Minor Attracted People?

Apparently this is the latest way in which we are supposed to talk about paedophiles. I find that totally and absolutely unacceptable. Such vile people do not deserve any sort of consideration. Their victims need every consideration.

Yes, the words apparently appeared in an official report from Police Scotland of all places. Scotland? Really, Scotland? Yes. 

Scotland was once, in the dim and distant past, a rather conservative Presbyterian sort of place. I know that has changed. The vast majority of people in the country of my ancestors no longer go to church but the laws there still reflect the past. Scots law is not the same as English law but was there ever a time when paedophilia was acceptable at a level where those guilty of it deserved the term "minor attracted people"? I think not.

This is New Year's Day now in Downunder and I was considering writing something a little less serious as it is also Sunday. Somehow I can't. Pope Benedict has died? Yes, I could say a thing or two about him. As a man he never appealed to me. I have often wondered how he had managed to achieve the position he did. Robert Harris's book "Conclave" perhaps gives some insight into the procedure for choosing the next Pope but it still leaves me wondering about how Pope Benedict achieved it...the simple majority put in place by his predecessor may have been to his benefit but he then changed the rules again - back to a two thirds majority. 

I wonder too what he would have made of "minor attracted people". His record on such matters was not good.

I know there are others who believe the same of the current pope. At the same time I find him a great deal more likeable. I also suspect he is a man who is greatly frustrated by the need to work within the confines of the, how shall I put it, politics of the church and the "cardinalcy". (I am not sure how to put the last. It may not be a word but the influence of the cardinals needs to be acknowledged.) I suspect Pope Francis is still more at home on a bus than in an armoured vehicle. A friend of mine, a priest, was doing research in the Vatican library for some time during the early papacy of Pope Francis. He went out into the streets of Rome one night with him and later told a group of us, "The children kept running up to him to tell him things, telling other children he was there. They obviously trust him."  I think children know instinctively. He would have no time for terms like "minor attracted people".

In recent years we have twisted language and avoided words in an attempt not to "insult" or "offend" or "diminish" others. Rather than state something outright we have attempted to "acknowledge" it in meaningless circuitous ways.  Being "visually impaired" rather than blind to reality and "hearing impaired" rather than deaf to words that describe actuality somehow don't have the same impact. 

We need to return to calling some things what they actually are. The words "minor attracted people" do not describe my feelings at all.