TRIGGERING
In an interview with the National Catholic Register, Fr. Benedict Groeschel places the blame of child sexual abuse by priests sqaurely on the young 14-18 year olds...
People have this picture in their minds of a person planning to - a psychopath. But that's not the case. 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 ... 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.
It's an understandable thing ... there are the relatively rare cases where a priest is involved in a homosexual way with a minor. I think the statistic I read recently in a secular psychology review was about 2%. Would that be true of other clergy? Would it be true of doctors, lawyers, coaches?
Here's this poor guy - [Penn State football coach Jerry] Sandusky - it went on for years. Interesting: 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.
As reported in the
Huffington Post and on
Deadspin Fr. Groeschel is the Director of the Office for Spiritual Development for the Catholic Archdiocese of New York.
Interestingly, the following statement is posted on the NCR website where the article first appeared:
Child sexual abuse is never excusable. 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. Nothing could be further from the truth. 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.
Read more:
http://www.ncregister.com/...
While every utterance above just gives me nightmares - as this is, to me, the excuses a pedophile would tell himself - this line from the disclaimer now posted on the NCR website tells me we have a LONG way to go:
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.
These were HIS words - out of HIS mouth - but what? You didn't have a chance to cover up the truth? That from his own words, this leader of the Catholic Church doesn't see anything wrong with "romantic, embracing, kissing, perhaps sleeping but not having intercourse or anything like that" with a 14, 15, 16, 17 year old boy, and that this "is an understandable thing???????"
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?