A prominent Roman Catholic bishop in Mexico blamed eroticism on television and internet pornography for child abuse by priests, in the latest incendiary comments on sex scandals in the church.
"With so much invasion of eroticism, sometimes it's not easy to stay celibate or to respect children," Bishop Felipe Arizmendi said during an annual meeting of Mexican bishops near Mexico City on Thursday (local time).
"If on television and on the internet and in so many media outlets there is pornography, it is very difficult to stay pure and chaste," said Bishop Arizmendi, an influential bishop from the colonial town of San Cristobal de las Casas in southern Mexico.
The timing of his comments comes as Pope Benedict turned 83 on Friday and the Catholic hierarchy has been rattled by revelations of sexual abuse scandals in parishes around the world.
It also follows several controversial comments made by Catholic clergy, including on Monday when the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, said priest paedophilia was linked to homosexuality not celibacy.
"Many psychologists and psychiatrists have shown that there is no link between celibacy and paedophilia, but many others have shown, I have recently been told, that there is a relationship between homosexuality and paedophilia," he told a news conference in Santiago, Chile.
Mexico is home to the world's second-largest Roman Catholic population after Brazil and the country has been rocked by its own share of allegations against Catholic leaders.
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