Overview

• During a WBZ News Radio interview originally about a lawsuit over Catholic saint statues, Mayor Thomas P. Koch said the Church’s abuse crisis was “mostly homosexual issues, not pedophilia.”
• Koch apologized for offending people but later told the Quincy School Committee he lacked data on air and asserted that 4% of cases were pedophilia and 80% involved same‑sex attraction post‑puberty.
• Longtime survivors’ attorney Mitchell Garabedian called the framing baseless and said he plans to invite the mayor to meet clients who were abused.
• SNAP and the lay Catholic group Voice of the Faithful criticized the remarks, noting research refuting a link between homosexuality and child sexual abuse; the John Jay College report found an average victim age of 12.6 and that 81% of alleged victims were male.
• The Archdiocese of Boston declined comment, the statues lawsuit remains pending in Norfolk Superior Court, and local LGBTQ and school leaders objected to the mayor’s statements.