Dadeus Grings is a Roman Catholic bishop who is the current ordinary of the archdiocese of Porto Alegre

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Porto Alegre

The Roman Catholic Metropolitan Archdiocese of Porto Alegre is an ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in Brazil. It was erected as the Diocese of São Pedro do Rio Grande by Pope Pius IX on May 7, 1848, and elevated to the rank of a metropolitan archdiocese by Pope Pius...

. He also serves as the chancellor of the Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul.

Grings was ordained a priest on 23 December 1961. He was appointed bishop of São João da Boa Vista

Roman Catholic Diocese of São João da Boa Vista

The Roman Catholic Diocese of São João da Boa Vista is a diocese located in the city of São João da Boa Vista in the Ecclesiastical province of Ribeirão Preto in Brazil.-History:...

 on 23 January 1991. He was appointed as Coadjutor Archbishop

Coadjutor bishop

A coadjutor bishop is a bishop in the Roman Catholic or Anglican churches who is designated to assist the diocesan bishop in the administration of the diocese, almost as co-bishop of the diocese...

 of Porto Alegre

Porto Alegre

Porto Alegre is the tenth most populous municipality in Brazil, with 1,409,939 inhabitants, and the centre of Brazil's fourth largest metropolitan area . It is also the capital city of the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The city is the southernmost capital city of a Brazilian...

 on 12 April 2000, and succeeded to the position of Archbishop on acceptance of the resignation of his predecessor on 7 February 2001.

The archbishop is the author of 27 books.

Remarks on 4 May 2010

International ontroversy was stirred up in connection with remarks by Grings on 4 May 2010 when speaking of accusations of paedophilia against priests. He said that society as a whole is paedophile and that sexual abuse of children and adolescents is more common among doctors, teachers and businessmen than among priests. The problem, he said, is that today's society is paedophile, with the result that people easily fall into it, and the fact that it is being denounced is a good sign. In his view, all forms of sexuality were beling banalized, and the acquisition of legal rights by homosexuals was likely to lead to recognition of the rights of paedophiles. Grings stated clearly that sexual abuse of children and adolescents is a crime and should be punished, but he admitted that, while the Church does adopt internal measures against the guilty, it finds it difficult to denounce its own members to the police. It is unjust, he said, to present paedophilia as a matter that concerns only the Church, when in Germany it had been found that only 0.2% of child abuse was committed by priests. He also said that homosexuality is innate in few cases and generally results from failure to overcome an adolescent experimental stage. A spokesman for the Bishops Conference distanced himself from the Archbishop's remark that society as a whole is paedophile, while English-language reports misinterpreted his admission that the Church finds it difficult to denounce priests to the police as if he had said that "internal punishment of priests guilty of abuse was sufficient and that police should not be involved".