatever he tells you. Who wants to get sucked off by a forty-three-year-old clergyman with beard stubble? Not me. Instead, what you do is kick him in the nuts. You kick him squarely in the nuts, and you get the fuck out of there as fast as you can, and you go tell somebody right away; you tell as many grown-up people as you can––one of them is bound to believe you. That's what you do. You don't wait thirty years. You kick the priest in the nuts and say, "Fuck you, Father, I don't do that shit"… And you're out the door."

"To excuse pedophiliac assaults in general, or to make light of the horrific experiences of others, was a thousand miles from my intention."

"As soon as we would give the name of a defendant … (rabbis and others) would engage this community in a relentless search for the victims...And they're very, very good at identifying the victims. And then the victims would be intimidated and threatened, and the case would fall apart."

"Many (abusers) appear to use grooming tactics to entice children into complying with the abuse, and the abuse occurs in the home of the alleged abuser or victim."

"The committee is gravely concerned that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address cases of child sexual abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse by, and the impunity of, the perpetrators. Due to a code of silence imposed on all members of the clergy under penalty of excommunication, cases of child sexual abuse have hardly ever been reported to the law enforcement authorities in the countries where such crimes occurred."

"Fifty three per cent children in India face sexual abuse – both boys and girls – but we still feel uncomfortable talking about it. We are still hypocrites when it comes to issues like child abuse, sex or for that matter homosexuality. It is high time that we brought the issue from under the carpet."

"[Pedophiles must be] excluded from any possibility of access to young people, because we know this is an illness where free will does not work. We must protect these people against themselves."

"One cannot choose to not be a pedophile, but one can choose to not be a child molester."

"This investigation has identified some extremely dangerous child sexual offenders who believed paying for children to be abused to order was something they could get away with. Being thousands of miles away makes no difference to their guilt. In my mind they are just as responsible for the abuse of these children as the contact abusers overseas. Protecting the victims of abuse is our priority and that means attacking every link in the chain, from dismantling the organised groups who are motivated by profit through to targeting their customers."

"A criminal and immoral act which never can be considered normal or socially acceptable behavior."

"Here I would like to pause to acknowledge the shame which we have all felt as a result of the sexual abuse of minors by some clergy and religious in this country. I am deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the victims have endured and I assure them that, as their pastor, I too share in their suffering. ... Victims should receive compassion and care, and those responsible for these evils must be brought to justice. These misdeeds, which constitute so grave a betrayal of trust, deserve unequivocal condemnation. I ask all of you to support and assist your bishops, and to work together with them in combating this evil. It is an urgent priority to promote a safer and more wholesome environment, especially for young people."

"The science suggests that [pedophiles] are people who, through no fault of their own, were born with a sex drive that they must continuously resist, without exception, throughout their entire lives. Little if any assistance is ever available for them."

"If I were to see the case of a boy aged ten or eleven who's intensely erotically attracted toward a man in his twenties or thirties, if the relationship is totally mutual, and the bonding is genuinely totally mutual … then I would not call it pathological in any way."

"NAMBLA condemns sexual abuse and all forms of coercion. We insists there is a distinction between coercive and consesual sex. Laws that focus only on the age of the participants fail to capture that distinction, for they ignore the quality of the relationship. Differences in age do not preclude mutual, loving interaction between persons any more than differences in race or class. Some existing laws criminalize sexual relationships that are loving and fully consensual. These laws are ill-conceived and morally repugnant. As is our right, we advocate their repeal."

"My heart goes out to the victims of this terrible injustice, an injustice compounded by the fact that they had to suffer in silence for so long.""

"No one [in the Vatican] thinks the sexual abuse of kids is unique to the States, but they do think that the reporting on it is uniquely American, fueled by anti-Catholicism and shyster lawyers hustling to tap the deep pockets of the church. And that thinking is tied to the larger perception about American culture, which is that there is a hysteria when it comes to anything sexual, and an incomprehension of the Catholic Church. What that means is that Vatican officials are slower to make the kinds of public statements that most American Catholics want, and when they do make them they are tentative and halfhearted. It's not that they don't feel bad for the victims, but they think the clamor for them to apologize is fed by other factors that they don't want to capitulate to."

