Madrid priest sentenced to eleven years in prison for sexual assault
The provincial court of Madrid has sentenced a priest (Wooby O. JO) to eleven years in prison for a continuous crime of sexual assault.
The ruling establishes that the defendant, parish priest of the church of San Pedro Regalado and San José de Calasanz since 2018, took advantage of his position in the parish to recruit immigrant women in need of financial assistance and accommodation.
According to the court ruling, the main victim, a Colombian woman who arrived in Spain in February 2022, went to the parish seeking help after becoming homeless. The priest offered her accommodation in a house next to his own and subsequently began making sexual advances towards her.
The court found it proven that Wooby O. JO had entered the home on several occasions, using his own keys, and sexually assaulted her, even threatening to shoot her if she told anyone what had happened.
According to the court, he took advantage of the woman's extreme vulnerability and her dependence on aid provided by a religious organisation.
The victim was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. However, the court acquitted the priest of other charges brought by three more women, ruling that the reported incidents (comments, insinuation or inappropriate behaviour) did not constitute a crime.
In addition to the prison sentence, the court imposed a 12-year restraining order banning the priest from approaching or communicating with the victim, ten years of supervised release after serving his sentence and an 18-year ban on working with minors.
https://www.surinenglish.com/spain/madri...54-nt.html
Christian missionary hailed as ‘holiest man alive’ pleads guilty to abusing boys in Texas
Daniel Savala, a former missionary whose influence inside an Assemblies of God-run college ministry persisted for years despite repeated warnings about his predatory behavior, pleaded guilty Thursday to charges that he sexually abused two boys.
Appearing by video from jail, Savala, 70, entered the plea before Judge Susan Kelly, admitting to one count of continuous trafficking of persons, a felony charge for offenders who engage in a pattern of sexual exploitation involving multiple victims over time. Under a negotiated plea agreement, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison without the possibility of parole.
The plea brought closure to a criminal case that began in 2023 after revelations that leaders in the Chi Alpha campus ministry repeatedly failed to act on allegations against Savala, allowing him to continue mentoring teens and young men for years.
Last year, an NBC News investigation found that leaders in the Assemblies of God, the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination, were warned again and again about Savala’s history but failed to cut off his access to students in Texas — even after a 2012 child sex abuse conviction in Alaska. Instead, he remained a revered spiritual figure among pastors in Chi Alpha, who called him “Papa Daniel” and “the holiest man alive” and sent scores of students to his Houston home for guidance.
Behind that image was a secretive ministry built around a backyard sauna, where Savala invoked scripture to persuade boys and young men to undress, preaching that “nudity is unity” and blurring the line between spiritual mentoring and sexual exploitation, according to his accusers and former followers.
Savala’s devotees included a pastor from Waco who brought his own sons, ages 11 and 12 at the time, to Savala’s home beginning in 2021. According to court records, the boys were instructed to undress in the sauna, where Savala sexually abused them while their father was present — the conduct at the center of the charges Savala pleaded guilty to Thursday. The criminal case against the boys’ father is pending.
Church leaders had a clear opportunity to intervene in 2012, when Savala was charged in Alaska with sexually abusing boys during his time as a youth minister in the 1990s. Instead, Chi Alpha leaders in Texas rallied to his defense, paying his bond and hiring a lawyer for him. After he pleaded guilty and served a short jail sentence, the pastors allowed him to resume mentoring students.
In the decade that followed, at least half a dozen people contacted Assemblies of God officials in Texas and at the denomination’s national headquarters in Springfield, Missouri, warning that Chi Alpha was exposing students to a convicted sex offender. These whistleblowers sent emails and made phone calls raising concerns. Again and again, they were dismissed or ignored.
Some of those whistleblowers later went public, led by Ron Bloomingkemper Jr., a former Chi Alpha member who said he left the ministry in the 1990s after Savala pressured him into sexual activity. In 2023, he and others launched a website and online forum that became a clearinghouse for allegations against Savala and other Chi Alpha leaders.
The revelations triggered a cascade of consequences, including criminal charges against Savala and some of his protégés, lawsuits from accusers and the dismissal of multiple Chi Alpha leaders.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dan...rcna343859
The provincial court of Madrid has sentenced a priest (Wooby O. JO) to eleven years in prison for a continuous crime of sexual assault.
