RE: Damned Pervert Priests - and other assorted Holy Scumbags
November 21, 2025 at 12:39 am
(This post was last modified: November 21, 2025 at 12:39 am by Fake Messiah.)
Young Girls Were Sexually Abused by a Church Member. They Were Told to Forgive and Forget.
Over the course of about 20 years in two states, Massie had sexually abused children within the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church, or OALC, community. He touched girls under blankets when their parents were present, in the backseat of a car with other passengers — even in the pews at church. His abuse was such an open secret among the tight-knit congregation that mothers warned their daughters to stay away from him.
Some former victims, as adults, confronted preachers, including Bruckelmyer, about what Massie had done to them. Church leaders told Massie to stay away from the congregation’s children, and they sent him to a therapist who specialized in sex offender treatment.
But they never reported Massie’s crimes to police, as required by the law. Instead, Bruckelmyer and other leaders in the church encouraged the victims to take part in forgiveness sessions — which allowed Massie, now 50, to continue abusing children.
In December 2024, he pleaded guilty to four counts of felony criminal sexual conduct with victims under the age of 13. In March, a judge sentenced him to 7 1/2 years in prison. Church officials, including Bruckelmyer, were not charged in connection with Massie’s crime, but prosecutors said they should have done more to stop him.
“It gives the appearance of a group of people who are not just trying to protect someone — but something,” Mike Ryan, the assistant St. Louis County attorney who prosecuted Massie, said at his sentencing. “And they have enabled something awful here.”
Law enforcement there first became aware of the allegations against Massie in 2017. They said that the church’s lack of cooperation — including pressuring potential witnesses and victims to stay quiet about the abuse and preachers failing to report it to authorities — was a major factor in the delay in bringing charges.
For the girl who said she was pressured to forgive Massie at Bruckelmyer’s office, the silence that followed only compounded her trauma. She reported struggling with debilitating anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder in her teens. She grew tense every time she walked into the church, especially when she saw Massie holding another little girl.
“I lived in darkness for so many years of my life because I couldn’t talk about it,” the girl said in a recorded interview with police. “Multiple times in my life I wanted to die.”
https://www.propublica.org/article/sexua...-minnesota
Over the course of about 20 years in two states, Massie had sexually abused children within the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church, or OALC, community. He touched girls under blankets when their parents were present, in the backseat of a car with other passengers — even in the pews at church. His abuse was such an open secret among the tight-knit congregation that mothers warned their daughters to stay away from him.
Some former victims, as adults, confronted preachers, including Bruckelmyer, about what Massie had done to them. Church leaders told Massie to stay away from the congregation’s children, and they sent him to a therapist who specialized in sex offender treatment.
But they never reported Massie’s crimes to police, as required by the law. Instead, Bruckelmyer and other leaders in the church encouraged the victims to take part in forgiveness sessions — which allowed Massie, now 50, to continue abusing children.
In December 2024, he pleaded guilty to four counts of felony criminal sexual conduct with victims under the age of 13. In March, a judge sentenced him to 7 1/2 years in prison. Church officials, including Bruckelmyer, were not charged in connection with Massie’s crime, but prosecutors said they should have done more to stop him.
“It gives the appearance of a group of people who are not just trying to protect someone — but something,” Mike Ryan, the assistant St. Louis County attorney who prosecuted Massie, said at his sentencing. “And they have enabled something awful here.”
Law enforcement there first became aware of the allegations against Massie in 2017. They said that the church’s lack of cooperation — including pressuring potential witnesses and victims to stay quiet about the abuse and preachers failing to report it to authorities — was a major factor in the delay in bringing charges.
For the girl who said she was pressured to forgive Massie at Bruckelmyer’s office, the silence that followed only compounded her trauma. She reported struggling with debilitating anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder in her teens. She grew tense every time she walked into the church, especially when she saw Massie holding another little girl.
“I lived in darkness for so many years of my life because I couldn’t talk about it,” the girl said in a recorded interview with police. “Multiple times in my life I wanted to die.”
https://www.propublica.org/article/sexua...-minnesota
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"
