Posted on 03/23/2006 7:39:54 PM PST by CAWats
Equipped with gummy bears, lubricant and gay porn, a defrocked Pennsylvania priest was ready for sex with a boy but instead got busted by an undercover cop, police said.
Thomas Bender, 72, of Macungie, Pa., was arraigned yesterday in First District Court in Hempstead on five counts of first-degree disseminating indecent material to a minor and one count of attempting to commit a criminal sexual act.
Since September 2004, cops said, he engaged in online conversations with a detective who was posing as a teenager.
"During that year, he was grooming the boy - or who he thought was a 14-year-old boy," said Detective Sgt. Lucy Graziano of the Nassau County Police. "He was building a relationship through trust."
For a year, the conversations remained innocent, with Bender asking the boy about family, his hobbies and his favorite candy.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Dirty, filthy pervert.
Yuck, does everything have to be a gay cruising place? Why Home Depot (Homo Depot?)?
You raise an enormously important question and I can only give you my opinion and what I think may be a solution. Forgive me if I seem to be sermonizing and too didactic. I set forth my opinion with the hope that some other readers with more expertise in canon law and theology may point out errors in my reasoning -- thus entering into a serious dialogue and not a "sound bite" game of one-upsmanship. FIRST, I make reference to canon law theology. All of the seven sacraments have what are called " impediments". These impediments render a sacrament null and void - that is,invalid. For example, one canonical impediment to the Sacrament of Marriage is "consanguinity" . We moderns might refer this as the incest provision -- one cannot marry one's first cousin, etc. If such a "marriage" takes place and is determined by ecclesiastical authority to have violated the consequinity clause of canon law --- a "decree of nullity" can be issued by the church which means a TRUE and VALID marriage never took place. Let me skip from marriage and some other sacriments to the Sacrament of Ordination. In addition to all the canonical impediments now in effect, I suggest adding the impediments of practicing homosexuality and child molestation. Bear this in mind! The moral character of the clergyman does NOT affect the efficacy of the sacraments so long as he does what Christ intends. But I sincerely believe that given the recidivism rate for child molesters and its (at present) incurability that this would -- and should! -- be an impediment to ordeination to holy orders. As I said, these are my own ruminations and I'd love to be advised or challenged or questioned by other catholics. Let's have a serious dialogue!
I guess they are checking out the hardware.
The "ex priest" headline is uncalled for. Why didn't they call him what he is- A Democrat. It's a deliberate slam against the church. The creep hasn't been a priest for 20 years.
correction- he's a homosexual Democrat.
No, one is not a priest forever. You forget that God is the one who ordains a priest. You have no powers of a priest if you bind sin into your church.
Yes, I know there are plenty of "priests", or ministers etc. that bind sin into their church. People just don't realize that these "priests" have no power from God to intercede on his behalf. They are wasting their time being in that church.
That's why Christ warned us to be wary of them, Know them by their fruits.
Read on repentance by Ambrose. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/
This is great news. enough busts like this will frighten of other sick perverts from trying out there sick fantasies
They do. But you must also remember that forgiveness is part of the gospel, and so it must be part of the church.
Once a priest is removed for something like that, they'll never get a church again. But the church cannot deny forgiveness on repentence. There is no sin Christ would not forgive, and Christ tells us that no church shall deny forgiveness either.
Plumbing...
You, of course, are entitled to your own view of the matter but I simply articulated the orthodox catholic understanding of the Sacrament of Ordination as it has been understood for nearly two millenia.
Go to http://www.rcf.org the priest pervert problem is still going on.
"Thomas Bender, 72, of Macungie, Pa., was arraigned yesterday in First District Court in Hempstead on five counts of first-degree disseminating indecent material to a minor and one count of attempting to commit a criminal sexual act"
He is just bi-polar. Too bad he was not a teacher, the charges would be dropped.
LOL, what a shock that he was formerly a Catholic priest >>
could have been a protestant minister too. Seems the rates of abuse are about the same and not reported as so.
the priests are quietly removed from their posts, but not arrested. >>
this hasn't happened since 2002 since a zero-tolerance programs was instituted in ALL American dioceses.
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