Posted on 05/27/2008 10:29:23 AM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg
Blessed with a nest egg of nearly $1.5 million, a Woodland Hills parish donated almost all of it, leaving just $1,000 in its savings account. An Encino church offered a $100,000 interest-free loan. And a Boyle Heights parish decided it could spare $500 after ruling out the idea of raising money with tamale sales.
With gifts large and small, parishes across the sprawling Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles are answering an appeal from Cardinal Roger M. Mahony to help the archdiocese dig out of the financial hole resulting from its multimillion-dollar legal settlements with victims of clergy sexual abuse...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
A few more:
Cape Coral, Florida. The FBI has issued an arrest warrant for a former minister and radio evangelist after seizing child pornography, weapons and other items from his home, records show. Troy Cecil Snowden, 59, was indicted last week by a federal grand jury on charges of possessing child pornography, wire fraud, transporting a child for illegal purposes and possession of a shotgun. (August 11, 2002), AP.
Evangelist on child abuse charges
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Baton Rouge, LA. A Baton Rouge minister is of jail on a $15,000 bond Wednesday following his arrest on molestation charges. Danny W. Johnson, Jr. was a youth pastor at an unknown church here in Baton Rouge where he molested a juvenile girl from 1997 to 1999, according to police. (July 9, 2002, WBRZ)
Minisiter arrested on molestation charges
WBRZ report
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Charlotte, NC. A worker at a Charlotte church after school program has pleaded guilty to four counts of taking indecent liberties with a minor. Investigators said Larry McCrae, 38, fondled three boys, 10 to 14 years old during the after school program at the Chapel of Christ the King Church on East 17th Street in Charlotte. (July 2, 2002, NBC6-TV)
http://www.nbc6.com/news/local/nbc6-070202-ag-mccrae.3f88315a.html
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Fort Waye, IN. A 65-year-old former church elder of Calvery Temple was arrested Friday and charged with molesting a teen-age boy he had taken to movies and ballgames in 2000, police said. (July 1, 2002, The Journal Gazette)
Ex-church elder charged with molesting
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/fortwayne/2002/06/30/news/3579693.htm
Had enough? Or shall I go find some more?
Thank God for reading skills and posted links. Father Baker’s ludicrous (although obviously Roman Catholic) understanding of its priestcraft is unScriptural.
I guess protestants go to jail because most of them are broke. Nothing worth suing for.
NEW PORT RICHEY, FL — The mother of a 5-year-old girl has filed a lawsuit against the Gospel Outreach Church of New Port Richey, alleging that her daughter was molested because church officials failed to screen the background of a church volunteer. Alfonso Morales, 54, pleaded guilty last month to molesting the girl on a church bus in May 2001. He also pleaded guilty to molesting a second 5-year-old girl in the church parking lot in November 2000. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Morales was previously convicted in New York of sexual battery on a child. He was released from prison in 1992 after serving five years. (June 25, 2002, St. Petersburg Times)
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Lake Wales, FL. William Benjamin Wells, 36, pastor of Christian Harvest Ministries, was arrested on June 6 and charged with two counts of molestation on a victim less than 12 years old, two counts of sexual assault on a victim under 18 years of age, and one count of sexual battery on a victim under 12 years old. (June 20, 2002; Lake Wales News)
Paster Wells arrested
News Report
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Kansas City, KS. Reginald G. Robinson, 24, a resident of Kansas City, was charged by the Jackson County Prosecutor on Monday, May 20, with one count of statutory rape, three counts of statutory sodomy and one count of child molestation.According to the police report, most of the incidents of molestation occurred in the basement of the Beth Judah Ministries Church of God In Christ. (The Call, June 14, 2002)
Church Youth Leader Charged In Molestation Of 13 Year Old
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Baker, LA. A Baker minister accused of molesting four children is being sought after failing to surrender to East Baton Rouge sheriff’s officials Thursday. An East Baton Rouge Parish grand jury indicted McFarland on Wednesday on four counts of sexual battery, two counts of oral sexual battery, four counts of molestation of a juvenile, four counts of aggravated crime against nature and two counts of second-degree kidnapping. The indictment accuses McFarland of performing sex acts with four children from 1990 through 1998. The children ranged in age from 8 to 16. Prosecutor Kim Brooks said McFarland initially met the children while working as a minister at Hightime Evangelistic Center in Baker. (June, 14, 2002, The Advocate)
Rev. McFarland arrested on multiple counts
Newspaper Report
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Go find more
That doesn't mean you understand, obviously. Let me get back to Fr. Baker. He wrote:
Through his ordination he has been granted the amazing gift of being a channel of divine grace
The saints, through their intercession, are also "channels of divine grace," according to Catholic belief. That doesn't make them all priests.
