UNITED STATES
RT
A prominent New York Catholic priest stated in an interview that minors often seduce older clerics, leading them to commit sex acts. The interview was subsequently removed and the paper that posted it called its publication an “editorial mistake.”
In an interview with the National Catholic Register, the Reverend Benedict Groeschel was asked how to deal with priests who sexually abuse minors.
Groeschel suggested that the priest was not always fully responsible for his actions.
“Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him,” he noted. “A lot of the cases, the youngster — 14, 16, 18 — is the seducer.”
He suggested that first-time offenders should be relieved of a jail sentence “because their intention was not committing a crime.”
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