The president of Laity for Colombia, Carlos Corsi Otalora, noted this week that those attacking Pope Benedict XVI over cases of pedophilia are doing so because they do not support Christian sexual morality.

Citing an article that appeared on March 26 in the French weekly, “Rivarol,” Otarola recalled that those individuals and groups who accuse the Pope of covering up clerical sex abuse with minors, “directly reject Christian morality on sexuality, which is the foundation for the universal condemnation of pedophilia. They look at the speck in their brother’s eye without seeing the beam in their own, as the Gospel phrase goes,” he added.

“They are driven to despair by the testimony of virginity of celibate priests, of religious faithful to their vows, of young and adult lay people, celibate and married who live the virtue of purity.” The model of that purity, he added is “St. Maria Goretti, an 11 year-old girl who defended purity with her very life in order to be faithful to the Gospel,” Otalora said.