Monday, January 26, 2015

Quoted as saying, “pedophiles are seduced by children in ‘a lot of the cases’”

This story is from 2012, and the individual named here has since passed away, but this deserves some publicity because of the the attitude that is reflected within even lower levels of the Roman Catholic hierarchical structure, and the minor celebrity role that this priest played in the lives of many Roman Catholics: 
A Catholic newspaper has removed an interview from their website in which a priest said that pedophiles are seduced by children in “a lot of the cases” and the abusers should not go to jail.
During an interview with National Catholic Register, 78-year-old Father Benedict Groeschel was asked about his experience working with priests involved in abuse.
“People have this picture in their minds of a person planning to — a psychopath. But that’s not the case,” Groeschel explained. “Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him. A lot of the cases, the youngster — 14, 16, 18 — is the seducer.”
“Well, it’s not so hard to see — a kid looking for a father and didn’t have his own — and they won’t be planning to get into heavy-duty sex, but almost romantic, embracing, kissing, perhaps sleeping but not having intercourse or anything like that,” he continued.
Groeschel called the abuse “an understandable thing,” and pointed to Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky, who he called a “poor guy.”
“Why didn’t anyone say anything? Apparently, a number of kids knew about it and didn’t break the ice. Well, you know, until recent years, people did not register in their minds that it was a crime. It was a moral failure, scandalous; but they didn’t think of it in terms of legal things.”
Groeschel pointed out that “sexual difficulties” were rarely prosecuted 10 or 15 years ago, and now if “any responsible person in society would become involved in a single sexual act — not necessarily intercourse — they’re done.”
“And I’m inclined to think, on their first offense, they should not go to jail because their intention was not committing a crime,” he added.
By Thursday, the original interview was no longer available on National Catholic Register, but could still be accessed [note: it is no longer available] in Google’s cache.
“Father Groeschel’s suggestion that sex abusers of any profession should not get jail for a first offense — because, he claims, they don’t ‘intend’ to abuse — is simply incomprehensible,” one Catholic told columnist Matt Abbott. [note: it is no longer available] “Doesn’t he know that a good intention does not by itself make an act good? Hasn’t he read the Catechism of the Catholic Church?”
“Moreover, with all due respect to Father Groeschel, it is utterly irresponsible to suggest that a priest, who is in a position of moral authority, should be excused for permitting himself to be ‘seduced’ by a young person.”
Groeschel has a PhD in psychology from Columbia University and hosts a television talk show on the Eternal Word Television Network, which also owns National Catholic Register.
On Thursday afternoon, National Catholic Register Editorin Chief Jeanette R. De Melo added a note on the page where the interview hadoriginally been published.
Note -- we may be grateful to this publication for the honesty to state at least this much, and to leave this statement up on its website. Especially given how frequently Roman Catholicism seeks to sweep this sort of thing under the rug.
“The editors of the National Catholic Register apologize for publishing without clarification or challenge Father Benedict Groeschel’s comments that seem to suggest that the child is somehow responsible for abuse,” De Melo wrote. “Our publication of that comment was an editorial mistake, for which we sincerely apologize.”
“Given Father Benedict’s stellar history over many years, we released his interview without our usual screening and oversight. We have removed the story. We have sought clarification from Father Benedict.”
Calls to National Catholic Register were not returned by the time of publication.



7 comments:

  1. So did they ever clarify his statements? Sounds like something that would happen in Roman Catholicism

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    1. The only thing that I'd seen was the Raw Story link and the fact that the NCR link is still up there. I'm sure that if there were clarification on the positive side, that it would have been trumpeted in some way, whereas, if the original story were verified (that he'd actually said what was reported), how they handled it was probably the best way to have handled it.

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    2. One of the ironies of Fr. Benedict's statement is the tacit admission that the priestly abuse scandal bears witness to the presence of homosexuals in the Catholic clergy. It's a distinctively homosexual problem. Even if, for the sake of argument, we agree with his allegation, a male can't seduce a normal male. Sexual seduction requires sexual attraction. One male has no sex appeal for another normal male. A heterosexual priest could not be seduced by a teenage boy, even if the teenage boy attempted to do so.

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  2. Steve, John, have either of you seen the HBO documentary "Mea Maxima Culpa"? If you haven't, you'd definitely find it very interesting to say the least. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0jKhtU4ie0, you can pay a couple bucks to see it here, or if you HBO on demand, it is available for free.

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    1. Hi Discipled, thanks for the recommendation.

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  3. Good Morning John, I am quite surprised that you haven't seen this yet. It may not be a surprise to you what the documentary reveals, but I find it to be an accurate microcosm of the state of Roman Catholicism throughout it's history. I can't even imagine how it operated during a non-informational era where things could simply be brushed under the rug. Very sad state of affairs over the Tiber.

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    1. Hi Discipled -- we don't get HBO at home, and normally we watch on Netflix what my wife picks and chooses. And nor do I typically go out of my way to look for stuff to watch. Likely I have heard of this, but these days, we hear of lots of things, and then time moves us downstream, and we hear lots of new things, etc. However, this may well be worth making an extra effort to look at.

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