And yet, at the same time, he is telling people not to masturbate and not to have premarital sex.

Quote:California Catholic bishop, 69, is regular visitor to brothel called The Hong Kong Gentlemen's Club

Bishop Emanuel Shaleta, 69, has been accused of repeatedly traveling across the border from San Diego into Tijuana to visit the Hong Kong Gentlemen's Club.

Shaleta was the leader of the Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of St. Peter the Apostle of San Diego at the time of his alleged visits.

He made more than a dozen late-night trips to the brothel in a single month.

Shaleta's salacious excursions reportedly slowed down to a 'couple times a week' after he was questioned about them.

The report - ordered by the Vatican - said the bishop was spotted parking his car in a lot 'specifically reserved for people going to Hong Kong Gentlemen's Club.'

From there, he boarded a shuttle 'exclusive to visitors' of the brothel.

The club has been described by human rights advocates as a brothel where women and girls have allegedly been trafficked and forced to work.

Shaleta is also under fire over his alleged relationship with an unidentified woman who served as his parish secretary when he was a pastor in Michigan.

The bishop shares a joint bank account with the unidentified woman who served as his parish secretary when he was a pastor in Michigan. It allegedly held more than $40,000 in 2025 and received regular deposits from him.

When Shaleta became eparch for Chaldean Catholics in Canada in 2015, the woman allegedly made 'frequent trips' to Toronto and stayed 'either at a nearby hotel or at his house.'

Once Shaleta was appointed to lead the eparchy in San Diego in 2017, the woman 'immediately' moved there.

The report claimed Shaleta had 'unfettered access' to her home and that he spent 'a great deal of time' with her children.

Investigators alleged he took at least $427,345 from parish accounts, issuing so-called reimbursement checks that he signed himself.

The total amount of money allegedly embezzled by Shaleta could reach $1 million.

The San Diego County Sheriff's Fraud Unit is actively investigating Shaleta for financial mishandling, according to NBC7.

Shaleta denied the allegations on Sunday during the closing moments of the church service.

'I have never in my priestly life or episcopal life abused any of the Church money,' he said.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...aleta.html

But how can the Fraud Unit investigate an organization and/or a person that doesn't pay taxes?

Child sex abuse allegations covered up by Church in Wales for decades, report reveals

Allegations a priest sexually assaulted a 15-year-old boy were covered up by the Church in Wales over three decades allowing Anthony Pierce to rise through the ranks to become a bishop, a report has found.

Four Archbishops of Wales including Dr Rowan Williams were referred to in the report which lists a "catalogue of failures" by the Church.

The alleged victim has since died. His mother told BBC Wales "nobody cared, nobody was listening" and it was "too little too late for him".

Pierce, who had served as Bishop of Swansea and Brecon for nine years from 1999, was jailed last year for historical sexual abuse of a different boy.

Between 1986 and 2010, concerns over Pierce were raised on four occasions with some of the most senior members of the church, the report says.

But nothing was done in a "don't ask, don't tell" culture, with it being felt it was "safe to hush it up", the review led by barrister Gabrielle Higgins found.

Findings included the alleged sexual assault of the 15-year-old altar server being seen as "not paedophilia" because it involved a boy, not a girl.

The alarm was first raised over Pierce's behaviour by male students at Swansea University in 1986 where Pierce, now 85, was a chaplain.

This was uncovered by a BBC Wales investigation into historic abuse in the Church, which heard from victims and whistleblowers who said abuse was ignored.

The review said it was reported to the then Bishop of Swansea and Brecon, Benjamin Vaughan, but nothing was done.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj98z1np8m0o

(February 27, 2026 at 9:47 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: Child sex abuse allegations covered up by Church in Wales for decades, report reveals

Allegations a priest sexually assaulted a 15-year-old boy were covered up by the Church in Wales over three decades allowing Anthony Pierce to rise through the ranks to become a bishop, a report has found.

Four Archbishops of Wales including Dr Rowan Williams were referred to in the report which lists a "catalogue of failures" by the Church.

The alleged victim has since died. His mother told BBC Wales "nobody cared, nobody was listening" and it was "too little too late for him".

Pierce, who had served as Bishop of Swansea and Brecon for nine years from 1999, was jailed last year for historical sexual abuse of a different boy.

Between 1986 and 2010, concerns over Pierce were raised on four occasions with some of the most senior members of the church, the report says.

But nothing was done in a "don't ask, don't tell" culture, with it being felt it was "safe to hush it up", the review led by barrister Gabrielle Higgins found.

