CHURCH SEX SCANDALS!

Discussion in 'Religion and Spirituality' started by Frederick Foresight, Jun 1, 2022.

  1. themickey

    themickey

    The church wants yes men, not discent or criticism, not free thinking, the church wants conformity.
    Then we progress onto this, the church wants men to dominate, women subservient to men, women not to lead, men to control women, class rule.
     
    #11     Jun 4, 2022
  2. themickey

    themickey

    But anyway, we are getting off subject, sorry, this is about church sex scandals.
    But it could be deduced, men controlling women in the church is another excuse for men to have their way and exploit.
     
    #12     Jun 4, 2022
  3. @themickey Satan would certainly have you believe what you just wrote:

    the church wants you to remain stupid, to not change, stymie thinking, to live in the past, to cling to nonsense, to debunk science, remain rooted in fear and tradition
    But it's certainly not true.

    Harvard, Yale and Princeton were Christian schools at one time, and they certainly weren't formed to keep people remaining stupid.

    "Harvard's mission statement, given in 1642, was clearly evangelical: “Everyone shall consider as the main end of his life and studies, to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life."
    https://www.liberty.edu/journal/art...vard College in,Christ, which is eternal life.


    Yale: "The university traces its roots to the 1640s, when colonial clergymen led an effort to establish a local college in the tradition of European liberal education."
    https://www.yale.edu/about-yale/traditions-history

    Princeton: "It’s common knowledge that Princeton University was founded by proponents of the great revival movement, often called the “Great Awakening,” that swept the American colonies about 1725. The word “revival” refers to the quickening of the human heart to hear and receive the Gospel in a decisive way. Usually understood as the revitalization of an old faith grown stale and lax, “revival” came to be synonymous with an emotional, personal, and immediate recommitment to God in Christ."
    https://paw.princeton.edu/article/princetons-revivalist-roots

    Deeply committed Christian scientists have contributed much to science:

    https://www.famousscientists.org/great-scientists-christians/


     
    #13     Jun 4, 2022
  4. Division of whom/what? What wars did they cause? Who did they segregate? What power did they wield and over whom? What corruption? What deception? What control? Did they really have class levels? Did they really exploit children? How many? Where at? What fear? What superstion? Who did they divide?

    Christianity = slavery? Control leads them to change their rules? What rules are those? How have they changed and when? Changing rules to survive? How do they survive by changing rules?

    More questions for you!
     
    #14     Jun 5, 2022
  5. Explain "stupid" Progressing to what? Kinky sex? Live in the past? Give an example of this.

    Where do they debunk science? What fear do you talk about? What is wrong with tradition?

    Whatever you do, don't let the current scientists do your thinking. They change their rules so they can wield power over you.
     
    #15     Jun 5, 2022
  6. Men do not have to go to church to exploit women. They seem to do that just fine outside the church.
     
    #16     Jun 5, 2022
  7. themickey

    themickey

    You'll never get it.
     
    #17     Jun 5, 2022
  8. You can't repress sex. That tension needs to be released in a healthy way.

    Look at Middle Eastern/religious men.....Priests/churches....Prison men.....and people in general who don't get laid......they all lash out in very unhealthy ways from that repression of sex.

    A plane needs to drop off cargo...with female and male sex toys, condoms, and birth control....over a populace. and they will be happy and calm.
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2022
    #18     Jun 5, 2022
    themickey likes this.
  9. You will never get it. :D
     
    #19     Jun 5, 2022
  10. themickey

    themickey

    [​IMG]
    FBI opens sweeping probe of clergy sex abuse in New Orleans

    By JIM MUSTIAN today
    https://apnews.com/article/new-orle...nvestigation-0d0ee865d27508b7848909d8e82e87fb
    NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The FBI has opened a widening investigation into sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in New Orleans going back decades, a rare federal foray into such cases looking specifically at whether priests took children across state lines to molest them, officials and others familiar with the inquiry told The Associated Press.

    More than a dozen alleged abuse victims have been interviewed this year as part of the probe that’s exploring among other charges whether predator priests can be prosecuted under the Mann Act, a more than century-old, anti-sex trafficking law that prohibits taking anyone across state lines for illicit sex.

    Some of the New Orleans cases under review allege abuse by clergy during trips to Mississippi camps or amusement parks in Texas and Florida. And while some claims are decades old, Mann Act violations notably have no statute of limitations.

    “It’s been a long road and just the fact that someone this high up believes us means the world to us,” said a former altar boy who alleged his assailant took him on trips to Colorado and Florida and abused him beginning in the 1970s when he was in the fifth grade. The AP generally does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted.

    The FBI declined to comment, as did the Louisiana State Police, which is assisting in the inquiry. The Archdiocese of New Orleans declined to discuss the federal investigation.

    “I’d prefer not to pursue this conversation,” Archbishop Gregory Aymond told the AP.

