'Rape girl' mum says will meet priest (3)

(ANSA) - Bologna, November 10 - The mother of a 17-year-old girl who reported being raped by a North African in a rail carriage after getting drunk said Friday she would meet a local priest who was forced to apologise after saying she deserved it for boozing and hanging around with immigrants.
    "What hurt us the most is the comment of Father (Lorenzo) Guidotti. I'll got to meet him and tell him what my idea of Christian behaviour is, very different from his," the woman told ANSA.
    "My daughter was a victim and must be defended, not only by a priest. The fault is of those who rape, not those who are victims", she said.
    "To the people, the press, we ask: stop. We have read so many inaccuracies on our tragedy, and so many cutting judgments that wound us, when no one, except us, knows what happened.
    "We are a family of strong values," said the mother.
    Father Guidotti was forced to apologise Thursday after saying he didn't feel sorry for the girl.
    "I'm sorry but if you swim in a piranha tank you can't complain when you're missing a limb when you get out," said Guidotti.
    "Should I feel pity? No!!. I keep that for those who are really VICTIMS of a sh***ily run city, not for those who live like barbarians with barbarians and then complain when they discover they haven't been treated civilly. Those who CHOOSE the GET-HIGH culture should let others 'enjoy themselves too".
    Father Guidotti said "waking up semi-naked I'd say is the least that could have happened to you." He said "honey, Im's sorry but 1) you frequent Piazza Verdi which has become the "a**hole of Bologna...2) you get disgracefully drunk...3) and then who do you go with, a North African?!!! Notoriously, real gentlemen".
    The archdiocese of Bologna said Father Guidotti's views did not reflect its thinking. Father Guidotti's views "are personal opinions which do not in any way reflect the thinking and the assessment of the Church, which condemns all kinds of violence," the archdiocese said in a statement. The diocese, led by Msgr Matteo Zuppi, also published a statement from Father Guidotti in which he apologised to the girl.
    "I was wrong with my intervention, the terms, the ways, the corrections. I can only therefore apologise to her and her parents if my imprudent words may have added pain, which will happen in reading them," said Father Guiditti. The priest said he recognised he had "expressed himself in an inappropriate way and intended to clarify his thinking". He appealed to parents and the authorities to combat what he called the 'get high' culture that he said was endangering young people.
    Father Guidotti said: "I ask everyone, who have perhaps a better capacity for language and possibilities (authorities, journalists, teachers, parents) to help dismantle this get-high culture our young people are living in.
    "Otherwise tomorrow we will have to feel pity for another victim, and then another.
    "Until when? Until we are able to say 'enough!'".
    "It is necessary to supply an alternative," he said.
    The priest also apologised for appearing to offend migrants, saying he had nothing against them.