Brazilian priest abused young girls, forced one to have abortion
A priest was arrested on Aug. 18 in the city of Coari, in Brazil’s Amazonas state, after a police inquiry concluded that he abused at least four teenagers.
One of them ended up pregnant and was forced by him to have an abortion.
Thirty-one-year-old Father Paulo Araújo da Silva was initially reported by an anonymous person in 2023. The police launched an investigation and talked to one of his victims. The 17-year-old teenager told the authorities that she and da Silva began a relationship when she was only 14. She said that he used to make and store videos of their sexual acts.
“She was undergoing strong psychological violence, because the priest not only co-opted the victims in his parish, but also forced them to remain in a relationship with him,” he said, according to local news website Amazonas Atual. Da Silva would never allow the victims to stop seeing him and even said things like “if you’re not with me, you won’t be with anybody else.”
All identified victims were churchgoers and members of the Diocese of Coari’s Saint Peter parish, headed by da Silva. According to the police, witnesses told them that the priest would always ask the victims to bring other girls, so they could have group sex. And he always made sure to tape everything.
When the agents broke into the parish to detain da Silva, he was on his bed with a young lady who had just turned 18, “which means that the priest already had sex with her when she was a minor,” Barradas said.
The police took control of da Silva’s smartphone and found at least 260 videos made by the priest showing sex acts with minors. The priest also had R$ 30,000 (about US$ 5,500) with him in his bedroom.
The priest will be indicted for crimes like raping minors or vulnerable people, ommiting assistance to children and teenagers, producing and storing pornographic contents involving minors, forcing an abortion, and menacing a woman of violence.
https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-americ...e-abortion
A priest was arrested on Aug. 18 in the city of Coari, in Brazil’s Amazonas state, after a police inquiry concluded that he abused at least four teenagers.
One of them ended up pregnant and was forced by him to have an abortion.
Thirty-one-year-old Father Paulo Araújo da Silva was initially reported by an anonymous person in 2023. The police launched an investigation and talked to one of his victims. The 17-year-old teenager told the authorities that she and da Silva began a relationship when she was only 14. She said that he used to make and store videos of their sexual acts.
“She was undergoing strong psychological violence, because the priest not only co-opted the victims in his parish, but also forced them to remain in a relationship with him,” he said, according to local news website Amazonas Atual. Da Silva would never allow the victims to stop seeing him and even said things like “if you’re not with me, you won’t be with anybody else.”
All identified victims were churchgoers and members of the Diocese of Coari’s Saint Peter parish, headed by da Silva. According to the police, witnesses told them that the priest would always ask the victims to bring other girls, so they could have group sex. And he always made sure to tape everything.
When the agents broke into the parish to detain da Silva, he was on his bed with a young lady who had just turned 18, “which means that the priest already had sex with her when she was a minor,” Barradas said.
The police took control of da Silva’s smartphone and found at least 260 videos made by the priest showing sex acts with minors. The priest also had R$ 30,000 (about US$ 5,500) with him in his bedroom.
The priest will be indicted for crimes like raping minors or vulnerable people, ommiting assistance to children and teenagers, producing and storing pornographic contents involving minors, forcing an abortion, and menacing a woman of violence.
https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-americ...e-abortion
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