"Dark web child sex offenders — some of whom are the very worst offenders — cannot hide from law enforcement. They're not as cloaked as they think they are, they're not as safe as they think they are."

"They are often unable to consult mental health professionals (because of mandatory reporting rules); their families will often disown rather than support them; and despite the openness of the Internet, there are few options for coming out and joining communities of other pedophiles for mutual support."

"At the time the Archdiocese took out insurance in 1987, Archbishop Kevin McNamara, Archbishop Dermot Ryan and Archbishop John Charles McQuaid had had, between them, available information on complaints against at least 17 priests operating under the aegis of the Dublin Archdiocese. The taking out of insurance was an act proving knowledge of child sexual abuse as a potential major cost to the Archdiocese and is inconsistent with the view that Archdiocesan officials were still "on a learning curve‟ at a much later date, or were lacking in an appreciation of the phenomenon of clerical child sex abuse."

"I think of those in religious orders and some of the clergy in Dublin who have to face these facts from their past, which instinctively and quite naturally they’d rather not look at. That takes courage, and also we shouldn’t forget that this account today will also overshadow all of the good that they also did."

"Between the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic (that is, demoniac); and these chosen creatures I propose to designate as "nymphets"."

"Children cannot consent to sexual activity with adults."

"Twenty detectives have been assigned to the so-called 'God Squad' since 2002. But despite evidence that priests were transferred to other parishes, where they continued to abuse, and despite public admissions by senior figures that not all relevant information was passed to the civil authorities, no charges will be laid against senior members of the church.""

"A girl three years and one day old is betrothed by intercourse. "A girl three years old may be betrothed through an act of sexual intercourse," the words of R. Meir. And sages say, "Three years and one day old.""

"The problem was largely the result of poor seminary training and insufficient emotional support for men ordained in the 1940s and 1950s"

"Ancestral humans behaved like this. Later, when we developed the family system, the use of sex for this sort of purpose became more limited, mainly occurring within families. A lot of the things we see, like pedophilia and homosexuality, may be leftovers that some now consider unacceptable in our particular society."

"[T]his sexual attraction has the potential to cause significant harm to others and is also not in the best interests of the individual."

"It's difficult. [My female protagonists] immediately become the subjects of rorikon gokko (play toy for Lolita Complex males). In a sense, if we want to depict someone who is affirmative to us, we have no choice but to make them as lovely as possible. But now, there are too many people who shamelessly depict [such protagonists] as if they just want [such girls] as pets, and things are escalating more and more."

"Having encountered thousands of cases, it is my experience that the pedophiles who do go on to become actual child molesters do so when they feel the most desperate. Yet, much of what society does has been to increase rather than decrease their desperation."

"Despite knowing his history of abusing children, the Norbertine religious order moved Smyth to different dioceses where he abused more children."

"A simple child, That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death?"

": Happy child! the cradle is still to thee a vast space; but when thou art a man the boundless world will be too small for thee."

"Sweet childish days, that were as long As twenty days are now."

"The sweetest roamer is a boy's young heart."

"A little child born yesterday A thing on mother's milk and kisses fed."

"Glücklicher Säugling! dir ist ein unendlicher Raum noch die Wiege, Werde Mann, und dir wird eng die unendliche Welt."

"It is very nice to think The world is full of meat and drink With little children saying grace In every Christian kind of place."

"The child is father of the man."

"Ut quisque suum vult esse, ita est."

"Thy children like olive plants round about thy table."

"There is nothing more to say, They have all gone away From the house on the hill."

": For he who has acquired the habit of lying or deceiving his father, will do the same with less remorse to others. I believe that it is better to bind your children to you by a feeling of respect, and by gentleness, than by fear."

": As each one wishes his children to be, so they are."

": Childhood is the sleep of reason."

"Oh, for boyhood's time of June, Crowding years in one brief moon, When all things I heard or saw, Me, their master, waited for."

"But still I dream that somewhere there must be The spirit of a child that waits for me."

": Dare to err and to dream. Deep meaning often lies in childish plays."

"Wage du zu irren und zu träumen. Hoher Sinn liegt oft im kind'schen Spiel."

"Nam qui mentiri, aut fallere insuerit patrem, aut Audebit: tanto magis audebit cæteros. Pudore et liberalitate liberos Retinere satius esse credo, quam metu."