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NEW YORK -- A New York priest says he "deeply regrets" if he aching anyone by his comments that priests accused of adolescent sex corruption are generally absorbed by their accusers and that a first-time blackmailer should not go to jail.

The Rev. Benedict Groeschel of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal apologized Thursday for the comments he fabricated in an account with the National Catholic Register, appear this week. The conservative, absolute Register removed the adventure from its website and acquaint an acknowledgment for publishing the
comments. Groeschel and the friars did as well.

"I did not intend to accusation the victim. A priest (or anyone else) who abuses a accessory is consistently amiss and is consistently responsible," Groeschel said in his column on the website. "My apperception and my way of cogent myself are not as bright as they acclimated to be. I accept spent my activity aggravating to advice others the best that I could. I acutely affliction any corruption I accept acquired to anyone."

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The friars bidding affliction for the animadversion and accent Groeschel's medical history. They said he had been in a car blow several years ago, and that "in contempo months his health, anamnesis and cerebral adeptness accept been failing." They declared the comments as "out of character."

Asked in the Register account about alive with priests complex in abuse, Groeschel had said, "Suppose you accept a man accepting a afraid breakdown, and a youngster comes afterwards him. A lot of the cases, the youngster — 14, 16, 18 — is the seducer."

In accretion on his answer, Groeschel additionally referenced Jerry Sandusky, the above Penn State drillmaster bedevilled of sexually abusing boys, apropos to Sandusky as "this poor guy" and apprehensive why no one said annihilation for years.

He additionally added after that anyone complex "on their aboriginal offense, they should not go to bastille because their ambition was not committing a crime."

'Rubbing alkali into the wounds'
Editor in Chief Jeanette De Melo acquaint a agenda answer for "publishing after description or claiming Father Benedict Groeschel's comments that assume to advance that the adolescent is somehow amenable for abuse. Nothing could be added from the truth. Our advertisement of that animadversion was an beat mistake, for which we aboveboard apologize."

The Archdiocese of New York additionally repudiated the comments in a account acquaint on its website, calling them "simply wrong."

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"Although he is not a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, what Father Groeschel said cannot be accustomed to angle unchallenged. The animal corruption of a accessory is a crime, and whoever commits that abomination deserves to be prosecuted to the fullest admeasurement of the law," agent Joseph Zwilling said.

David Clohessy, administrator of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said there needs to be after-effects for abstracts like Groeschel, "who say abundantly aching and chicken things."

"He's abrading alkali into the wounds of already-suffering victims," Clohessy said.

Comments like Groeschel's "discourage victims, assemblage and whistleblowers from advertisement alarming crimes both accepted and suspected," he said.

Colleagues of Groeschel appropriate on Thursday that he was convalescent from a abatement and was mentally frail.

The Rev. Glenn Sudano, a agent for the Franciscan Friars, likened him to an aged relative.

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"He said article like grandpa would say and it's like 'Grandpa, why would you say that?'" Sudano told Reuters in a blast interview.

"Obviously we don't accede with what he said. Obviously it's awfully black that bodies are aching or upset," Sudano said. "We feel actual bad about it."

Sudano said he did not apperceive if Groeschel would face any after-effects for his remarks.

The Catholic Church has been rocked in contempo decades by accusations that it approved to awning up the animal corruption of accouchement by priests and has paid out billions in settlements to corruption victims, bankrupting several U.S. dioceses.

Similar scandals accept annoyed the advantageous apple of academy sports, best conspicuously the confidence of Sandusky, a above Penn State abettor football coach, for sexually abusing 10 boys over 15 years, best of them in the campus football showers.