A New Catholic Church Strategy: Children Sometimes Seduce Priests

Oy, what is it with the Catholic Church? I mean, pedophile priests run roughshod over the church, assaulting children with the knowledge that when they get caught, their punishment will be relocation, and we have a Pope more interested in his shoe collection than children.

And then we have Father Benedict Groeschel, of the conservative Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, who gave an a recent interview* with the National Catholic Register, and actually blamed teenagers for seducing priests.

Cuz we all know that if someone comes on to you, especially a teenager, and you're a grown-ass man, you cannot help yourself. Apparently Father Benedict Groeschel doesn't believe in the power of No.

Most of the interview that Groeschel gave to the National Catholic Register was about his work with very conservative Friars of the Renewal, but as thew conversation turned toward the rampant accusations of sexual abuse by priests, Groeschel had some choice words:

"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."

Hmmm, an "adult" is propositioned by a fourteen year old, and,well, in Groeschel's mind he just cannot help himself and has sex with a child, you know, cuz the child was asking for it. Talk about blaming the victim. Talk about completely and utterly erasing the misdeeds and criminal actions of a priest having sex with a child via the excuse of "he came on to me."

When pressed to clarify his idiotic statements, Groeschel said that some of these young boys are looking for father figures and are drawn to priests to fill that void; odd, though that most boys don't seduce their fathers, though. Groeschel does say that most of these, ahem, 'relationships' are heterosexual in nature, and that historically sexual relationships between men and boys have not been thought of as crimes.

Oh, so let's just turn the other way. Um, Father Groeschel? Isn't looking the other way how the Church got into this mess?

But he continues:

"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... And I’m inclined to think, on [a priest's] first offense, they should not go to jail because their intention was not committing a crime."

Um, if their intent was to sexually molest a child, even under the notion that the child seduced them, then they have committed a crime called rape; called child molestation. And they should be rounded up, put on trial, and if found guilty, sentenced to prison. Not given a slap on the wrist and a new job.

Update: The National Catholic Register has taken down the interview--and now it apparently never existed just like those priests who molested children and were scuttled to safety never existed. And, of course, Groeschel is back-tracking:

"I apologize for my comments. I did not intend to blame the victim. A priest (or anyone else) who abuses a minor is always wrong and is always responsible. My mind and my way of expressing myself are not as clear as they used to be. I have spent my life trying to help others the best that I could. I deeply regret any harm I have caused to anyone."

Oh, so he's old and feeble and isn't quite clear what he says sometimes. Funny, he was quite clear in saying pri4sts are to be excused from raping boys if the boys somehow asked for it. And he's quite clear in saying that for years--at least in the Catholic Church--sex between men and boys wasn't considered a crime.

The Catholic Church, still raping children after all thee years.

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