"The editors of the National Catholic Register apologize for publishing without clarification or challenge Father Benedict Groeschel's comments that seem to suggest that the child is somehow responsible for abuse," De Melo wrote. "Our publication of that comment was an editorial mistake, for which we sincerely apologize."

"Given Father Benedict's stellar history over many years, we released his interview without our usual screening and oversight. We have removed the story. We have sought clarification from Father Benedict."

Translation: I'm sorry if you were offended by what I said.

Runs_With_Scissors_: Translation: I'm sorry if you were offended by what I said.

Pretty much. No comment on WHAT he said, just "whoopsies, that wasn't supposed to be in there".

Also, them actually calling out "[...]Father Benedict's stellar history over many years" is actually really, really harmful to them in this situation. This would be SO much better for them if he was a nobody they could just dismiss.

Groeschel called the abuse "an understandable thing," and pointed to Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky, who he called a "poor guy."

Wait....did he really farking say that?! I saw the story when it first came out but didn't read all of it because the first few sentences spelled it out perfectly, but he can't be serious. I mean holy shiat!

scottydoesntknow: Groeschel called the abuse "an understandable thing," and pointed to Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky, who he called a "poor guy."

Wait....did he really farking say that?!

He sure did. The entire quote:

"People have this picture in their minds of a person planning to - 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 ... 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's an understandable thing ... there are the relatively rare cases where a priest is involved in a homosexual way with a minor. I think the statistic I read recently in a secular psychology review was about 2%. Would that be true of other clergy? Would it be true of doctors, lawyers, coaches?

Here's this poor guy - [Penn State football coach Jerry] Sandusky - it went on for years. Interesting: Why didn't anyone say anything? Apparently, a number of kids knew about it and didn't break the ice. Well, you know, until recent years, people did not register in their minds that it was a crime. It was a moral failure, scandalous; but they didn't think of it in terms of legal things," - Father Benedict Groeschel, the director of the Office for Spiritual Development for the Catholic Archdiocese of New York.

And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, "Blame the kid."

Leviticus 18:2

Like how they blame their lake of vetting for getting the story posted. I read that as, "We usually don't let the Church Elders speak and we certainly don't want to quote them on the internet... "

"And I'm inclined to think, on their first offense, they should not go to jail because their intention was not committing a crime," he added.

You're a shiatty priest, a pathetic human being and you'd make an even worse lawyer.

scottydoesntknow: Groeschel called the abuse "an understandable thing," and pointed to Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky, who he called a "poor guy."

Wait....did he really farking say that?! I saw the story when it first came out but didn't read all of it because the first few sentences spelled it out perfectly, but he can't be serious. I mean holy shiat!

Just when I was thinking Todd Akin was the most vile human being on the planet this guy comes along and one-ups him.

Groeschel pointed out that "sexual difficulties" were rarely prosecuted 10 or 15 years ago, and now if "any responsible person in society would become involved in a single sexual act - not necessarily intercourse - they're done."

Exactly.

I mean you rape one little kid, and suddenly you're a bad guy.

fusillade762: "And I'm inclined to think, on their first offense, they should not go to jail because their intention was not committing a crime," he added.

You're a shiatty priest, a pathetic human being and you'd make an even worse lawyer.

These are the people who believe in a god who will condemn you to hell for thinking sexual thoughts about your neighbor's wife, yet willfully raping a child is somehow unable to overcome a specific intent hurdle.

But, no, we should tolerate this belief.

I used to stumble over this dude while channel surfing, and he always creeped me the hell out.

I may or may not have trolled his Youtube channel last night.

The bent cross has nothing to do with Christianity.

It's used to mock the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Godscrack: [img28.imageshack.us image 562x357]

The bent cross has nothing to do with Christianity.

It's used to mock the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

So it's not bad engineering. huh

Runs_With_Scissors_: Groeschel pointed out that "sexual difficulties" were rarely prosecuted 10 or 15 years ago, and now if "any responsible person in society would become involved in a single sexual act - not necessarily intercourse - they're done."

