Superintendent hopes for re-evaluation of celibacy 
 
 Nancy Kotowski said Wednesday that she hopes the revelation this week that she had a long-term relationship with a priest will open a dialogue within the Catholic Church about its clerical celibacy requirements. 
 
 Kotowski, the Monterey County superintendent of schools, said the "physical aspect" of her long-term relationship with the Rev. Mike Manning ended about three years ago. 
 
 Manning, a prominent figure in the church in Southern California, has taken a leave of absence from his ministry after his relationship with Kotowski, his second cousin, was reported by the San Bernardino Sun and published in The Herald on Wednesday. 
 
 Manning has stepped away from Wordnet, a worldwide Catholic television ministry based in San Bernardino, said John Andrews, a spokesman for the diocese. 
 
 Kotowski said she believes news of her relationship might open discussion about Catholic mandates on celibacy. 
 
 "The reality is that we love the church, we're committed to the church, but I'm hoping a dialogue will open up (about) obligatory celibacy, the whole question of celibacy," she said Wednesday during a telephone interview with The Herald. "Is it right for all people?" 
 
 The Sun story described communications between Kotowski and the priest. The correspondence included their conflicts in determining whether Manning should leave the priesthood to marry Kotowski. 
 
 "We're soul mates, and in any human relationship, especially one of over 30 years, you reach a decision-making 
 
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 point, and our relationship reached that point," Kotowski said. 
 
 Kotowski said she takes exception to media descriptions of her relationship with Manning as an "affair" because she believes theirs was a life-long commitment. 
 
 "It's a 30-year relationship of love for one another," she said. "That's what it was." 
 
 Kotowski, 59, and Manning, 70, are cousins on her mother's side, and did not grow up together, she said. Manning left for the seminary when he was 14, and she was 3. 
 
 Kotowski attended Manning's ordination and first Mass, but their paths did not cross again until she was in her late 20s, she said. 
 
 Both families know of their relationship and have even welcomed them at family gatherings, she said. 
 
 "My family knows him and loves Father Mike. My family knows of our closeness and our relationship, and they're very happy we have each other on our life journey. They know we're kindred spirits and soul mates." 
 
 They are now embracing celibacy, Kotowski said, because she supports Manning's calling. 
 
 "It's a struggle, but we know God is calling to us, so we honor that," she said. 
 
 Kotowski would not say how long the physical aspect of her relationship lasted, nor whether she has had other long-term relationships. She has never married and has no children. 
 
 Kotowski said she is not concerned with how the revelations of her relationship with Manning will play out because she feels she has done nothing wrong or illegal. 
 
 San Bernardino Sun staff writer Josh Dulanay contributed to this story. 
 
 Claudia Meléndez Salinas can be reached at 753-6755 or cmelendez@montereyherald.com. ||||| On Thursday, the comments were taken off the publication’s Web site after the controversy erupted, and the editors, Father Groeschel and his religious order apologized. 
 
 “I did not intend to blame the victim,” Father Groeschel wrote in a statement published on The Catholic Register’s site. “A priest (or anyone else) who abuses a minor is always wrong and is always responsible. My mind and my way of expressing myself are not as clear as they used to be.” 
 
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 Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York, denounced the comments as “terribly wrong.” But he said the church was unlikely to discipline Father Groeschel, in part because as a member of a religious order, he was not officially a priest of the diocese. 
 
 For the past 38 years, Father Groeschel has counseled priests at the Trinity Retreat House in the New York suburb of Larchmont; he founded the retreat at the direction of the archbishop at the time, Cardinal Terence J. Cooke. The retreat is a place of treatment and reflection, and the archdiocese has sent priests credibly accused of sexual abuse to live there, but not since 2006, Mr. Zwilling said. 
 
 More recently, priests struggling with problems like alcoholism have been sent there for counseling. Father Groeschel, who has a doctorate in psychology from Teachers College at Columbia University, has also taught pastoral counseling for more than 40 years at the archdiocesan seminary, St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers. 
 
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 But though he told The Catholic Register that he continued to teach at the seminary, the archdiocese said that the previous academic year had been his last because of what it described as advancing senility and other health problems. The Rev. Glenn Sudano, another founder of the Friars of the Renewal, whose adherents take vows of poverty and work extensively with the poor, said the remarks might have been the result of Father Groeschel’s advancing age and failing health, as well as the aftereffect of a near-fatal 2004 car accident in Orlando, Fla. 
 
 “Poor Father Benedict,” he said. “It is painful for us, seeing someone who was so much an advocate and a defender for the underdog, say that.” 
 
 In the interview, Father Groeschel said that he continued to counsel priests and that he worked some 12 hours a day. 
 
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 Asked if he counseled priests who were abusers, he said yes, and then offered a sympathetic portrait. “People have this picture in their minds of a person planning to — a psychopath, but that’s not the case,” he said. Asked why a child might act as a seducer, he said: “A kid looking for a father and didn’t have his own — and they won’t be planning to get into heavy-duty sex, but almost romantic, embracing, kissing, perhaps sleeping but not having intercourse or anything like that.” 
 
 He also expressed sympathy for Jerry Sandusky, the retired Penn State football coach who was recently convicted of serial child molesting, calling him “this poor guy.” 
 
 Many New York priests and others — including advocates for victims of child sexual abuse — reacted with anger at the remarks. “Blaming the abused for their abuse is indefensible,” said the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit commentator for America Magazine.
– A popular priest who leads a worldwide TV ministry is taking a leave from his California diocesan duties after revealing an affair with a second cousin. Michael Manning 'fessed up after a local newspaper received a series of intimate notes between Manning and his former lover, a schools superintendent from Monterey County. Manning apparently broke off the relationship with Nancy Kotowski three years ago. "I was living two lives: one as a priest who was vowed to celibacy and another life as a sexually active man in our sexual intimacy," Manning, now 70, told the San Bernardino Sun. "It's very hard when you care for someone, but I love my priesthood more. I admit the fact of my sinfulness. I've done wrong. That's why I've stopped." Manning began his Catholic TV ministry 33 years ago. He appears weekly on The Word in the World on the Trinity Broadcast network. He has announced he's taking a leave from his post with the San Bernardino Diocese, but it's unclear if he'll continue on TV. Kotowski, 59, who called Manning her "soulmate," said she hoped the revelation would spark debate. "The reality is we love the church, but I'm hoping a dialogue will open up about the whole question of celibacy," she told the Monterey Herald.