[Polycarp]

Letter to the Herald News - Larchmont, NY 3/3/03

I write to clarify certain charges against me in the recent article, Rodimer: “Psychologist Gave Me Bad Advice” (Tuesday March 4, 2003), by Maya Kremen). I have asked the diocese to publish a clarification as well and they have agreed. I am not critical of the writer who used the information she had.

I had nothing to do with the reappointment of James Hanley to another parish after he was removed from Mendham as a result of serious accusations of abuse of minors. In fact, I had never heard of the case. I became involved when Hanley came on retreat after he was removed a second time from a new assignment because his picture appeared in the diocesan paper with a group of altar boys. I totally agreed with the Serano family, who apparently acquiesced to his reassignment, that this was a serious violation of a provision that had been given to them, namely, that Hanley not work with minors. No additional charges of misconduct were made as far as I know from Hanley’s second assignment. I strongly suggested that he not be assigned to any parish duties and that he be supervised closely. Hanley at this time was an active AA member and was very remorseful.

I was never involved with such a case before and I was startled by the degree of anger and hurt Hanley’s sinful behavior had generated. Since that time I have worked with a number of victims and I accept their anger as appropriate and say so in my book, From Scandal to Hope (OSV 2002).

The other two cases mentioned in the article pertain to consenting adults, or at least that was the information I was given originally. There was no involvement with minors that I knew about.

Mr. Cotton’s criticism of me is unfounded but certainly understandable. If I said what he believes I said he would be totally justified in his criticism. The fact is I did not say what the article in the Metro West Daily reported. I said that as a result of working on the case of the late Archbishop Marino, I had come to realize that about 98% of what the media says about people involved in scandals is untrue or distorted. I mentioned that I did not believe everything said about a scandal involving a former president.

I suspect that Mr. Cotton never read my book From Scandal to Hope (OSV. 2002). Any honest person reading the book will see that I am horrified by the abuse of minors or anyone else propositioned by a priest. My book is a very serious and powerful call for the reform of the Church and of our society that is so lacking in morality and respect for the individual.

I am at a great disadvantage in defending myself because of the right of confidentiality of the people involved. I have worked as a therapist and spiritual director with clergy for 30 years after obtaining a doctorate in Counseling Psychology at Columbia University. I have never charged a fee and have never asked for or received payment. I have seen clergy of various different denominations and faiths. Like any therapist I have made mistakes. People forget that therapists and spiritual directors are neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys. Since I cannot defend myself, I think that any honest person will admit that what has been said against me is unfair and based on misinformation. Being a strong advocate of Church reform does not make you popular—but Jesus did not suggest that we would be popular if we try to follow Him.

Fr. Benedict J. Groeschel CFR, Ed. D.

[Polycarp]

I'm making an exception to my Lenten FR fast for this VERY important thread!

I agree with the assessment of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Dean of the College of Cardinals on this issue:

“In the United States, there is constant news on this topic, but less than 1% of priests are guilty of acts of this type. The constant presence of these news items does not correspond to the objectivity of the information nor to the statistical objectivity of the facts. Therefore, one comes to the conclusion that it is intentional, manipulated and that there is a desire to discredit the Church. It is a logical and well-founded conclusion.” Cardinal Ratzinger characterizes the media coverage as a planned campaign.

A number of factual distortions should be indicated. Egerton mentions that 85 priests have returned to the active ministry through Trinity Retreat, implying that some of these priests had difficulties with minors. These were priests on leaves of absence, not priests who had been accused of any misbehavior at all.

...I stand by what I have written in From Scandal to Hope.

Mr. Egerton’s article is a prime example of the hostility, distortion and planned attack on the Catholic Church in the United States by certain segments of the media.

Sink, A response from Groeschel, as you requested (shrilly demanded.)

Please Read This VERY Carefully, in its entirety.

Those who criticized Groeschel due to that smear article will answer to God for their slander.

'nuff said.

Back to my "fast."

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

LOL...so much for you giving up Free Republic for lent.

BigMack

[american colleen]

Incredible! Ya mean Mr. Egerton was distorting the facts? Who woulda thunk it.

Thanks for finding and posting Fr. Groeschel's answer(s) to the drive by by Mr. Egerton, although many of us who follow Fr. Groeschel and read his writings or watch his (too few) forays into the media knew the newspaper articles were carefully written to distort and mischaracterize what Fr. Groeschel says and does.

I hope and pray that the few who were quick to judge and condemn a good man will remember not to jump on the secular bandwagon so quickly the next time this happens. It's bad for your soul.

[nickcarraway]

I'm surprised he can even comment that much on the Hanley case.

[nickcarraway]

ping

[Tantumergo]

Thanks for breaking your fast to post this one.

Groeschel puts his case very well and allays the suspicions I had about his good will.

I regret that I doubted him (mea culpa), but I am also glad that he responded to the accusations because it has not only defended his good name, but it has also served to illuminate the misinformation and sleight of hand that Egerton was employing.

Egerton's credibility is down the toilet!

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

I am very glad Fr. Groeschel spoke out. He absolutely had to, however, this issue has become quite the political hot potato. It's not over.

Now get back on the wagon;-)

[Illbay]

Egerton says that according to me the sexual abuse scandal is “largely the stuff of fiction”.

I have heard Michael Savage say the same thing on several occasions.

[Illbay]

I became involved when Hanley came on retreat after he was removed a second time from a new assignment because his picture appeared in the diocesan paper with a group of altar boys. I totally agreed with the Serano family, who apparently acquiesced to his reassignment, that this was a serious violation of a provision that had been given to them, namely, that Hanley not work with minors.

This is the stupidest part of this whole scandal, to me.

Paedophiles and Pederasts DON'T just stop "working with minors." You might as well ask a mongoose to leave the snakes alone.

