By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Fr. Benedict Groeschel is a prominent member of the ultra-right Franciscan Friars of the Renewal with his own religious column and a programming spot on EWTN, the ominous sounding Global Catholic Channel. In a recent article in the Catholic Register, Groeschel takes aim at the Sandusky scandal at Penn State and the objects of his ire are the child abuse victims. Because, to the learned friar, it is Sandusky, and not his prey, that is the rightful recipient of sympathy. Calling Sandusky “this poor guy” he says:
“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.”
Groeschel also went on to explain that, based on his take on history, sexual relationships between men and young boys are not matters of legal concern:
“If you go back 10 or 15 years ago with different sexual difficulties — except for rape or violence — it was very rarely brought as a civil crime. Nobody thought of it that way. Sometimes statutory rape would be — but only if the girl pushed her case. Parents wouldn’t touch it. People backed off, for years, on sexual cases. I’m not sure why. . .
At this point, (when) any priest, any clergyman, any social worker, any teacher, any responsible person in society would become involved in a single sexual act — not necessarily intercourse — they’re done.
And I’m inclined to think, on their first offense, they should not go to jail because their intention was not committing a crime.”
It’s easy to dismiss this as the ramblings of a crazy old man who has since apologized and blamed his age and the lingering effects of an automobile accident for the inexplicable sentiments. But what is frightening is the absolute silence from Rome or any other Catholic authority decrying the madness. Oh, the Catholic Register hurriedly pulled the piece and apologized but not until the backblast became overwhelming. The CR added that it published the story based on Fr. Groeschel’s “stellar history,” and without the publication’s “usual screening and oversight.” The Franciscan Friars of Renewal went into damage-control and stated the obvious that, ” A child is never responsible for abuse. Any abuser of a child is always responsible, especially a priest. Sexual abuse of a minor is a terrible crime and should always be treated as such.”
But the troubling aspect of the scandal hasn’t been explored. What if Fr. Groeschel’s words aren’t the product of a month-long coma and failing “health, memory and cognitive ability” as the hierarchy suggests? (After all he still has his TV show explaining Catholic dogma). What if the editors of the Catholic Register actually did do the jobs they are paid for and approved the article? And finally, what if these sentiments, far from being on the periphery of Catholic thought, are in the mainstream attitude of Catholic clergy?
Scary?
No more so than the myriad of child sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the church and made Sandusky an amateur by comparison.
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
I like the comments of Zara on this blog on this particular topic. It is fun to read this topic and to talk about these self righteous pervs. When Sandusky goes up to the Pearly Gates old Saint Peter will have a stand-in that day. There is a special place in Hell for Sandusky and it aint some town on Lake Erie bearing his last name. I think Zara could better describe it for us and what it should entail for Jerry when he gets his assignment there.
Thank you itchinbayDog….. but that’s not why I write what I write. I write what I write, because I believe in what I say…. As for the Katholickass Apologists who claim that the child Abuse Victims ”seduce” their tormentors…well then, I guess you can also say, Forking Geebus ”seduced” the Romans into Nailing his droopy ass to that cross!!!!
Zara,
Got any extra tickets to sell? One for me and one for my dog. He likes priest meat, the bloodier the better.
{Music]
We went to the animal fair..
The birds and beasts were there..
The Old Babboon, by the light of the moon,
was combing his auburn hair.
The Monkey, he got drunk..
And fell on the elephant’s trunk.
The elephant sneezed, and fell on his knees and
That was the end of the Monk….
The Monk, the Monk, the Monk.!
—
So what was the Monk doing to the elephant ?
And on the Eighth Day God created Dog. To watch over the humans and lead them not into temptation. And on the Twentieth Day He created the Temptations and a bit later the Four Tops. Monks were an afterthought, after He created rifles. Put them to good use.
Zara,
Your remedies remind of those employed by your enemy.
Would you join them on the inquisition square, the massacre of blasphemers, the charnel house solutions so often used by mankind? Unfortunate.
idealist707…. Revenge is the sweetest fruit…. The Katholickass church has skated by, immune to punishment, well deserved, for 2,000 years… Yes, let the RETRIBUTION begin….
Zara,
I see you are still impervious and unable to see humor even when it bites you on the toe.
“The hand of God guides the hand of man?” is to me a quite clear ironic dig in the ribs of those who believe in such crap as God guiding anything. I would hope that the article itself would have prepared you for that.
OBVIOUSLY, the hand of God did not, nor anyone else, guide my hand. Only I did, which shows this invisible spirit’s indifference or his impotence. Considering the anti-religious views expressed in my aricle, he should have burnt it to a cinder and me with it.
Ho hum, will you ever see past your hatreds?
Doubt it.
Thanks for giving me another lesson in the difficulty of imparting humor without the assistance of facial expression and body language.
