THE CATHOLIC "TODD AKINS"

 The 1983 Code of Canon Law says a 14-year old girl, a 16-year old boy, is old enough to marry. 

Marriage has three purposes: 
1) creation of children
2) union of the spouses
3) remedy for concupiscence.

So, the Church clearly considers a 14-year old or 16-year old of an age appropriate for engaging in sex.
We aren't supposed to do things which we don't know anything about, so a 14-year old is supposed to know about sex. 

“Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him,” Fr. Groeschel, now 79, said in the interview. “A lot of the cases, the youngster — 14, 16, 18 — is the seducer.” 

He added that he was “inclined to think” that priests who were first-time abusers should not be jailed because “their intention was not committing a crime.”

God forbid a Catholic priest notice the contents of canon law and publicly draw the logical conclusion:  individuals old enough to marry are also, therefore, old enough to seduce priests. 

The Catholic Faith is definitely not politically correct. 

And for those of you who like to say that the culture sexualizes youngsters, etc., can you explain all the saints and honored Christians of years past who got married at 12, 13, 14 or 15 and were having children before age 16? You know, people like  St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Eleanor of Castile or the Blessed Virgin Mary. 

Were they sexualized by the culture?
Or were they sexualized by the hormones of their own healthy bodies?

Now to be clear, I'm not saying today's culture is healthy.
I'm just pointing out that we may be infantilizing our children as much as the culture is sexualizing them.

And tossing Fr. Groeschel out when he hasn't said anything wrong isn't necessarily a good move towards solving that problem.

UPDATE
This blogger has a different take. The point I want to highlight, though, is a throw-away line in the middle of that post:

"The problem of 'pop-star priests' who have a huge cult-like following in the US amongst conservatives keeps coming back to bite I think.  In this particular case, fortunately, the virtue of obedience seems to be intact, and the swift apologies and pulling of the article has short-circuited the debate to some degree. "

All of the Catholic pop-stars have the same problem. The Catholic Faith doesn't exist in order to act as a venue for stardom. 

But, as I've noted elsewhere, it has become the habit of Catholic pop-stars, both ordained and lay, to start non-profit corporations that hawk their wares instead of starting religious orders. This cannot be good for the Church.

If Father Groeschel were honestly that upset about having his name attached to his books, he could have written under a pseudonym and refused all publicity. Clearly this isn't what he chose to do. So he can cry me a river about the terrible burden of publicity, yada, but I really don't think I believe him on that point.

The scandal isn't in what he says about seducers of priests.
The scandal is in what he says about his not liking the limelight.

UPDATE:
Typical EWTN. They fired the reporter who did the interview.
Of course, the editors who passed the interview on, the higher-ups who published it... yeah, they're safe as houses. Just shoot the messenger. 

No news here

Sure, public school teachers are having sex with students, but "Out of the millions of teachers and millions of employees out there, you're talking about a very small number who are doing these inappropriate things," said Paul Houston, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators. "As long as we keep it in context, recognizing any kind of problem like this is always a good move."

Isn’t that nice? Charol Shakeshaft’s report on sexual abuse in the schools, a report commissioned by the Education Department under the No Child Left Behind act, shows that roughly 4.5 million (that’s right, million) students were sexually harassed or abused during the course of the last decade in the public school system. Roughly ten percent of school officials are believed to be molesters, and this number is believed to be low due to reporting bias.

In comparison, about four percent of priests in the last five decades were abusers. Those five decades created more than 11,000 abuse accusations against priests, of which 6,700 were substantiated, 1,000 were unsubstantiated, and the remainder were not investigated because the accused priests had died. Over half of the accused had only one accusation lodged against them, while 3 percent had 10 or more allegations. Seventy-eight percent of the alleged victims were between the ages of 11 to 17, while nearly 6 percent were 7 or younger.

4.5 million versus 11000.
One decade versus five decades.
Hmm....

That works out to 450,000 abuse cases from the public schools per year versus 220 abuse cases per year for priests or a difference of roughly 2000 percent.

Perhaps public school teachers should take vows of celibacy.