Exactly.

I mean you rape one little kid, and suddenly you're a bad guy.

I mean, what's the world coming to? Can't rape kids. Can't burn crosses. Can't lynch folks. Can't beat your wife to a bloody pulp.

Obviously, this is the fault of Liberal-Commie-Pinko-Homosexuals who want to keep upstanding Christians from exercising their dominion over the world...

Godscrack: [img28.imageshack.us image 562x357]

The bent cross has nothing to do with Christianity.

It's used to mock the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Actually, considering the ages of the gentlemen, I'm not surprised that it's not firm.

ἐδάκρυσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς

hubiestubert: Runs_With_Scissors_: Groeschel pointed out that "sexual difficulties" were rarely prosecuted 10 or 15 years ago, and now if "any responsible person in society would become involved in a single sexual act - not necessarily intercourse - they're done."

Exactly.

I mean you rape one little kid, and suddenly you're a bad guy.

I mean, what's the world coming to? Can't rape kids. Can't burn crosses. Can't lynch folks. Can't beat your wife to a bloody pulp.

Obviously, this is the fault of Liberal-Commie-Pinko-Homosexuals who want to keep upstanding Christians from exercising their dominion over the world...

They're the REAL paedophiles for even bringing it up!!

omnibus_necanda_sunt: ἐδάκρυσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς

nice!!!

People who blame victims for the abuses committed upon them need their own circle of hell.

He should be de-frocked, and not the way he's used to.

GranoblasticMan: Back when I was a staunch Catholic, I really respected Fr. Groeschel. He seemed like a reasonable, intelligent man, and the Franciscans are known for their more intellectual/rational leaning. Unfortunately, it seems he's either suffering from Alzheimer's or had some sort of Freudian guilty conscience slip.

Even as an atheist, it's saddening to see a respected religious figure like Fr. Groeschel fall so far.

I think that is telling enough.

BronyMedic: GranoblasticMan: Very true, and I never made that connection to the pedo/ephebophile justification until you mentioned it. For--shiat, at least 20 years now--people, even Roman Catholics, have been calling for the Church just to be honest and accountable, and they still hide this shiat. I wonder how far back this kind of abuse goes to have been such a pervasive, accepted institution amongst the clergy.

That's why I laugh at the people who say that "if we just let priests marry, they won't diddle boys!". No, they'll just be married men who diddle the altar boys. They'll be an institution full of Jerry Sanduskies.

Except that, for the first half of the church's history. Men and women were priests and were allowed to marry.
It was only latter, with better roads and communication and the rise of the holy roman empire, that central control started making changes.
no more marriage
no more women

"The Roman Catholic leadership still refuses to ordain women officially or even to recognize that women are capable of ordination. But is the widely held assumption that women have always been excluded from such roles historically accurate?

In the early centuries of Christianity, ordination was the process and the ceremony by which one moved to any new ministry (ordo) in the community. By this definition, women were in fact ordained into several ministries. A radical change in the definition of ordination during the eleventh and twelfth centuries not only removed women from the ordained ministry, but also attempted to eradicate any memory of women's ordination in the past. The debate that accompanied this change has left its mark in the literature of the time. However, the triumph of a new definition of ordination as the bestowal of power, particularly the power to confect the Eucharist, so thoroughly dominated western thought and practice by the thirteenth century that the earlier concept of ordination was almost completely erased. The ordination of women, either in the present or in the past, became unthinkable.

References to the ordination of women exist in papal, episcopal and theological documents of the time, and the rites for these ordinations have survived. Yet, many scholars still hold that women, particularly in the western church, were never "really" ordained. A survey of the literature reveals that most scholars use a definition of ordination that would have been unknown in the early middle ages. Thus, the modern determination that women were never ordained, Macy argues, is a premise based on false terms."

it would be interesting to read the confluence of history which led to these changes. the whys and the whens. what were all the other forces which led to these changes?