This man "Father Benedict" sounds like completely insane:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/symp...8#ixzz253xkObtn



Pero

I think that the church did the right thing by condemning this probably senile old man right away and removing the interview from the website.

What were the editors of the journal/paper thinking when they should have killed the story in the first place?

@pero...you beat me to it on posting the article. Could not believe it. Teeth fell outta my head, and they're the originals!

@Ken...since you asked - yep, paranoia speaking here - would not be at all surprised if, given the RCC's penchant for dirty tricks and obfuscation, the interview was "leaked".

I saw coverage about this on CNN a few hours ago when I went out to lunch and at first I thought it was yet another quote taken out of proportion like with the Chick-Fil-a thing, but then I looked up the story and I was absolutely appalled.

"Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him,” Father Groeschel, now 79, said in the interview. A lot of the cases, the youngster — 14, 16, 18 — is the seducer."

How absolutely disgusting and offensive.

My perp senses are going off the chart with this guy. Seriously, I would fully support someone going through this dirtbags background with and uncomfortable fine toothed comb.

I am Catholic, and this is a prime example of why I have such a difficult time staying with the church. It is interesting how he is trying to turn the tables and make the priests out as the vicitims. Yes, Catholic children are taught that they should respect and look up to priests, or at least they were when I was a young child. I don't know how many times I was told as a child that the parishiners of the church were the priest's family and this is why we call him father. So, it is only natural for a child to view the priest as a defacto father figure. This is just another example of the church failing to accept culpability for the actions of some of their priests. His comments only highlights how child abuse has been institutionalized within the church. Maybe male adult and child sexual activity was acceptable back in the times of Plato and Socrates, but that civilization collapsed and thankfully no longer exists. The church should be ashamed that he said it and that they printed it. There is no way that you can defend his comments.

i don't care if a 14 year old climbs into a grown man's (or woman's) lap and starts undressing them. if they let it continue - it's abuse of a child.

OK (this could be trigger-ish),

I've talked to a former FBI agent who worked a number of child abuse cases, and he had an interesting perspective on this sort of thing.

He said people have a hard time accepting anything outside of the black-and-white abuse scenario, but that's not always how things are. He openly admitted that it is not unheard of for victims to be in love with their abusers and to even have instigated the abuse. He also used the example of victims laughing or giggling while in the process of being used for child porn; people have a hard time accepting this.

Therefore, this FBI agent (who told me this before this priest's comments were published) is in basic agreement with this priest -- that, in some cases the child might actually be the seducer. However, the FBI agent was quick to point out that the child's consent is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is his or her birthday.

In other words, even if a teen seduces a priest, the priest is still committing a crime by not resisting the teen's advances.

I also would not be surprised if the Church floated this argument out to see if it was time yet for them to re-assert their position that priest/teen love is A-OK. After all, when Pope B XVI spoke on the matter in March 2010, he referred to society's collective outrage as the "petty gossip of dominant opinion."

Sorry if this is a trigger for you guys. I just wanted to make the point that it's not always black-and-white, but even in the gray area, it's still a crime.

Hey Jim,
indeed, you wrote kind of disturbing thing at least for me.
I'm fascinated by delusional people like this father or that FBI agent and by their lack of empathy and shown very narrow spectrum of feelings. That is the most disturbing for me, if I see such people around I have to move as far as possible, my all senses are put high on alert just as some Armageddon is coming and I look where are children around and whether are they safe.
You know why is that so? Because I can't see nothing inside such people, they are more like empty shells, dysfunction screams from every their word, they almost haven't any feelings towards child and that is more than dangerous for me.
It is not wonder that many victims are confused with their feelings towards abusers, some of them felt even love, we know all that very well.
But you know we are talking about children/teens. And children are not in any way equal to fully physically and mentally mature persons (no matter if adults could be near "break down" sometimes - like Father said - I'm ironic here...).
And it is very disturbing if some adult person has predator kind of view on the world trough sex, meaning that he doesn't see child but rather sexual object or just object. The possibility for adult person to look on child/teen in exclusively sexual way no matter on circumstances speaks enough about that person's mental state....
I'll tell you also that FBI agent also see child as pure object, that is so visible if he truly talked in such way as you wrote about child laughing or giggling in porn. Lack of empathy and actually possibility to understand true feelings of such child is distributing thing for me. I'm sorry but I need to ask myself if that agent has ever abused children because he has all qualities for that...

Was struck by this comment about the priest's comments over at the San Francisco Chronicle:


{Posted by geekette on SFgate to the article “NY priest apologizes for sex abuse comments”

I had the unfortunate experience of reading the original story and it, literally, made me sick to my stomach.

Father Pederast[sic] actually said, "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 was the most real, most honest, most telling interview about the depravity of the Church. Why, in the 21st Century do people still believe in an invisible cloud being and why do we still use it as a get out of jail free card to justify the sickest of the sick in our society?}

*****Foot-stomping crazy-Rob Rant Warning******

NO F**KING WAY! This was and IS genuine news. Killing this story? Huh??? KILL THE FKING STORY???

This story is as f**king relevant as death and taxes! It shows the public the insanity involved in the Catholic Church and the bull shit boys and girls have to deal with. My God!!! The public needs to see the mentality at the top of that hive...even if...even if...even if...

Yes, he may be nuts, but aren't ALL the clergy rapists nuts? or mentally defective???

This story shows exactly what and who the enablers of the church ARE!!!

Kill the story??? Holy fk!!!! The Syracuse News staff may be facing criminal charges for "killing a story." They should be facing a firing squad!

Kill the story? Is that because this piece of vulture dung deserves to pass-on to hell without publicized, undignified crazy rants? FK HIM and the broom he road in-on!!

Just because his brain is decaying from advanced syphilis does not give the press any out either. Do we kill the rants of Charlie Manson? Hell no!

Any attorney worth his used toilet paper will be carrying this turd's picture into court as an example of the cover-up and enabling mentality....kill the fking story!!!

I'd sooner chop-off my right arm than grant this cancerous pathogen and his people any out from a classification of "crazy-talk." BECAUSE ITS NOT CRAZY TALK!!! THIS IS HOW THESE FKERS ACTUALLY THINK!!!!!!! and it use to be OUR jobs as professionals and survivors to show the world exactly WHAT and WHO rapes boys in the trust of clergy....kill the fuking story!

Anyone whom has ever read NAMBLA rationale knows that THIS is exactly how they think! "Oooh!!! Thank God the little boys came running to my rescue in my hour of need! It was all their idea!

The head of The Catholic League comes out and says these very same words!

Stop the bus!

And one Daily News reader had THIS to say:



Stop the bus NOW please!!!!

FYI, Groeschel was literally run over by a bus a few years ago and has had at least one really bad stroke on top of that. He's also very old and may at this point just not be in his right mind. I suspect this in part because his general reputation up to this point has been very strong as someone who has precisely fought against corruption in the Church and especially the admission of psychologically troubled men to the priesthood. As someone who has followed him for a while (though I don't know him intimately of course) it's very hard to believe that this represents his real thinking. Though of course like most of us I've been fooled by people before... but at least in the interest of fairness I wanted to give a fuller sense of the situation.