$720,000,000 in one city.
That's the excerpt the Catholic should be focusing on and asking "why?"
Those pesky Evangelicals and their scriptural lives....Would you like some interesting stories about other denominations? I could probably dig some up. Then we could see who the hypocrites are!
Okay. I'll stick to the USA. How many more would you like? There are literally hundreds and hundreds. :D
Wow, it’s a veritable anti-Catholic Hate-apalooza.
Pity about the research showing the problem is worse among Protestants.
Ah, yes, never never should a protestant look in the mirror. I believe that’s even in the Bible somewhere.
Something about a mote, a beam, and an eye....
Prove it.
You are distorting the meaning of alter Christus. You are bearing false witness.
Define "have to." It is voluntary.
PACE, FL. - A Panhandle minister faces a possible life sentence after he was arrested and charged with molesting children and young adults who lived with his family.
Floyd W. Linder Jr., 54, was arrested by sheriff’s investigators and charged with 9 counts of capital sexual battery and 3 counts of sexual battery. Sheriff’s investigators also obtained warrants charging 2 additional counts of sexual battery 15 years ago when Linder lived in Pensacola.
Linder, pastor of Pace Apostolic Church, was being held without bail at county jail.
Santa Rosa County sheriff’s skesman Jim Lyle said Linder has been investigated several times for sexual abuse since the 1990s, but he was able to keep his victims from talking by threatening to kill his wife. But Beverly Linder died in May of a stroke and Floyd Linder was arrested after detectives again interviewed his alleged victims, Lyle said.
Linder’s victims ranged in age from 5 to 24 years old when they were assaulted, records show. But Sherell Farmer, Linder’s stepdaughter, denies her stepfather assaulted anyone. “I live right behind him. There’s no way,” said Farmer, 33 and the oldest of eight girls and one boy raised by the Linders. AP 10/1/2000
Pace pastor pleads not guilty
Child molester preacher sentenced; Pace pastor gets 20 years
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Two South Carolina preachers - the Rev. Johnny William Cabe and the Rev. Shelton Joel Shirley, both of Hisway Ministries - were charged with bilking believers out of $7 million in an overseas investment fraud(unknown 3/24/2000)
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TAMPA, FL. - The search of an unpaid storage locker turned up pictures of young naked boys and led police to a church youth counselor who now faces child sex charges.
Marvin C. Thompson, 52, was being held without bond on 8 counts of sexual battery and lewd and lascivious conduct with children after his arrest in connection with sexual acts on two boys, ages 5 and 8.
Thompson had worked as a volunteer counselor for the Royal Rangers, a youth group affiliated with Temple Terrace Faith Assembly and had worked with at least one other Tampa church youth group, according to investigators.
The alleged victims, however, were not members of the church groups, they said. Police said Thompson had not paid his rental fee on a storage locker and when the owner opened it, he found hundreds of pictures of naked boys. The owner called police.
Detectives said they are searching for other possible victims and that after his arrest, Thompson told officers of sex acts with children dating back to the 1960s. AP 6/7/2000
Church counselor arrested on child sex charges(http://www.polkonline.com/stories/062200/sta_sex-charges.shtml)
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CLEARWATER - A former pastor has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading no contest to charges he molested two young girls.
Rev. Charles Robinson, 63, former pastor of an AME Church in St. Petersburg, pleaded no contest to 5 felony charges of sexual contact with parishioners, ages 13 and 15, in 1998 and 1999.
Investigators said while sexual relations were consensual with the older girl, the younger teen told police he forced her. Under Florida law, it is illegal for an adult to have sex with a minor even if the contact is consensual.
In an agreement with prosecutors, Robinson pleaded guilty to 4 counts of handling and fondling a child under 16 and one of performing a lewd and lascivious act.