Findings included the alleged sexual assault of the 15-year-old altar server being seen as "not paedophilia" because it involved a boy, not a girl.

The alarm was first raised over Pierce's behaviour by male students at Swansea University in 1986 where Pierce, now 85, was a chaplain.

This was uncovered by a BBC Wales investigation into historic abuse in the Church, which heard from victims and whistleblowers who said abuse was ignored.

The review said it was reported to the then Bishop of Swansea and Brecon, Benjamin Vaughan, but nothing was done.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj98z1np8m0o

"Findings included the alleged sexual assault of the 15-year-old altar server being seen as "not paedophilia" because it involved a boy, not a girl."  What difference does the sex of the victim make?

(February 25, 2026 at 9:04 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: And yet, at the same time, he is telling people not to masturbate and not to have premarital sex.

Quote:California Catholic bishop, 69, is regular visitor to brothel called The Hong Kong Gentlemen's Club

Bishop Emanuel Shaleta, 69, has been accused of repeatedly traveling across the border from San Diego into Tijuana to visit the Hong Kong Gentlemen's Club.

Shaleta was the leader of the Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of St. Peter the Apostle of San Diego at the time of his alleged visits.

He made more than a dozen late-night trips to the brothel in a single month.

Shaleta's salacious excursions reportedly slowed down to a 'couple times a week' after he was questioned about them.

The report - ordered by the Vatican - said the bishop was spotted parking his car in a lot 'specifically reserved for people going to Hong Kong Gentlemen's Club.'

From there, he boarded a shuttle 'exclusive to visitors' of the brothel.

The club has been described by human rights advocates as a brothel where women and girls have allegedly been trafficked and forced to work.

Shaleta is also under fire over his alleged relationship with an unidentified woman who served as his parish secretary when he was a pastor in Michigan.

The bishop shares a joint bank account with the unidentified woman who served as his parish secretary when he was a pastor in Michigan. It allegedly held more than $40,000 in 2025 and received regular deposits from him.

When Shaleta became eparch for Chaldean Catholics in Canada in 2015, the woman allegedly made 'frequent trips' to Toronto and stayed 'either at a nearby hotel or at his house.'

Once Shaleta was appointed to lead the eparchy in San Diego in 2017, the woman 'immediately' moved there.

The report claimed Shaleta had 'unfettered access' to her home and that he spent 'a great deal of time' with her children.

Investigators alleged he took at least $427,345 from parish accounts, issuing so-called reimbursement checks that he signed himself.

The total amount of money allegedly embezzled by Shaleta could reach $1 million.

The San Diego County Sheriff's Fraud Unit is actively investigating Shaleta for financial mishandling, according to NBC7.

Shaleta denied the allegations on Sunday during the closing moments of the church service.

'I have never in my priestly life or episcopal life abused any of the Church money,' he said.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...aleta.html

But how can the Fraud Unit investigate an organization and/or a person that doesn't pay taxes?

Actually, clergy do pay taxes. Churches are exempt from property tax, but clergy pay income tax.

But that’s neither here nor there. He was obviously visiting the brothel to save the souls of those poor, fallen women.

Boru

What? Sexual oppression in the Catholic Church?! Don't say.

Quote:I quit the priesthood because it’s too hard to stay celibate

With his dark hair, dimpled chin and broad shoulders, Alberto Ravagnani, 32, looks like he should be heading to a Hollywood casting call.

But for the past eight years, Ravagnani has been accustomed to playing a far different role: a man of the cloth, delivering sermons and spreading the good word to Milan’s God-fearing youth.

That is, until now. Earlier this month, he tossed away his dog collar and officially left the priesthood over its celibacy rules.

“I could have decided to live in a grey area and lead a double life, as perhaps other priests do,” says a now-upbeat Ravagnani. But it was a tough decision – and one that caused an immediate sensation inside the Catholic Church. In response, Milan’s vicar general, Monsignor Franco Agnesi, issued a statement expressing his regret and noted “the suffering that such a decision caused for so many people”.

“But at a certain point,” says Ravagnani, “I realised that it wasn’t right. I don’t agree with celibacy or the doctrine that supports it.”

“I was happy to be a priest but I struggled with my sexuality for many years,” he says. “It was inherently unhealthy for sexuality to be completely eliminated.”

With 300,000 followers on social media, he’s always been a fun-loving priest with a light-hearted side. He has filled his Instagram and YouTube accounts with zany updates on his personal journey.

