Editorial: Children, Not Priests, Are the Only Victims Here

The Star-Ledger
August 31, 2012

http://blog.nj.com/njv_editorial_page/2012/08/editorial_children_--_not_prie.html

John Banko was a Catholic priest who was convicted in 2008 for sexually assaulting a boy over several months. A 2010 appellate decision unpheld the conviction for sexual assault but overturned his conviction for endangering the welfare of a child.

Old age is a handy bunker for people who want to escape responsibility for their ideas. Take the Rev. Benedict Groeschel. The 79-year-old Groeschel, a spiritual leader in the Roman Catholic Church, took refuge in his age after an incendiary interview Monday with the National Catholic Register, in which he blamed the victims of pedophile priests:

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

Groeschel added he was “inclined to think” priests who were first-time abusers had no intention of committing a crime, and therefore deserved no jail time. He also uttered a few words of pity for Jerry Sandusky.

What makes this all the more sickening is that Groeschel is a longtime teacher of pastoral counseling at a New York seminary, and has spent decades counseling priests accused of sexual abuse or battling alcoholism.

Outrage over his comments rumbled to the fore from both inside and outside the Catholic hierarchy, and his comments were scrubbed from the Register’s website. Church officials disavowed his comments. Groeschel apologized:

“I apologize for my comments. I did not intend to blame the victim. A priest (or anyone else) who abuses a minor is always wrong and is always responsible. My mind and my way of expressing myself are not as clear as they used to be. I have spent my life trying to help others the best that I could. I deeply regret any harm I have caused to anyone.”

His apology would be easier to believe if the Roman Catholic Church didn’t have a long history of protecting the pedophiles in its ranks. Groeschel, who hosts his own weekly show on EWTN, a global Catholic broadcasting company, also has 45 books to his name. He clearly knows something about communicating ideas.

We’re glad he apologized and that church officials pulled away from him. But the awful feeling persists that Groeschel’s remarks reveal the true thinking of the church over decades, thinking that rationalized its protection of predatory priests at the expense of children – the only victims when it comes to sexual assaults by adults.

Collar or no collar.