Damned Pervert Priests - and other assorted Holy Scumbags

[Fake Messiah]

The Prayer of the Prey is a video prayer to Bergoglio in which two women survivors of sexual abuse by the clergy describe their abuse. Like, the first abuser says that the priest put the rosary and the crucifixion into her anus and consecrated wafer into her vagina. And then how the church covered it up.

[Fake Messiah]

Around Dallas, the Church Scandals Seem to Have No End

The Youngs’ joint sermon came in late June, days after Robert Morris, the founder of the nearby Gateway Church, resigned as senior pastor after being accused of sexually abusing a child in the 1980s.

The week before, another local pastor with a national profile, Tony Evans, shocked many evangelicals by stepping away from the pulpit over an undisclosed “sin.”

Gateway is one of the largest churches in the metro area, which is known for its many and mammoth-size congregations. Mr. Evans’s predominantly Black church in South Dallas, Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, claims a membership of about 10,000 people.

The drumbeat of downfalls, surprise departures and even arrests continued all summer and into the fall. An associate pastor at Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco (3,700 attendees) was fired in July for a “moral failure.” The lead pastor of Cross Timbers Church in Argyle (5,000 attendees) resigned over “inappropriate and hurtful” actions.

Another local pastor with a national profile, Steven J. Lawson, fell in mid-September, when leaders of Trinity Bible Church of Dallas announced that they had removed him over an “inappropriate relationship that he has had with a woman.” A running list of local pastors “involved in controversies this year” maintained by the local television station WFAA now contains 17 names, including five involving criminal charges. This week, a leader at Revival City Church in McKinney was arrested on a domestic violence charge.

“It’s like the unbuckling of the Bible Belt,” Mr. Young said in an interview last week.

There’s no clear pattern to the scandals, which range widely. The churches are all Protestant but belong to different denominations — or none at all — and have different theological beliefs and worship styles.

But the cumulative impact has been unsettling for many Christians and their leaders in Dallas, a city that the magazine Christianity Today once declared “the new capital of evangelicalism.”

At Gateway, the revelations unfolded over time. Mr. Morris, a onetime faith adviser in President Donald J. Trump’s administration, had disclosed a “moral failure” decades ago to elders at his previous church and even referred to it obliquely from the pulpit, though he never offered specifics publicly.

This summer, a woman named Cindy Clemishire came forward and said Mr. Morris began abusing her when she was 12 and he was a married pastor. The abuse continued over the course of five years in the 1980s, she said.

After her account became public, Mr. Morris confessed from the pulpit in June to “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady.” The backlash to his characterization of child sexual abuse as “inappropriate” and his adolescent victim as a “young lady” was immediate. He resigned days later; his son James, who had been named as his successor, also left the church, along with a founding elder.

https://dnyuz.com/2024/10/03/around-dall...ve-no-end/

[Fake Messiah]

Divinity Professor Arrested On Child Porn Charges

Law enforcement authorities have arrested on suspicion of possession of child pornography a man who was a Brite Divinity School professor and theological librarian when police allege he obtained illicit images.

Charles Bellinger, 62, was taken into custody on Oct. 2 after Fort Worth police Internet Crimes Against Children Unit detectives, Texas Christian University police officers and United States Secret Service special agents served a search warrant at Bellinger’s house in Arlington and at his office on the TCU campus.

Bellinger was a professor of theology and ethics.

https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local...38609.html

[Fake Messiah]

It's bad enough when a bishop ignores complicit clergy. It's worse when they conceal complicit clergy. This bishop is essentially rewarding a complicit cleric

Catholic priest moves to new job after destroying material in 'child pornography case'

A Catholic priest who ordered the destruction of evidence police later said could have aided a child pornography investigation started a new job with the church Monday.

The Rev. Barry Stechschulte, who resigned in July as pastor of St. Susanna parish in Mason, now is the parochial vicar for a group of seven parishes north of Dayton, Ohio. He will join at least three other priests in leading the parishes in Coldwater, Philothea, Fort Recovery and Sharpsburg.

Stechschulte admitted in a letter to St. Susanna parishioners in July that he'd ordered the destruction of a computer hard drive containing pornographic images while serving as pastor in 2012 at Holy Rosary Church in St. Marys, Ohio. He said he discovered the material on a computer that had been used by his predecessor, the Rev. Tony Cutcher, who was removed from ministry by the archdiocese in 2018 for sending inappropriate text messages to a boy.

A church deacon, Marty Brown, later told police he used a blow torch on the hard drive after Stechschulte instructed him to destroy it. Brown has since been placed on leave from active ministry, but Schafer declined to say why.

The destruction of the hard drive and the failure to immediately disclose it to authorities raised numerous questions about how both Stechschulte and church officials handled the matter. Ohio law requires priests and others in positions of authority to report any complaints or evidence of possible child abuse.

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/20...675493007/

[Fake Messiah]

Attorney: 900 to 1,000 filed sex abuse claims in Archdiocese of Baltimore bankruptcy case

Between 900 and 1,000 people have filed claims in the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s bankruptcy case, alleging they were sexually abused as children by people employed by the Catholic Church’s, a lawyer for a committee of abuse survivors, said during a hearing Tuesday.

The figure adds scope to the scourge of clergy sexual abuse in Maryland. Last year, the state attorney general’s office released a report documenting the torment of more than 600 children by 156 clergy and other church officials dating to the 1940s and spanning Baltimore and nine other counties. Officials maintained there likely were more victims than investigators had identified.

“Wow. Woah,” said David Lorenz, Maryland director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, after being informed of the estimate. “My heart sinks. There’s that many people that got hurt. It’s a stab in the heart. I wouldn’t have guessed it was that many.”

https://www.baltimoresun.com/2024/10/15/...ankruptcy/

[Fake Messiah]

$880 million!!!!

Archdiocese of Los Angeles agrees to pay $880 million to victims of clergy sexual abuse

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $880 million to victims of clergy sexual abuse dating back decades, in what an attorney said was the largest single child sex abuse settlement with a Catholic archdiocese, it was announced Wednesday.

Attorneys for 1,353 people who allege that they suffered horrific abuse at the hands of local Catholic priests reached the settlement after months of negotiations with the archdiocese, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The agreement caps a quarter-century of litigation against the most populous archdiocese in the United States.

Attorneys in the Plaintiffs’ Liaison Committee said in a joint statement, “While there is no amount of money that can replace what was taken from these 1,353 brave individuals who have suffered in silence for decades, there is justice in accountability.”

The archdiocese has previously paid $740 million to victims in various settlements and had pledged to better protect its church members, so this settlement would put the total payout at more than $1.5 billion, the Times said.

https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-a...5bb83910f6