UNITED STATES
The League of Ordinary Gentlemen
by Kyle Cupp on September 4, 2012
As you’ve probably heard by now, an iconic priest named Father Benedict Groeschel depicted clerics involved in sexual abuse as the victims of seductive youngsters in a now-removed interview with the National Catholic Register. Both he and his religious order apologized for the comments, explaining that he did not intend to blame victims and that his mind and way of expressing himself are not as a clear as they used to be, and acknowledging that the remarks were untrue, insensitive, inappropriate, and hurtful. I’m familiar but not well acquainted with Father Groeschel’s work, but from what I gather, the words were out of character for him.
When I first read about this interview, I remembered that I had a book on the shelf by Father Groeschel, on the sex abuse scandal of all things. I’d never read From Scandal to Hope, which was published in 2002, but with his name in the news I picked it up and read most of it, while skimming a few sections here and there. Nowhere in the book did he blame the victims, I’m happy to report, but nor is the work about the victims. Instead, Father Groeschel charted a path for reform in the context of the abuse scandal, admitting that his course would lead to a Catholic ghetto, which he said would offer protection and be a cause of great identity. “One man’s ghetto is another man’s hometown,” he wrote.
In From Scandal to Hope, Father Groeschel complained a lot about the media feeding frenzy (warning Catholics to be loyal and not join in), which he labeled the work of Satan (along with the sins of abusive priests), and he devoted an entire chapter to how his church is being persecuted by its cultural enemies. He blamed the abuse scandal on mistakes, serious and egregious errors, negligence, bad psychology, and the “gay scene” in seminaries, while tracing the scandal’s root causes to relativism, skepticism, and dissent. “Today’s mistakes are not about misbehaving clerics,” he wrote. “That’s over. Today’s mistakes in the Church are about the continuing appointment of people who openly dissent from Church teaching.”
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