Robinson faced a maximum sentence of 75 years in prison if convicted at trial. The prosecutor said the minister was offered the plea agreement because the victims’ families wanted to avoid the trauma of trial.AP 6/7/2000
Minister gets prison in sex case (http://www.sptimes.com/News/070800/TampaBay/Minister_gets_prison_.shtml)
St. Petersburg minister sentenced to 20 years in sex case http://www.polkonline.com/stories/070800/sta_sex-case.shtml
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FREEHOLD. NJ. - A street preacher who helped “society’s rejects” has been sentenced to six years in state prison for sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl in his care.
Superior Court Judge Ira E. Kreizman acknowledged that Michael R. McCarthy, 56, had done some good during his years as a minister. But he told McCarthy he had done “a terrible thing” as the girl’s legal guardian.
“There are some lives you have saved,” he said. “But there is at least one life that has been ruined by what you have done.”
The victim, now 20, told Kreizman that she didn’t know what to do when the assaults started. She no longer trusts men, she said.
An evaluation of McCarthy concluded that he was not a repetitive and compulsive sex offender but that he was “opportunistic, hedonistic and exploitive,” Kreizman said. “She was the clay, he was the potter,” the judge said. “He was able to mold her in the impression he wanted. She was incapable of resisting.”
McCarthy first addressed the judge, then turned to the victim and apologized. “I am terribly sorry for what happened,” he said. “It was a horrible event in my life, and I apologize to the victim. I apologize for any hurt or harm I have done. I realize the gravity of what I have done.”
McCarthy told Kreizman he was concerned about what would happen to the people he shelters at his Set Free Ministries in Long Branch if he goes to jail. His wife works full time as a flight attendant and is the sole support of the family, he said.
“My concern is not for myself,” he said. “I understand I am responsible and have to pay for what I have done.”
Shortly after his arrest in 1996, his attorney said McCarthy denied the allegations. McCarthy said the girl - entrusted to his care at age 14 by her father because of family conflicts - invented the charges because his wife was going to punish her for refusing to do household chores. He pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree sexual assault in Dec. In exchange for the plea - which the victim agreed with - 7 other counts, including one of witness tampering, were dismissed.
As McCarthy was led away in handcuffs, some of his supporters who packed one side of the courtroom began to cry. Others were angry.
“You happy now?” one man said angrily to a woman sitting next to the victim. “Loser,” she replied. A court attendant called for order as the victim and her supporters were led out of the courtroom. Ashbury Park Press, 6/24/2000
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GAFFNEY, NC. - A 22-year-old church youth minister has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for molesting a teen-ager in 1998.
A jury found Chad Severance, of Bessemer City, guilty of fondling one teen-age boy. Severance is expected to be tried in two similar cases later.
All three boys were members of the New Harvest Church of God, which hired Severance as minister of music in May 1998. The boys said Severance would make excuses to spend the night with them either at their homes or at his.
Each described waking during the night to find Severance fondling them.
Severance, who serves as a minister of music at a North Carolina church, denied the charges. During testimony, he said he never slept with any of the boys when they visited his home. He said he was invited to stay at the home of one of the boys by the teen’s mother. 7/23/2000
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TULSA - A former Sunday school teacher who was sentenced to more than two life terms in his state case for multiple sex crimes against children has been indicted by a federal grand jury.
John Perry Sanger, 54, of Bristow, was indicted on one count each of use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct to produce visual depiction, interstate transportation of child pornography and possession of child pornography in the July through Sept. 1999 incidents. The fourth count would require the forfeiture of his real estate in Bristow and a considerable amount of computer and electronic equipment if he is convicted of the possession count.
Sanger pleaded guilty in state court March 29 to 3 counts of rape by instrumentation and 2 counts each of lewd molestation, indecent exposure and lewd acts against a child under the age of 16. A judge ordered him to serve two consecutive life sentences, plus 20 years, as punishment.
Bristow police have contended that Sanger’s case might include up to 20 victims, although the charges stemmed from only two, a 9-year-old boy and his 12-year-old sister, who attended church with Sanger.
The boy testified at the state hearing that he had on several occasions accepted invitations to go to Sanger’s home to play computer games. On one of these occasions, the boy said, he was asked to take pictures of a nude Sanger on a bed with five “grown-up” women. The girl testified at the preliminary hearing that Sanger once asked her and another girl to undress during a game of “strip” poker at his home. Other juveniles were in the house when the victim lost a card game and Sanger performed a sexual act with her, according to a court affidavit. Federal charges were alluded to in Nov. when officials revealed that the FBI was also investigating the case.