That should be “hangarounds”, not “handarounds”. Small difference. The hand of God guides the hand of man?
Dear idealist707, glad to see your imagination is still fully functional…. And that your inability to accept reality is still functional too…. FACE it,,, There is no god-damn Ghod guiding the hands of man, Man is still the primitive animal he was when he evolved 200,000 years ago, and started creating imaginary ghods he did, to explain all of nature’s furies, because he, as yet, hadn’t the science to do so…. The EVIL Catholickass church has since taken full advantage of the situation to beat its adherants into submission, through fear and lies, and finally through sexual battery, both mentally and physically. Let the punishment begin….. ”TRUCK” THE CATHOLIC CHURCH…. violently!!!! and with fierce retribution
Malisha,
Here is an alternate version, based upon facts that the German historians who got pipi for “what is the life of Jesus the man, and did he exist” in about 1880.
They were then aided by historians from many countries who had money and not much else to study for the moment.
—————————-
The jews were kinda nutty in their we are the chosen people with a pact with God, particularly after Joshua in 400 BC “let the high priests” discovered “old documents”, in the temple recesses, telling of their warlike history to convince them to follow him into war. They lost and got a new king.
He also had them give up their foreign wives with foreign religions, for the umpteenth time.
(Typical problem in patriarchites: Kill girl babies and keep the boys as old age insurance and you end up with a shortage of women. Witness Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.)
Thereafter they became zealots and hard business dealers. writers of clsssical music (came later), etc.
Meanwhile enter stupid Romans, with their martial arts specialities. Well, one jew in particular led a group, a city acgtually, not in Jerusalm, down to the last group of 10 men in a well.
They made a suicide pact, but suicide being forbidden, the leader took it upon himself to take the onus of putting the others to death by sword and then to kill himself.
All the while, the Romans were listening outside the well.
Well, they all lived happily ever after (but vague on that), but Josephus who was the leader, was pulled up, was declared brother by the Roman leader (Caesar candidate), and declared a Roman citizen (hard to come by then).
Josenphus went on to write of the wars and a few other historical tomes. His mention of Jesus in one of the books, has been shown to be a later forgery by aome monk copier (inspired by some vision?). Analysis show several semantic and other factual errors, including too much information, not too little.
At any rate there discredits the only contemporary
written mention of Christ. Instead, by comparison, there were many mentions in both roman and other surviving literature of others practicing similar deeds as those of Jesus. One had a very widespread practice of similar mirables, although not Jewish.
One Jewish one was called the Egyptian, who even organized a largr force to evict the Romans from Jerusalem.
They were slaughtered, his manner of death not recorded.
So there remained a cult claiming an imminent coming of the Messiah who would free them from the Romans and instigate a world dominance for Jews, and a righteous one after defeating all foes to solve the world’s problems. It was felt that the time to act and produce a Messiah, predicted in he Scriptures, if they were not to be forgotten and lose their engaged followers.
Enter the JESUS legend.
Thus began what became Christianity. And it is all Paul/Saul of Tarsus fault. He divided things up with Peter, who had made it to the top, and took upon himself to evangelize the gentiles; ie the Hellenistic and eventually Roman world, although Rome is disputed as to his presence there.
Peter failed with the Jews, Paul succeeded with some synagogues in the Hellenistic disposra, and with the gentile handarounds who dug it all, but not the circumsision and all the rules bit.
Then came Constantine, but that was much later.
pete,
It is a mortal sin if you DON’T KILL HIM. Exception; rule 3i, paragraph 1022, Chapter “priests who get caught with children”, actions.
pete,
I am guessing a mortal sin!
Let’s dose Bill Donahue Intraveneously and permanently with VIAGRA, then bend ‘Father Groeshel over the alter of his church, and have Donahue ‘Pork’ him till they both die…. And then, and only then, bury them together, in that position, in the church’s crypt, under the Vatican’t. I’d pay to see that one…………. ;-O I’m LMFAO!!!!
I’m no student of history, comparative religion, or hagiography (which is just a word that means something and makes people look like they know something when they use it in a sentence) but here is my pet theory on the Catholic Church. (No offense meant to anybody; I believe in universal love and all that sh*t but sometimes I get fed up.)
I think Rome was running around the world dominating everyone and taking everything from them and pushing them around and declaring itself the ALPHA OF EVERYTHING and crucifying folks who looked like they might be able to put a stop to any of that or even significantly slow it down in any way, shape or form.
They ran into the Jews in a certain area of the Middle East and this bunch had a religion based openly on a SLAVE REBELLION — in which their own private god (who was so powerful to them that he CHOSE them and then he announced to them that they were not to sacrifice to anybody ELSE’S gods no matter where they went, ever in life!) had reached forth his mighty arm and pulled them the Hell out of Egypt where they had been slaves. This was their RELIGION for Chrissake.
