The Daily Mail is reporting that Cardinal Turkson, 64, made the remarks to CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour in an effort to explain why the sex abuse crisis has not hit the Church in Africa the way it has in other parts of the world.
"African traditional systems kind of protect or have protected its population against this tendency," the Cardinal said. "Because in several communities, in several cultures in Africa homosexuality or for that matter any affair between two sexes of the same kind, are not countenanced in our society. So that cultural taboo, that tradition has been there. It has served to keep it out."
Homosexuality is a crime in 37 countries in Africa.
Cardinal Turkson currently serves as the head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and is ranked by the secular media as being the second most favored successor to Pope Benedict XVI.
However, his comments are being severely criticized by the politically correct crowd in the U.S.
For instance, the scandal-ridden Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests issued a statement in which they said they hope these "awful comments" will disqualify him from consideration as the next pope.
"It's hard to address a crisis you don't think exists," the group said in a prepared statement. "So we fear for the safety of kids in Turkson's diocese if he denies there are predatory priests there. It’s far more likely that Turkson’s brother bishops in Africa have been involved in covering up clergy sex abuse crimes just like their colleagues across the globe. To pretend that Turkson’s home is devoid of the problem is erroneous, and offensive to still-suffering victims in Africa.”
The group also dismissed Turkson's claim that the sex abuse scandal is tied to homosexuality.
However, a British psychiatrist who has done research in the field of clerical sex abuse agreed with the cardinal that the problem was much more about homosexual abuse of adolescent males than pedophile attacks on children.
"I would say he is correct," the doctor told the Mail. He asked not to be named in fear of reprisals - including the loss of his job.
"Where the research has been done – for example in the United States and Australia – in the region of 80 per cent of the victims of sex abuse by priests are adolescent males rather than children."
Cardinal Turkson has a reputation for stating the facts without regard for political sensitivities. Last year he came under cricitism for accusing Muslims of turning Europe into an Islamic continent.
In the CNN interview, he gave a fearless response to the question of how the Church could stay relevant in the modern world if it remained anti-homosexual and rejected women priests.
"We need to be true and faithful to the faith, and we need to be relevant to the society to which we preach our faith," the Cardinal responded. "We may not sacrifice one for the other. We seek to be relevant to society and meet the needs of humankind, we also need to be mindful of what it is that a church believes."
He asked Amanpour: "Do you know where I am going? Otherwise we cease to be a church."
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