An FBI agent said then that prosecutors would not take the case before a grand jury until federal officials had investigated further. World 6/10/2000
Local Briefs Man pleads guilty to sex crimes http://www.news-star.com/stories/031700/new_sexcrimes.shtml
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KNOXVILLE, TN. The former youth minister of a Powell church faces charges of sexual exploitation of a minor. The charges come after a computer consultant found pornographic images of children on a church laptop, according to the church’s senior pastor.
Jason Patrick Edelen, 24, was arrested on child pornography charges, according to an arrest report at the Sheriff’s Department.
Edelen was served with criminal warrants shortly after midnight, according to the arrest report. Edelen faces charges of sexual exploitation of a minor and aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, the report states. Both charges are felonies.
The charges apparently stem from an investigation that began after a computer consultant scouring a church computer for viruses came across files containing pornographic images of children, according to Brian Kearns, the senior minister at Lighthouse Christian Church.
According to the Tennessee Code Annotated, both offenses deal with the possession of materials depicting minors engaged in sexual activity or simulated sexual activity.
According to Kearns, on June 26 church officials discovered files containing pornographic images on a church-owned laptop computer. The next day, church leaders confronted Edelen, who had permission to use the machine, Kearns said.
Kearns said Edelen resigned minutes after being told he was suspended. Kearns said officials then turned the information over to authorities for further investigation. He said church officials believe the incident only concerns images obtained over the Internet.
“There’s no evidence there was physical interaction with anyone,” Kearns said, adding that he didn’t believe that any children in the church’s youth group saw any of the images.
Edelen was the first youth minister ever at Lighthouse Christian Church, which was founded in March 1998. Edelen was hired two months later.
“This is difficult to take,” said Kearns, who has known Edelen since Kearns was a youth pastor in Springfield, Kent. “We’re serious about this. Our goal is to restore him back to health and a part of that is discipline,” Kearns said. He said the church also arranged for Edelen to obtain counseling after the discovery of the files.
Records show Edelen was jailed in lieu of $7,500 bond. News-Sentinel 10/3/2000
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Youth pastor faces charges
Arraignment lists sexual abuse count
HERMISTON — A youth pastor was arraigned Thursday on charges of one count of first-degree sexual abuse and eight counts of using a child in display of explicitly sexual conduct for a person to observe. The suspect is a former Hermiston School Resource Officer. Jay Brian Lynch worked for the Hermiston Police Department from January 1994 through July 1997, when he told Chief Andy Anderson that he wanted to give up his law enforcement career to seek a career in the church. He became youth pastor at Hermiston’s Church of the Nazarene. “I almost fell out of my chair when I heard about it,” Anderson said of Lynch’s arrest. Lynch is 42 years old.
The sexual abuse charge against Lynch involves a girl under the age of 14, said Chris Brauer, Umatilla County district attorney. The charges of using a child in display of explicitly sexual conduct involves two girls under the age of 14. A secret indictment on Sept. 27 led to Lynch’s arrest on Wednesday and his arraignment the following day. At the arraignment, Judge Eric Valentine appointed a public defender to represent Lynch and set bail at $250,000. A pretrial conference is scheduled for Oct. 17. (EONI, Oct. 6, 2002) Youth pastor faces charges
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Rev. Marchand of New Testament Fellowship Church is convicted of sexual molestation, neglect and physical abuse of his children in 1994 (Worchester Telegram & Gazette, May 28, 2000)
Appointment of guardian may add to cycle of abuse
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Los Angeles CA. Faith Healer Molests Children. Carlos Catalan, 49, a faith healer with no known religious affiliation, is being held on 15 counts of rape, two counts of sodomy, three counts of lewd acts with a child and one count of child molestation.Catalan would tell young women that having sex with him would lead to healing for family members. He told one young woman, aged 16, that unless she sacrificed her virginity to a saint channeled through him, that her father would die. (05.18.00, Reuters)
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AURORA, IL. - Rev. Paul Goodman, 54, has been indicted by a grand jury on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse with 3 teenage girls. The television minister, who runs weekly church services at Provena Mercy Center, is accused of having sexual contact with the teens, ages 13, 16 and 17, according to the indictment.
His family is calling the allegations a gross misunderstanding. His wife, Arvis, said the situation began last fall when her husband wrote a letter to one of the teens. She called the note a “written lecture” on dating, with references to caressing. The minister’s family contends that the note fell into the hands of one of the girls’ aunts, who went to state authorities worried that the letter might be a sign of an abusive relationship.
