Mary Eberstadt's catchy article title:

"How Pedophilia Lost Its Cool"*

??!! Duh? :)

Like maybe when Jesus condemned it in Matthew 18:6 ?! :)

As McGill U. Professor Daniel Cere's quotes Him doing in his own article?

"Jesus talks of millstones and drowning in the sea,

"and ends with lamentations and somber curses...

"There are no warnings against stone - throwing, only dire threats of millstones..."


*In First Things magazine, December 2009. Professor Daniel Cere quotes from her in his own work excerpted below.



Snippets that follow are from this original source:


McGill University Associate Professor Daniel Cere's article Toward a Gospel witness: Confronting child abuse. In the May 2010 issue of the Homiletic & Pastoral Review.


"The Church's response to this evolving crisis has been, at the very least, disturbing.

"John Allen argues that we are in the midst of a major course correction with the papacy of Benedict XVI.

"On numerous fronts Benedict has pressed for a far more aggressive response to the abuse crisis than his predecessor."

The author goes on to tell us that Jesus' warm welcome in Matthew 18: 1 - 5 -- is followed by one of the harshest warnings to be found anywhere in the Gospels: Matthew 18:6 --

"Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea!"

Two things noted by are author are:

"First, Jesus' evangelical anger.

"No protection, no dialogue, no comforting words, are offered to those who abuse children.

"Jesus' response to those who are the cause of harm to children is uncharacteristically hard - hitting and unrelenting.

"Jesus talks of millstones and drowning in the sea, and ends with lamentations and somber curses.

"Second, Jesus exhorts the Church to turn in unconditional commitment toward the victim...

"When Jesus confronts harm to children, the gravity of his message seems to make even tough - talk of zero - tolerance and mandatory reporting pale in comparison.

"It may seem like a stunning blow to the child abuser, but it is delivered with no less an authority than that of Jesus himself.

"Matthew 18 calls for the Church to be a safe, secure place for children, but a highly unsafe place for abusers.

"To hear the Gospel is to know that sexual abuse is an intimate terrorism that strikes into the heart of the vulnerable..."