So Rome had a particular little problem with them. It had to be very careful there, so as not to end up with a rebellion on the part of a little group of weirdo a55holes that could damage their reputation for being unassailable, and that could create “reputation problems” for them in the long run.
Things came to a head as they usually do. Jesus was one of the problems that popped up and gave the Romans in charge there a bad hair day. There was plenty of dissension and plenty of reason for them to be able to just crucify him and make done with it, scaring his supporters into a situation they wouldn’t be able to exit from, so they crucified him on a date certain and so forth, thinking well hell, that should do it.
Of course, a bunch of other folks got crucified too, and then some rolled over and some ran and some this and some that. I don’t know the details. I do know that James (Jesus’ brother) was supposed to be the one who would take over after him, but he got betrayed. Anyway…
The Romans then got a bad surprise. Jesus got killed and didn’t stay dead. Somehow the guy survived death (if you’re a religious Christian, you believe he survived death by resurrection; if not, you can just go with the theory that the guy’s influence was so great that his followers incorporated his “presence” in such a way that his real effect as a human being with a transcendant message could not be destroyed even after his physical death) and then, the Romans ran out of ways to deal with the problem.
THEY COULDN’T KILL A DEAD MAN who survived his own death!
Their technology was a simple, brutal, dumb one: KILL FOLKS AND PUT YOUR FOOT ON THE NECKS OF THE FOLKS YOU DON’T KILL.
Years and years later, Rome kept having trouble dominating folks as a result of not having been able to kill a guy they killed; eventually they wised up: “If you can’t beat them, join them and become the boss of them,” and when they got it, they stole the dead Jesus right out from under the people who “owned” him — the so-called Christians.
They turned from unsuccessful Rome, trying to dominate everyone by killing them, to successful Vatican, or “The Church,” that dominated folks by various means, including NOT KILLING them whenever it was the better way to go.
In my admittedly primitive analysis, The Church began to dominate folks by various means, and one of them was by the Priesthood being the center of awe rather than just of fear. Becoming the Center of Awe put you in a position that could be just as exploitive as being the murdering dictator, so long as you had people’s “hearts and minds.”
Thus The Holy Church, replacing ROME. Not much of a change; just prettier clothes, more priests, different talky talk. It worked.
Father Benedict ”Arnold” Groeschel, a Priest at the age of 17, without any foreknowledge in sexual matters, and having only the teachings of the twisted Catholickass Church from which to draw his knowledge, has lived way beyond his usefulness. My hope is that someone will jam a Louisville Slugger up his ass before he dies…… to complete his education, and before they then use that same bat to beat him to death….. He well deserves it, and I’m sure, being a Catholickass for 73 years, he will revel in the punishment.
is beating a pedophile monk/priest with a baseball bat a venial or a mortal sin?
if an 18 y/o boy wants to have an affair with a priest or monk that’s their business. a 10 or 12y/o can’t seduce anyone.
Why has the ‘Ghodly’ ediface of the church had such a negative influence on the world???? It’s almost like everything it touches…. Immediately turns to SHIT!!!!
Malisha,
How about their secret baby delivery department.
Her skill in thanasia (did not say euthanasia) would be appreciated.
Ever hear the tales of small graves in the cellar. Now if they were the nuns abouted or the villages is not clear. The first anti-Catholic tale I ever heared.
Have since avoided listening to such tales. Although you can’t avoid them if you are in Madrid, and visit the square where the blasphemers were killed in the auto-da-fé torchings and quarterings.
Or if you are interested in rellgious history, then you read of the Cathars when you pass through the area in France. What they did with the gnostics I am not sure. The ones in Alexandria were murdered by monks at the instigation of the bishop.
Nice church. Lots of good deeds.
Ah, the ‘Forking church is using its influence to again Polute society. Time to burn this stinking church down, I’d say…… Starting with the Vatican’t
I choose this one, no ranking. Just have a short tale on it.
“If I am for myself alone, what am I?”
A small group of humans had spotted one of the dwindling number of Neandertals in their vicinity. The youngest one, not yet recognized as a full man, was sent to “take care of the problem”.
He did. He came back with the hungry Neandetal to the campfire to feed him.
He was then recognized as having passed the test of being human. Empathy.
Do we still pass the test?
Wow, a convent!
I wonder if she will become a nurse or work in their orphanage?
Thanks Elaine. I don’t see anything to make the comments better, but I am a little more sympathetic to the senility excuse.
Well Idealist, I never studied Talmud. I was taught a few things from the Talmud by an American lawyer/economist, non-Jew, whose lineage is Scandinavian; that quote was one of the things HE taught me. Also:
If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am for myself alone, what am I?
If not now, when?
So I figured non-Jewish lawyer/economists are pretty smart and I try to remember the stuff he teaches me when I want to look clever in company.