It’s victim-blaming at its worst. Last week, Father Benedict Groeschel, a fairly prominent religious figure who is, among other things, the director of the Office for Spiritual Development for the Catholic Archdiocese of New York, said some utterly appalling things about the victims of sexual abuse by priests.
In an interview with the National Catholic Register, Groeschel declared that some of the victims were likely “seducers,” and expressed sympathy for ”poor” Jerry Sandusky, and suggested that abusers “on their first offense … should not go to jail because their intention was not committing a crime.”
After the comments spurred outrage, the NC Register took down the interview. Here are the relevant sections, which I found reposted by an appalled columnist on the right-wing RenewAmerica site. The whole thing is awful; I’ve highlighted some of the worst parts.
[Interviewer]: Part of your work here at Trinity has been working with priests involved in abuse, no?
[Father Groeschel]: A little bit, yes; but you know, in those cases, they have to leave. And some of them profoundly — profoundly — penitential, horrified. 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.
[Interviewer]: Why would that be?
[Father Greoschel]: 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.
It’s an understandable thing, and you know where you find it, among other clergy or important people; you look at teachers, attorneys, judges, social workers. Generally, if they get involved, it’s heterosexually, and if it’s a priest, he leaves and gets married — that’s the usual thing — and gets a dispensation. A lot of priests leave quickly, get civilly married and then apply for the dispensation, which takes about three years.
But 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: this poor guy — [Penn State football coach Jerry] Sandusky 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.
If you go back 10 or 15 years ago with different sexual difficulties — except for rape or violence — it was very rarely brought as a civil crime. Nobody thought of it that way. Sometimes statutory rape would be — but only if the girl pushed her case. Parents wouldn’t touch it. People backed off, for years, on sexual cases. I’m not sure why.
I think perhaps part of the reason would be an embarrassment, that it brings the case out into the open, and the girl’s name is there, or people will figure out what’s there, or the youngster involved — you know, it’s not put in the paper, but everybody knows; they’re talking about it.
At this point, (when) any priest, any clergyman, any social worker, any teacher, 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.
In the place where the interview originally ran, the National Catholic Register posted apologies from the paper’s editor-in-chief, the The Community of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and Groeschel himself. The statement from the Friars was at best a half-apology, and offered this “excuse” for his comments:
About seven years ago Fr. Benedict was struck by a car and was in a coma for over a month. In recent months his health, memory and cognitive ability have been failing. He has been in and out of the hospital. Due to his declining health and inability to care for himself, Fr. Benedict had moved to a location where he could rest and be relieved of his responsibilities. Although these factors do not excuse his comments, they help us understand how such a compassionate man could have said something so wrong, so insensitive, and so out of character.
I’m pretty sure getting hit by a car doesn’t make you think that victims of sexual abuse are the ones responsible for that abuse. It doesn’t put that attitude in your head, though it might make you think it’s acceptable to say such things out loud in an interview.
And if Groeschel is indeed so cognitively impaired that he can’t be held fully accountable for the words coming out of his mouth, why was he giving interviews to the press in the first place? How was he still capable of running the Office for Spiritual Development for the Catholic Archdiocese of New York? And why did the editors of the NC Register publish the comments without challenge in the first place? Presumably none of them have been recently hit by a car.
In their apology, the Friars also said:
He never intended to excuse abuse or implicate the victims.
Really? How exactly is suggesting that 14 year old boys are “seducers” preying on the weaknesses of old men NOT intended to “excuse abuse [and] implicate the victims?”
They also say:
We hope that these unfortunate statements will not overshadow the great good Fr. Benedict has done in housing countless homeless people, feeding innumerable poor families, and bringing healing, peace and encouragement to so many.
They might as well have replaced their entire “apology” with this sentence, which reflects what seems to be their main concern here – that is, Groeschel looking bad, and making them look bad.
Excuse me, I’m going to go vomit uncontrollably for an hour or two.
And as we all know, the Catholic Church is run by powerful women who shield molesting priests from justice. Right.
I always knew those nuns were up to something…
(Prepare kitteh video before reading further)
Of the 5 child molesters I have met*, one was married (to a partner of the opposite sex), 2 were de facto (again, opposite sex), one was 15 years old, and one had never had sex with an adult.
(Play kitteh video now)
*presumably I have met more, but don’t know it.
NWO is a liar. All the time. Everything he types is a lie. If a reflection of what he truly belives, then everything he thinks is a lie. He is a miserable lying liar. Apologist for the worse scummary.
*believes
I love this study http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/Articles/000,002.htm . It clearly indicates why most of the sexual attacks on young men are done so by men who self-identify as straight.
As a gay woman, I love other women, not girls. I couldn’t imagine finding a girlish figure attractive. I’m not gay because I hate men, because I’ve stopped sexually regressing as a teenage girl, for monetary reasons, or because my attempted rape scared me off other men. Some of me best friends are men, and I’m very gay because I very much like having sex with other women in general and one woman in specific, my wife of ten years.
It saddens my heart when other gays behave badly. They abuse their partners, cheat, sexually molest children, or mistreat their own children so badly the police and social workers need to become involved. The very sad fact is that gay people are not special in any way. Any negative behaviour that is found in straight people are also found in gay people. And in almost the exact same percentages. I wish my “people” were more enlightened or intelligent in the way they treat other people, but sadly, they are no better, but no worse than any other person out there. Gays are people first, and sexually attracted to their own gender second.
