Catholic TV Star, the Rev. Benedict Groeschel, Defends Child Sex Abusers

reply to post by FlyersFan

It wont matter whetever he retires or not, he made the statement, and now that statement cannot be undone.
These are the words that will come up when people talk about him in the future.
His memory will carry this mark from now on.

ETA: On a personal note, serves him right for supporting such a thing, POS.

Franciscan Friars apology with statement from Fr. Groeschel.

franciscanfriars.com...

Personal Statement from Fr Benedict Groeschel:

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.

Years ago my wife's 15 year old sister went through a stage where she was a terrible flirt but it would have been inexcusable if I had pursued her and then attempted to blame her for my own lack of morals & self control. She is a happily married woman now with kids of her own. You can't lay the blame on teens who may go through phases like this.

These priests cannot be allowed a pass on the first offense. They must be removed from ever serving as a priest again and face the full penalty of of the law. There can be no excuse for their behavior.

reply to post by shuler73544


There is a difference between condemning the man and condemning his published work. It's for certain that he must have been liked by some people if he had a television following. The point is though that when that interview first came to light, there should have been an immediate evaluation of his current competence instead of waiting for adverse public reaction before looking into the matter. Just my opinion.

Father Groeschel comes from a generation that still naively believed that children seduced adults and gay teachers turned students gay. Adults were, well, adults, and adults didn't do those things willingly; it was the fault of the children! Somehow, a child found a vulnerability in an adult and made the adult do this. Priests were sent to another parish, where, certainly, it couldn't happen again.

We now know better. We now know about pedophilia. ....Oh, and we now know you can't catch gay from someone.

Some of these type of people are closet cases and have always kept these things to themselves for the sake of conforming to the status quo. The entire American culture has changed and all this guy is doing is coming out of the closet. After all our very own American govt. platform embraces this behavior. When the laws of our country enforces the practice of killing kids, openly practice homosexuality and lesbianism, and disregarding the commands of God, then what else can you expect? This priest is simply the by product of the change that America wants.

Lying, cheating, stealing, murder, and all the rest of the nine yards are shown by our leaders both in the govt. and in the organizations that we call churches. The entire social system is broken and this guy is simply part of that broken system. We even have homosexuals as leaders of the church organizations as well as our congress and senate and God forbid even the supreme court. Its the new lifestyle of America and it is protected by our laws. Our theaters are full of this stuff and the internet has it coming out our ears. TV is so filthy that it is hard to even watch a decent show. Holly Wood is absolutely so degenerate that it can never be fixed. Jesus teaches that it would come to this and here it is.

What can the church do? The church can teach the girls and boys both how to dress decently. The church can probably start with the parents as well as the kids. They can teach the girls how to become decent young ladies and the boys to become men of Christ. But first the church must clean its own house and get rid of these kind of priests who are destroying the church. This priest knows exactly what he advocates and it isn't that he just old or because of an accident or any other such nonsense. It is simply that he is a pervert himself and should be fired from the church. This guy is the problem that keeps getting buried by the bosses of the organization.

Originally posted by FlyersFan

Originally posted by ColoradoJens
All well and good to defend him due to a stroke and car accident, yet the idea that this is a new thought to him due to trauma is silly.

It's not silly at all. The man is OLD. He had a STROKE. He had a serious car accident that he almost died in and that he was in a coma with. Those things scramble the brain. Up until this point he never said anything like this.

ALL things considered - unless there is some kind of proof that this man is a pedophile or that he has said something like this prior to these serious brain scrambling events, I have to go with 'innocent until proven guilty'.

It is actually quite silly. If he had woken up from his stroke and had a foreign accent, well that would be possible. To have a concrete belief that was substantiated throughout the interview regarding multiple aspects of predatory violation of minors in the affirmative, one may come to the conclusion that these are simply deep seated beliefs. Frankly the defence of this man is amazing. He is what he is, regardless of anything you describe. He is an apologist for pedophiles. Period.

CJ

I do not understand how the church can allow an ostensible professor of psychology (that's his title evidently) to suggest that children can be considered seductive. I mean, he's literally saying that sometimes people might find children to be seductive. Is not one who would consider children occasionally seductive essentially a pedophile themselves? Perhaps I'm reading more into it than is there, but it doesn't seem like I am. I mean, he outright says that not only are children sometimes seductive to priests, but on a first molestation offense a priest shouldn't go to jail.

Am I missing something??

Fer god's sake he's an old fooked up do0D what do you expect from the semimentally ill? chiil!