The ruling establishes that the defendant, parish priest of the church of San Pedro Regalado and San José de Calasanz since 2018, took advantage of his position in the parish to recruit immigrant women in need of financial assistance and accommodation.
According to the court ruling, the main victim, a Colombian woman who arrived in Spain in February 2022, went to the parish seeking help after becoming homeless. The priest offered her accommodation in a house next to his own and subsequently began making sexual advances towards her.
The court found it proven that Wooby O. JO had entered the home on several occasions, using his own keys, and sexually assaulted her, even threatening to shoot her if she told anyone what had happened.
According to the court, he took advantage of the woman's extreme vulnerability and her dependence on aid provided by a religious organisation.
The victim was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. However, the court acquitted the priest of other charges brought by three more women, ruling that the reported incidents (comments, insinuation or inappropriate behaviour) did not constitute a crime.
In addition to the prison sentence, the court imposed a 12-year restraining order banning the priest from approaching or communicating with the victim, ten years of supervised release after serving his sentence and an 18-year ban on working with minors.
https://www.surinenglish.com/spain/madri...54-nt.html
Christian missionary hailed as ‘holiest man alive’ pleads guilty to abusing boys in Texas
Daniel Savala, a former missionary whose influence inside an Assemblies of God-run college ministry persisted for years despite repeated warnings about his predatory behavior, pleaded guilty Thursday to charges that he sexually abused two boys.
Appearing by video from jail, Savala, 70, entered the plea before Judge Susan Kelly, admitting to one count of continuous trafficking of persons, a felony charge for offenders who engage in a pattern of sexual exploitation involving multiple victims over time. Under a negotiated plea agreement, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison without the possibility of parole.
The plea brought closure to a criminal case that began in 2023 after revelations that leaders in the Chi Alpha campus ministry repeatedly failed to act on allegations against Savala, allowing him to continue mentoring teens and young men for years.
Last year, an NBC News investigation found that leaders in the Assemblies of God, the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination, were warned again and again about Savala’s history but failed to cut off his access to students in Texas — even after a 2012 child sex abuse conviction in Alaska. Instead, he remained a revered spiritual figure among pastors in Chi Alpha, who called him “Papa Daniel” and “the holiest man alive” and sent scores of students to his Houston home for guidance.
Behind that image was a secretive ministry built around a backyard sauna, where Savala invoked scripture to persuade boys and young men to undress, preaching that “nudity is unity” and blurring the line between spiritual mentoring and sexual exploitation, according to his accusers and former followers.
Savala’s devotees included a pastor from Waco who brought his own sons, ages 11 and 12 at the time, to Savala’s home beginning in 2021. According to court records, the boys were instructed to undress in the sauna, where Savala sexually abused them while their father was present — the conduct at the center of the charges Savala pleaded guilty to Thursday. The criminal case against the boys’ father is pending.
Church leaders had a clear opportunity to intervene in 2012, when Savala was charged in Alaska with sexually abusing boys during his time as a youth minister in the 1990s. Instead, Chi Alpha leaders in Texas rallied to his defense, paying his bond and hiring a lawyer for him. After he pleaded guilty and served a short jail sentence, the pastors allowed him to resume mentoring students.
In the decade that followed, at least half a dozen people contacted Assemblies of God officials in Texas and at the denomination’s national headquarters in Springfield, Missouri, warning that Chi Alpha was exposing students to a convicted sex offender. These whistleblowers sent emails and made phone calls raising concerns. Again and again, they were dismissed or ignored.
Some of those whistleblowers later went public, led by Ron Bloomingkemper Jr., a former Chi Alpha member who said he left the ministry in the 1990s after Savala pressured him into sexual activity. In 2023, he and others launched a website and online forum that became a clearinghouse for allegations against Savala and other Chi Alpha leaders.
The revelations triggered a cascade of consequences, including criminal charges against Savala and some of his protégés, lawsuits from accusers and the dismissal of multiple Chi Alpha leaders.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dan...rcna343859
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"