We should be better than that, but we aren’t.
I’ve never seen the word “scummery” before, but I like it. It sounds like it should mean a summary of things said by scummy people, thus making it an excellent way to describe this blog.
‘Scummery’ a result of rage typing
What does it mean that when I read this post earlier today, I immediately thought, “Gosh, that sounds so much like all those things Owly used to say!”
Oh wait, I know what it means.
Maybe Owly and this guy should go have coffee together and complain about all the little 10-year-old tarts in their Heelies and Batman t-shirts, running around seducing the helpless adult-folk.
But they should make sure to go during school hours, ya know. To avoid all those little (emphasis on little) hussies.
NWO,
Pederasty could be described as the domain of gay men because it means sex between males. Do you even know what you are talking about?
Do you agree with Paul Elam that Sandosky, like other rapists, should be found not guilty, no matter what?
Well, apparently NWO thinks that it’s perfectly normal for adult men to find female children sexually arousing, so going by his warped worldview I’m not surprised that he only has a problem with child abuse if the children being sexually abused are boys.
(I’m a bit confused as to why he doesn’t seem to care about boys who’re sexually abused by adult women – would acknowledging that issue just interrupt his little homophobic rant?)
Could be that he is one of those that are of the opinion that boys CANNOT BE sexually abused by adult women, they ought to instead consider themselves LUCKY. We feminists have got them coming and going, dontchaknow!! It is feminists who want to demonize male sexuality by acknowledging that there are adult women who sexually abuse boys AND who want to demonize male sexuality by NOT acknowledging that there are adult women who sexually abuse boys.
I can’t think of any other reason, given how eeeeeeeeevil women usually are in his worldview.
This reminds me of the decision that the late newspaper columnist John Junor had to make in the 1990s when Princess Diana started visiting AIDS victims. Two of the key planks of Junor’s worldview were that Diana was one of the saintliest creatures ever to walk the planet, and that all homosexuals/AIDS victims (naturally, the two groups were indistinguishable) made Satan look like a pitiful underachiever.
So what was he to do when his idol started debasing herself by touching these creatures? That’s right – he dropped her like the proverbial hot potato. I can’t remember him explicitly recanting everything he’d ever written about her (newspaper columnists tend to assume their readers have short memories), but that was the general gist.
NWO, that furphy about gays being pedophiles? It’s bullshit. There’s not a shred of reputable evidence that there is a higher percentage of pedophile gays than are found in the general community. You, on the other hand admit to finding eight year old girls playing on the beach in swimsuits and fourteen year olds at the local mall to be sexually attractive, so I suspect that children have more to fear from you than the members of the gay community.
If you had an iota of sense you’d STFU.
The notion that straight men are free from age-innappropriate paraphilias would be funny if it were not so utterly wrong.
Well, that’s the real catch, isn’t it?
Which brings me to my second pondering: why are MRAs so often factually wrong in their assertions? Don’t they ever fact-check before spouting off? Silly me, I know ….
If you look on Wiki under his name it does look like he was in bad shape from the accident and a stroke and he is 80.
But this is a good example of why priests should never do interviews these days when everyone is against them. They will always be misinterpreted. It sounds like he was just thinking out loud and musing and sort of weighing things in his head. This is ok privately amongst other intellectuals like himself but will always be misconstrued by the ignorant proles who can only see things in black and white and not 50 shades of grey.
I have been looking for a study a professor of mine mentioned last year, and I cannot find it anywhere. My prof said that boys are more likely to be assaulted by pedophiles that girls because of our culture of sexism. Parents felt more comfortable letting sons be in potential risky situations than daughters, thus making boys easier targets, because they were supposed to be better able to defend themselves than girls. That it had less to do with the pedophiles wanting boys more than girls, and more to do with which children they had easier access to.
Sounded reasonable to me at the time, but now I can’t find the study he cited. I may have to email him later and hope he’s not too busy to reply.
Are you fucking kidding me? Where is the “gray area” in saying children are responsible for their own abuse?
Serenwali-Is that what he said?All gays are paedophiles? It does appear though that a disproportionate number of molesters are though. From the churches,mosques,synagogues etc When you consider that about 1% of the population is homosexual and that all of these cases involved boys then NWO does make a good case that some people have less control over their impulses and it likely stems from the same brain dysfunction as homosexuality. What motiovates you to deny what is apparent to everyone else? And btw, the same is true of lesbians who are like 1/2 of 1% of the pop. They have a very high % of both forcing sex onto straight girls after grooming them and also a high rate of DV, like 70% compared to about 1-2% with normal man and wife relationships.
Anathema-he said that of the prostitutes who are UNDERAGE it’s 50/50.With adults whores are mostly females.
I’m not defending him but some of what he said is plausible if it doesn’t involve kids.And btw, stop using the word children because a child is defined medically as an individual between the ages of 3 and puberty. After that you are not a child. An infant is up to 1 and a baby up to 3. Do you refer to a 12yo as an infant or baby? You girls just like to twist words and definitions to suit whatever axe your grinding at the moment. And I don’t see you bitching when some 12yo male child is treated as an adult and sent to prison.
Just unbelievable!
Aw, cute kitty with the baby chicks!