Ravagnani, who is heterosexual, was born to non-practising Catholics in the northern Italian city of Monza in 1993. His parents – his dad was a warehouse worker, his mum a cook – are still together after 30 years of marriage, but he says he never witnessed affection in his family and had a poor self-image as a teenager.

In his book, he describes himself as a good student but says he felt lonely and unloved by his parents as a teenager. He recalls how he condemned “dissolute” schoolmates, while spending his afternoons masturbating to pornographic videos in what he described as an addiction. Painfully shy, he says he had a crush on a female companion but never pursued it.

“When I was young, I thought I was unworthy of being loved,” he says, with a touch of sadness. “When I entered the seminary at the age of 19, it was a relief. I had never had any sexual relationships. I didn’t have to think about women any more. God was the only one who would love me.

“Maybe if I had entered after a relationship, after a degree, after a job, things would have gone differently. I don’t know.”

Masturbation was his only sexual outlet after he entered the seminary – “My brain was switched off. I allowed myself to live my sexuality without anybody knowing” – but he continued to question his physical urges. “Sexuality was part of my life, my thoughts, my fantasies, my transgressions. It was this contradiction inside me.”

Ravagnani tried to fight his temptations but eventually lost his virginity while still a priest. He bears no shame about it. “I felt guilty but I was not scared of going to hell. But I know it was a betrayal of my vocation, of God,” he concedes.

“I was a priest who used to pray, a priest who used to talk with other people, a priest who went to the psychologist. I used everything, all the tools the Church gave me, to face my problems. At a certain point I said, ‘Maybe I have to understand what sexuality is without any taboo.’”

During the Covid pandemic, Ravagnani began using social networks in his effort to promote evangelisation and founded a community for young people called Fraternità. Despite leaving the priesthood, he says that he wants to continue working with young people and spreading the word of God.

He also wants to revolutionise the Catholic Church’s attitudes to sexuality so it may one day recognise homosexuality and allow priests to marry.

“Orthodox Christians can marry, evangelicals can marry, everyone can,” he says. “I think we should start talking about it.

“Italian seminaries are empty. It’s going to be very difficult for the Catholic Church because in 10 years, 15 years, there will be very few priests.”

Yet on this, Ravagnani faces an uphill battle. Just a month after his election last year, Pope Leo XIV reaffirmed the Church’s commitment to celibacy. The American pontiff said bishops must remain celibate “and present to all the authentic image of the Church, holy and chaste in her members as in her head”.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03...-celibacy/

Dozens of Catholic priests molested hundreds of Rhode Island victims over decades, multiyear investigation reveals

Catholic priests in Rhode Island preyed on hundreds of children for decades, getting away with sexual abuse largely due to a system where bishops prioritized minimizing scandal as the diocese maintained a secret archive to conceal the revelation of more victims.

These findings were among the many sobering details released Wednesday as part of a multiyear investigation into the Catholic Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island, led by Attorney General Peter Neronha.

The report was designed to spark a "full reckoning" of the abuse that had long remained elusive inside the smallest state in the U.S., home to the country's largest Catholic population per capita, with nearly 40% of the state identifying as Catholic. Neronha, himself a Catholic, sided with the victims who have argued that not enough has yet been done to address the problem, more than two decades after it was widely exposed in the nearby Boston diocese.

The investigation found that 75 Catholic clergy molested more than 300 victims since 1950, but officials stressed that the number of victimized children and abusive priests is likely much higher.

The diocesan records, described as "damning" in the report, revealed that the diocese often transferred accused priests to new assignments without thoroughly investigating complaints or contacting law enforcement.

This includes the Diocese of Providence opening a "spiritual retreat-style facility" in the early 1950s, where several accused priests were sent for treatmentwith the goal of returning to work. This practice evolved into sending accused priests to more formal "treatment centers" after determining clergy abuse may be a mental health problem.

The report said the diocese's "overreliance and misplaced faith" in the treatment centers was at best "absurdly pollyannaish."

Overall, the majority of cases involving accused priests avoided accountability from both law enforcement and the diocese.

In total, only 20, or about 26% of the clergy identified in the report, ever faced criminal charges, and just 14 clergy were convicted. A dozen accused clergy were laicized or dismissed from the clerical state.

One survivor in the report shared that he was groomed before he was sexually abused by Monsignor John Allard, who served at Immaculate Conception Church in Cranston in 1981.