Charges were leveled against Goodman after a grand jury gathered testimony from witnesses. Goodman was taken into custody without incident in Chicago. He was being held in Kane County Jail on $100,000 bond awaiting arraignment.
Arvis Goodman said she and her husband have been members of Faith Deliverance Church in Aurora. The couple run the Sinners Repentant Church of Jesus Christ, a group that Goodman said ministers to people with alcohol and drug problems. The Goodmans also are known in Aurora for their cable-access television program, “God’s Information Station.” 3/31/2000
Peddling left-wing Hollywood propaganda again?
Perhaps they could use some of the proceeds to pay damages to evangelical child abuse victims.......
Here are three more:
AURORA, IL. - A self-proclaimed minister and schoolbus driver faces multilple charges with soliciting sex from two 18-year-old males assigned to court-ordered community service at the church he ran from his home. Terrance Johnson, 45, was charged also with bribery and record-tampering for allegedly offering to falsely report that the men had finished their work in exchange for sex. He resigned as bus driver when local school officials got wind of the police investigation, and after more than 50 calls from concerned residents to investigators, more charges might follow. Tribune 1/28/00, 12/28/99, 12/3/99
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BOSTON - A mother, her son and another man have been charged with trying to bilk the Archdiocese of Boston out of $850,000 by claiming sexual abuse against a priest.
Sean Murphy, 35, his mother, Sylvia, 57, and Byron Worth, 41, have been indicted on conspiracy and attempted larceny charges. The trio claimed that Worth, Sean Murphy and his brother were sexually abused by a priest when they were children, said the State Attorney General. In 1998, Sean Murphy allegedly sought $850,000 from the archdiocese.
Police determined that at the time of the alleged abuse, neither Murphy nor Worth lived in the community where the abuse supposedly occurred. To support the scheme, Sylvia Murphy created phony school records showing that the family had lived in the town more than two decades ago, the DA’s office said.
An archdiocesan spokesman said no payments were made. Murphy’s brother, whose name was not released, was not charged. AP, 2/25/00
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DETROIT - Kevin Cain, 37, a Salvation Army choir director, has been charged in 5 separate cases of sexual abuse involving 8 boys, all of whom are expected to testify. One case dates back more than 8 years.
He faces 21 counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and 3 other sex-related charges. He faces up to life in prison if convicted of just one first-degree criminal sexual conduct charge.
Cain gave the youths money, clothes, alcoholic drinks and marijuana in exchange for sex, according to Detroit police. When police began investigating Cain last Aug., he fled but turned himself in this Jan.
He has pleaded not guilty and is being held in the county jail. The Salvation Army has fired Cain, who was a part-time employee.
Police said Cain has no known convictions. Free Press, 2/23/00
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I'm familiar with the situation. By parishes contributing to the settlement, it means that he does not have to sell off more.
Read the words. The logic of the RCC's priestcraft is not only unScriptural and self-contradictory, it actually facilitates scandals such as these sex abuse convictions.
Priestcraft? Better cover up there... your anti-Catholicism is showing. Disagreement does not necessitate disrespect.
$720,000,000 in one city. That's the excerpt the Catholic should be focusing on and asking "why?"
Normal human weakness (even the graces of priesthood don't prevent it) plus some combination of the following:
- dissenters in the seminaries, who should have but didn't weed out the perverts in the first place
- psychologists (including secular ones) among whom the consensus was that pedophilia/ephebophilia could be cured.
- the bishops who listened to them (and did so in good faith) but didn't wise up quickly enough
- opportunistic lawyers (bolded because they're the ones fueling the high settlement amounts and dragging up cases that cannot be defended against because the priests in question are long dead
- dissenting lobbyist groups that are CINOs
- anti-Catholicism/anti-Christianity (yes, I went and said it; and the latter, especially in the form of the former, is one of the last acceptable prejudices in America)
You've posted a few dozen accusations from all over the globe among a variety of people connected to a variety of churches.
The L.A. settlement involved hundreds of children who were molested IN ONE CITY ALONE.
In July, 2007, the L.A. archdiocese of the Roman Catholic church settled with 508 victims for $660.000,000. Six months earlier in December of 2006, it had settled with another 45 victims for $60,000,000.
A grand total of $720 million in TWO settlements in ONE CITY.
Aren't Catholics concerned by this?
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