These people are SICK. They are COMPULSIVE and they WILL be compelled to seek out these children even if they have to do it clandestinely.

The only thing to do is REMOVE THEM FROM ANY POSSIBILITY OF CONTACT.

To me, the R/C hierarchy is, at the very least, guilty of gross stupidity in the handling of these people.

[Salvation]

**Fr. Benedict Groeschel**

bttt!

[fatima]

Polycarp,You gave us up,knock it the heaven off and get the hxxxxx out of here,we can handle it.Thanks for your post which I knew would come but it was important for him to say this.I only saw Father once on local TV and most have never saw him.I can say that my children were attacked by a gay mag.they took pics.off our TV website and ripped my kids apart.Dear God what do you do.I went to Mass and the gospel was about slander thank my paster for his homily because it put me at peace.Some people had many souls ready to picket this paper and to sue but I said no because of my Pastor's homily.The bottom line is the article was a hit piece on my son and daughter and hosts and guests on a TV show that was loved by teens,it was hard not to respond.The author said our kids would be better off huffin-"drugs"than to be nice.Father had to answer because my kids were attacked for bieng nice and more people tuned in,Father was accused of something not nice.I beleive father.

[ultima ratio]

Thank you for posting this. I have had the honor of spending a few days in the presence of this good priest and have never believed the smears against him.

That said, I believe he is wrong about the number of priest-abusers. Newsweek quoted Richard Sipes as stating that close to 20% of the 57,000 priests in the US are homosexual and half of these are sexually active. --And this may be a low estimate. Some put the number of homosexual priests at closer to 40%, with half sexually active. Of this number, it is true that true pedophilia--the sexual abuse of children--is rare. But the abuse of male adolescents is far less rare and represents a much higher per centage than would be indicated by the Ratzinger comment.

This doesn't make Fr. Groeschel wrong to focus on true pedophilia per se, but it suggests that he, like others in the Church, are still in considerable denial.

[Coleus]

Here are two more letters.
Tuesday, March 11, 2003

Comments were |misunderstood

I write to clarify certain charges against me in the March 4 Herald News article, "Rodimer: Psychologist gave me bad advice," by Maya Kremen. I have asked the diocese to publish a clarification as well and they have agreed. I am not critical of the writer who used the information she had.

I had nothing to do with the reappointment of the Rev. James Hanley to another parish after he was removed from Mendham as a result of serious accusations of abuse of minors. In fact, I had never heard of the case. I became involved when Hanley came on retreat after he was removed a second time from a new assignment because his picture appeared in the diocesan paper with a group of altar boys.

I totally agreed with the Serrano family that this was a serious violation of a provision that had been given to them; namely, that Hanley not work with minors. No additional charges of misconduct were made as far as I know from Hanley's second assignment. I strongly suggested that he not be assigned to any parish duties and that he be supervised closely. Hanley, at this time, was an active AA member and was very remorseful.

I was never involved with such a case before, and I was startled by the degree of anger and hurt Hanley's sinful behavior had generated. Since that time, I have worked with a number of victims, and I accept their anger as appropriate and say so in my book, "From Scandal to Hope."

The other two cases mentioned in the article pertain to consenting adults, or at least that was the information I was given originally. There was no involvement with minors that I knew about.

Buddy Cotton's criticism of me is unfounded, but certainly understandable. If I said what he believes I said he would be totally justified in his criticism.

What I said was that as a result of working on the case of the late Archbishop Marino, I had come to realize that about 98 percent of what the media says about people involved in scandals is untrue or distorted. I mentioned that I did not believe everything said about a scandal involving a former president.

I suspect that Cotton never read my book. Any honest person reading the book will see that I am horrified by the abuse of minors or anyone else propositioned by a priest.

My book is a very serious and powerful call for the reform of the Catholic Church and of our society that is so lacking in morality and respect for the individual.

I am at a great disadvantage in defending myself because of the right of confidentiality of the people involved.

I have worked as a therapist and spiritual director with clergy for 30 years after obtaining a doctorate in counseling psychology at Columbia University.

I have never charged a fee and have never asked for or received payment. I have seen clergy of various different denominations and faiths.

Like any therapist I have made mistakes. People forget that therapists and spiritual directors are neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys. Since I cannot defend myself, I think that any honest person will admit that what has been said against me is unfair and based on misinformation. Being a strong advocate of church reform does not make you popular - but Jesus did not suggest that we would be popular if we try to follow Him.

Fr. Benedict J. Groeschel, |Larchmont, N.Y.

Diocese not |affixing blame

By way of clarification, I comment on Maya Kremen's March 4 Herald News article, "Rodimer: Psychologist gave me bad advice". I gave an interview to the Dallas Morning News answering questions about the Rev. Benedict Groeschel. Kemen's article reflects that more comprehensive story.

The headline is certainly misleading. It implies blame. I never used the word "blame" in my conversations with the Dallas Morning News. We relied heavily on the advice of the Rev. Benedict Groeschel. It was also the advice of other health care professionals at the time.

In the 1980s many professionals believed, with false optimism, that those pedophiles could be cured. To our horror and and to the detriment of many victims as well, we now know this is not true. Bishop Rodimer also is on record admitting his own responsibility for diocesan decisions.

Kremen did not include Groeschel's own quotation in the Dallas Morning News story: "I've been involved in psychology for four decades and we in the profession were naïve enough to believe that these offenders could almost always be cured... "

He goes on to say that therapists "were sometimes tragically wrong about a particular case." This quote comes from Father Groeschel's book "From Scandal to Hope."

The diocesan focus in this issue is not to cast blame on others, but to reach out to victims, to listen, to assist and to work toward reconciliation.

Marianna Thompson, director |of communications, Roman Catholic Diocese of Paterson