The survivor, who is not named in the report, said Allard gave him attention and physical affection between seventh and eighth grade. By ninth grade, Allard brought the young teenager to the priest's bed, took off the victim's clothing and began fondling his penis.

While a review board deemed the victim's abuse credible, then-Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin intervened, asking the Vatican's powerful doctrine office to allow Allard to retire without being removed from the priesthood. The Vatican agreed.

Sometimes, even those tasked with reviewing abuse cases were also abusers.

Neronha first launched the investigation in 2019, nearly a year after a Pennsylvania grand jury report found more than 1,000 children had been abused by an estimated 300 priests in that state since the 1940s. The 2018 report is considered one of the broadest inquiries into child sexual abuse in U.S. history.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/doze...on-reveals

El Paso Catholic Diocese files for bankruptcy reorganization, citing ‘astronomical’ potential judgments in priest sex abuse cases

The El Paso Catholic Diocese, faced with potential “astronomical” judgments in a dozen lawsuits alleging clergy sexual abuse, filed for bankruptcy reorganization Friday.

The 12 lawsuits involving 18 plaintiffs, filed between 2022 and 2025 in Las Cruces, allege sexual abuse by priests at a number of New Mexico parishes between 1956 and early 1982, when southern New Mexico was part of the El Paso diocese.

A 59-year-old Las Cruces man who is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits said the El Paso diocese is using the bankruptcy process to evade accountability

“Today, just like in the past, the diocese is only doing what is best for them. By filing for bankruptcy, they have removed the opportunity for us to hold them accountable for their failures in a court of law. Bankruptcy brings no justice to the victims, only blanket protection to the diocese,” Isaac Melendrez Jr. said in a statement to El Paso Matters.

Another attorney representing survivors, Wouter Zwart of Albuquerque, said the bankruptcy filing was “retraumatizing” for some. Melendrez is among his clients.

“And I think the bankruptcy filing feels like another delay tactic, even if there’s light at the end of the road of this process,” Zwart said, saying some pending diocesan bankruptcy reorganizations are in their third or fourth year.

El Paso Catholics reacted with a mixture of sadness and anger at the latest impact of one of the church’s horrific chapters.

https://elpasomatters.org/2026/03/06/el-...-lawsuits/

Ex-Norwich priest alleges Diocese ignored his 2014 harassment report

Twelve years after a senior priest in the Norwich Diocese allegedly sexually harassed him, a former priest says he has repeatedly reported the incident to diocesan leadership, only to be met with silence and inaction.

Jonathan Ficara published his claims in an open letter to Pope Leo about the harassment in the National Catholic Reporter, a lay Catholic publication. Ficara's claims are also documented in his Proof of Claim document, which was sent to the United States Bankruptcy Court on Dec. 12, 2025.

Ficara is upset that it took more than a decade for the claims against Monsignor Anthony Rosaforte to be investigated and validated by the Church.

Ficara says Rosaforte gave him a backrub and put his hand down the back of his pants the night before Ficara was to be ordained as a priest in July 2014.

Ficara says he reported his harassment in December 2014 to then-Bishop Michael Cote and was advised to keep his distance from Rosaforte. Ficara thought an investigation was going to happen but later learned that there was no record and no investigation of his claims.

“I trusted you and naively followed your directive, as I was trained to do, which led to several years of emotional turmoil and distress,” Ficara wrote to Cote in May 2024 letter, included in the Proof of Claim document that was filed in the United States Bankruptcy Court - District of Connecticut.

The stress of what happened stayed with Ficara and caused him to take a leave of absence from the ministry in 2022. He began the formal process to leave the priesthood in March 2024, as he mentioned in the June 16, 2025, letter included in the Proof of Claim document.

https://www.norwichbulletin.com/story/ne...323132007/


He should have just punched the guy when he started touching his ass and settled the harassment on the spot. Instead, he turned the other cheek and waited for mother church to settle this.

---

Portugal's Catholic Church to pay $1.85 million to 57 victims of sexual abuse

Portugal's Catholic Church said on Thursday it would pay a combined ​1.6 million euros ($1.85 million) in compensation ‌to 57 victims of sexual abuse by the clergy.

A Church-funded commission found in February ​2023 that at least 4,815 children ​and vulnerable adults in Portugal were ⁠sexually abused by the Catholic clergy, ​mostly priests, over the past 70 years.

https://www.reuters.com/world/portugals-...026-03-26/

Catalonia to probe claims Bolivia was used by Jesuits as ‘dumping ground for pedophiles’

Abuse cases committed by Catalan Jesuits in Bolivia will be investigated by the Catalan ombudsman – an office appointed by the regional parliament – following a request from the South American country’s Survivors’ Community.

