Thomas Szasz

About the author: Thomas Szasz is a professor of psychiatry emeritus at the State University of New York, Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York. Szasz is a controversial figure in psychiatry since the publication of his book The Myth of Mental Illness.

Priests who have sexually abused children and the cardinals who fail to turn these priests over to the authorities try to escape responsibility for these reprehensible acts by defining child sexual abuse as a disease rather than a crime. Unfortunately, those who classify child sexual abuse as a disease have confused disease with immorality. Claiming that pedophile priests simply suffer from a disease suggests that their actions have consequences to them alone and are therefore not punishable...