UNITED STATES
The New York Times
By SHARON OTTERMAN
Published: August 30, 2012
A prominent Roman Catholic spiritual leader who has spent decades counseling wayward priests for the archdiocese provoked shock and outrage on Thursday as word spread of a recent interview he did with a Catholic newspaper during which he said that “youngsters” were often to blame when priests sexually abused them and that priests should not be jailed for such abuse on their first offense.
The Rev. Benedict Groeschel, who made the remarks, is a beloved figure among many Catholics and a founder of Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, a conservative priestly order based in New York. He hosts a weekly show on the Eternal Word Television Network and has written 45 books.
The comments were published on Monday by The National Catholic Register, which is owned by EWTN, a religious broadcaster based in Alabama.
“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.”
He added that he was “inclined to think” that priests who were first-time abusers should not be jailed because “their intention was not committing a crime.”
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