UNITED STATES
God Discussion
In a recent interview with the National Catholic Register, Father Benedict Groeschel of the conservative Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, said:
People have this picture in their minds of a person planning to — of 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.
The Huffington Post reports that the Archdiocese of New York said Groeschel’s statement was “simply wrong.”
The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) writes, “… the real issue isn’t that Groeschel makes such hurtful, stupid and Todd Akin-like remarks. (Many Catholic officials have thought and said much the same. We suspect many still do right now.) The real issue is “Why do priests who make callous, mean-spirited comments that hurt the already-wounded never suffer any consequences?” SNAP is calling for the discipline of Fr. Groeschel, noting that his remarks “continue to rub salt in the already-deep and still-fresh wounds of thousands of suffering child sex abuse victims and their loved ones.”
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