Sexual abuse is unlikely to ravage the Church in Africa because its
culture condemns homosexuality, a senior cardinal and contender for the
papacy has said.Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson linked homosexuality and clerical sex abuse in an interview on American television network CNN.
Asked if he was concerned that sex abuse could spread to Africa, Cardinal Turkson said that it was unlikely to spread at the same rate as in Europe because traditional African culture does not countenance homosexuality.
He said: "African traditional systems kind of protect its population against these tendencies, because in several communities and several cultures in Africa homosexuality is not countenanced in society, so the taboo, the tradition has been there to keep it out."
Cardinal Turkson is currently the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
Elsewhere in the interview he said that the Church has to navigate between relevance to modern society and fidelity to Catholic teaching.