A South African cardinal who helped elect Pope Francis has described pedophilia as a psychological illness and not "a criminal condition," Belfast Telegraph said.

The Catholic Archbishop of Durban, Wilfrid Fox Napier, told BBC Radio 5 live that people who were abused as children and became pedophiles were not criminally responsible for their actions in the same way as somebody "who chooses to do something like that".

Cardinal Napier, who was among the 115 cardinals in the conclave at the Vatican that elected Pope Francis earlier this week, called pedophilia a "psychological disorder".

He said: "What do you do with disorders? You have got to try and put them right. If I as a normal being choose to break the law knowing that I am breaking the law, then I think I need to be punished... From my experience pedophilia is actually an illness, it is not a criminal condition."

The cardinal spoke of two priests he knew who were abused as children and went on to become pedophiles.

He told the BBC: "Don't tell me that those people are criminally responsible like somebody who chooses to do something like that.

"I don't think you can really take the position and say that person deserves to be punished when he was himself damaged."

Barbara Dorries, from the US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, was abused as a child by a priest.

She told the BBC: "If it is a disease that's fine, but it's also a crime and crimes are punished, criminals are held accountable for what they did and what they do.

"The bishops and the cardinals have gone to great lengths to cover these crimes to enable the predators to move on, to not be arrested, to keep the secrets within the church."