older married man would take on a teen-aged boy as an apprentice to teach him a trade. The was also a sexual relationship within this context. The practice was viewed with varying degrees of acceptance and disapproval at the time, but was tolerated by those cultures.

The ancient Romans, for all their accomplishments, were a lot like the Borg in the Star Trek universe. They had no cultural creativity of their own and assimilated the cultural practices of the civilizations they conquered. Pederasty was one of the practices they inherited from the Greeks. When Rome became Catholic, the Church continued its assimilationist global expansion.

So when the Pope says that pedophilia and child pornography were becoming more "accepted" by society, he probably believes it. He has spent his entire adultlife isolated within a global organization with its own bizarre social mores and customs, that go back for centuries. Having had very little involvement with life in the modern outside world, it may seem to him that fucking a kid was normal, because everybody he knew was doing it.

Adult survivors of sex abuse within the church are furious at the pontiff.

"...Outraged Dublin victim Andrew Madden last night insisted that child abuse was not considered normal in the company he kept.

Mr Madden accused the Pope of not knowing that child pornography was the viewing of images of children being sexually abused, and should be named as such.

He said: “That is not normal. I don't know what company the Pope has been keeping for the past 50 years.”

There is a