III

This last quotation of Greeley’s brings us to the most pernicious evasive maneuver of all. That is the attempt to define the problem away with the language of therapeutic expertise. Central to this effort has been the supposed distinction that, as Newsweek and a thousand other sources have put it, “The great majority of cases now before the church involve not pedophilia but ‘ephebophilia,’ an attraction to post-pubescent youths.”