The group accuses the Catalan province of the Society of Jesus in Spain of turning Bolivia into a kind of “dumping ground for pedophiles” by sending Jesuits there; they were known to have committed sex crimes.

Some of the priests reported by Casp students, like Father Francesc Peris (known as Padre Cesc), were sent to Bolivia, where they continued their history of abuse.

Cesc Peris — who was widely known as an abuser at Casp, to the point that students nicknamed him “Sex Penis” — stayed in Cochabamba for only a year, but that was enough time for him to make new victims.

One of his victims described how Peris “would go from bed to bed” at night in the girls’ dormitory at Juan XXIII. The number of abuses he committed in Cochabamba remains unknown. Not only girls were targeted – at least one boy reported being abused by him to the Survivors’ Community.

Peris was sent back to Barcelona the following year and continued abusing minors until 2004. In 2005, he was finally removed from the school and barred from working with minors. Earlier this year, a judge ruled that all of Peris’s crimes had reached their statute of limitations, so he will not be punished.

Father Lluís Tó González had a similar path. He spent years teaching at another Jesuit school in Catalonia and was eventually convicted of abusing an 8-year-old girl in 1992. He received a two-year prison sentence but was soon afterward sent by the Catalan province to Bolivia.

In South America, he repeatedly abused girls, especially vulnerable ones, such as the daughter of a cleaning woman in El Alto, near La Paz. Letters exchanged between Jesuit priests in Catalonia and the Bolivian provincial in the 1990s, Father Marcos Recolons, were discovered by Barcelona newspaper El Periódico and show that the order knew Tó continued committing sex crimes.

Another serial abuser in Bolivia from Catalonia was Father Luis Roma (known as Padre Lucho). Between 1994 and 2005, he lived in Charagua, a town in southeastern Bolivia with a predominantly Indigenous Guarani population.

Lucho kept dozens of photographs of Guarani girls – aged between 8 and 11 – in sexualized poses, which he took after persuading them to visit his room.

In 2023, the scandal involving Spanish Father Alfonso Pedrajas was revealed. He died in 2009, and his diary—detailing 85 abuse cases he committed over the years in Bolivia—was uncovered by the newspaper El País, sparking a major outcry in Bolivia.

Lucho Roma’s case is also connected to Catalonia in other ways. Flores recalled that his brother, Father Francesc Roma – also involved in at least one abuse case at the Casp school in the 1980s – visited Lucho in Bolivia in 1998.

“Letters show that Lucho invited his pedophile brother to experience ‘the delights of Charagua.’ The Catalan provincial allowed Francesc to come, and the Bolivian provincial accepted his visit,” Flores said.

Flores’s said Bolivia was treated by the Jesuits as a “dumping ground for pedophiles, since they would send here priests they knew had abused children in Spain.”

https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-americ...pedophiles

Professor of Christian 'sexual ethics' at Midwest university and father of TEN charged with rape and child sexual abuse

A former Midwest university professor who fathered at least 10 children and wrote about Christian sexual ethics has been charged with rape and sexual battery of one or more minors.

John Kent Tarwater, 55, was indicted last Friday in Greene County, Ohio, about an hour west of Columbus, on two counts of rape, three counts of sexual battery and three counts of gross sexual imposition.

Tarwater was booked into the Greene County Jail, where he remained in custody as of Friday night.

One victim was known to Tarwater and was as young as 10 years old when the alleged years-long abuse began, per the indictment viewed by the Daily Mail.

Tarwater had worked at Cedarville University, a Baptist school with roughly 6,400 students, as a business administration faculty member and associate finance professor since 2017.

In December 2022, he penned an article titled 'Does Sexual Self–Gratification Glorify God?' which has since been deleted but remains archived online.

'Perhaps the issue that causes the greatest confusion for both single and married people centers on the permissibility or impermissibility of masturbation,' Tarwater's article read.

He co–authored a piece the previous year titled 'Business Ethics in the Marketplace: Exploring Transgenderism.'

Tarwater also wrote the 2005 novel 'Marriage as Covenant: Considering God's Design at Creation and the Contemporary Moral Consequences.'

'The book analyzes the covenant understanding of marriage in relation to feminist and homosexual attacks on the standards of sexual moral behavior taught in the church and reflected in the culture,' its back cover read.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...inors.html