    [​IMG]
    This Dec. 1, 2012 file photo shows a silhouette of a crucifix and a stained glass window inside a Catholic Church in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)


    The probe could deepen the legal peril for the archdiocese as it reels from a bankruptcy brought on by a flood of sex abuse lawsuits and allegations that church leaders turned a blind eye to generations of predator priests.

    Federal investigators are now considering whether to seek access to thousands of secret church documents produced by lawsuits and shielded by a sweeping confidentiality order in the bankruptcy, according to those familiar with the probe who weren’t authorized to discuss it and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. Those records are said to document years of abuse claims, interviews with accused clergy and a pattern of church leaders transferring problem priests without reporting their crimes to law enforcement.

    [​IMG]

    The FBI opened a widening investigation into sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in New Orleans going back decades, a rare federal foray into such cases looking specifically at whether priests took children across state lines to molest them.
    “This is actually a big deal, and it should be heartening to victims,” said Marci Hamilton, a University of Pennsylvania professor and chief executive of Child USA, a think tank focused on preventing child abuse. “The FBI has rarely become involved in the clergy sex abuse scandals. They’ve dragged their feet around the country with respect to the Catholic Church.”

    The U.S. Justice Department has struggled to find a federal nexus to prosecuting clergy abuse, hitting dead ends in cases as explosive as the ones outlined in the 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report that disclosed a systematic cover-up by church leaders. Federal prosecutors subpoenaed church records in Buffalo, New York, the same year in an inquiry that similarly went quiet.

    “The issue has always been determining what is the federal crime,” said Peter G. Strasser, the former U.S. attorney in New Orleans who declined to bring charges in 2018 after the archdiocese published a list of 57 “credibly accused” clergy, a roster an AP analysis found had been undercounted by at least 20 names.

    Strasser said he “naively” believed a federal case might be possible only to encounter a host of roadblocks, including the complexities of “putting the church on trial” for charges like conspiracy.

    But federal prosecutors have in recent years employed the more narrowly focused Mann Act to win convictions in a variety of abuse cases, including against R&B star R. Kelly for using his fame to sexually exploit girls, and Ghislaine Maxwell for helping financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls. In 2013, a federal judge in Indiana sentenced a Baptist pastor to 12 years in prison for taking a 16-year-old girl across state lines for sex.

    Among the priests under federal scrutiny in New Orleans is Lawrence Hecker, a 90-year-old removed from the ministry in 2002 following accusations he abused “countless children.” Hecker is accused of abusing children decades ago on out-of-state trips, and other claims against him range from fondling to rape.

    Hundreds of records currently under the confidentiality order “will reveal in no uncertain terms that the last four archbishops of New Orleans knew that Lawrence Hecker was a serial child predator,” Richard Trahant, an attorney for Hecker’s alleged victims, wrote in a court filing.

    “Hecker is still very much alive, vibrant, lives alone and is a danger to young boys until he draws his final breath,” Trahant wrote.

    Asked by telephone this week whether he ever abused children, Hecker said, “I’m going to have to hang up.”

    More recent allegations are also drawing federal attention, including the case of Patrick Wattigny, a priest charged last year by state prosecutors after he admitted molesting a teenager in 2013. His attorney declined to comment.

    Wattigny’s 2020 removal from the ministry came amid a disciplinary investigation into inappropriate text messages he sent a student. The case sent shockwaves through the Catholic community because church leaders had frequently characterized clergy abuse as a sin from the past.

    “It was happening while the church was saying, ‘It’s no longer happening,’” said Bill Arata, an attorney who has attended three of the FBI interviews.

    “These victims could stay home and not do anything,” he added, “but that’s not the kind of people they are.”

    Clergy abuse is particularly fraught in Louisiana, a heavily Catholic state that endured some of the earliest scandals dating to the 1980s. Last year, it joined two-dozen states that have enacted “lookback windows” intended to allow unresolved claims of child sex abuse, no matter how old, to be brought in civil court.

    But with few exceptions, most notably a former deacon charged with rape, the accused clergy have escaped criminal consequences. Even at the local level, cases have been hamstrung by statutes of limitation and the political sensitivity of prosecuting the church.

    [​IMG]
    Members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, including Richard Windmann, left, and John Gianoli, right, hold signs during a conference in front of the New Orleans Saints training facility in Metairie, La., Wednesday Jan. 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton, File)


    The archdiocese’s 2020 bankruptcy case has also frozen a separate court battle over a cache of confidential emails describing the behind-the-scenes public relations work that executives for the NFL’s New Orleans Saints did for the archdiocese in 2018 and 2019 to contain fallout from clergy abuse scandals.

    While the Saints say they only assisted in messaging, attorneys for those suing the church have alleged in court records that Saints officials joined in the church’s “pattern and practice of concealing its crimes.” That included taking an active role in helping to shape the archdiocese’s list of credibly accused clergy, the attorneys contend.

    Attorneys for those suing the church have attacked the bankruptcy bid as a veiled attempt to keep church records secret — and deny victims a public reckoning.

    “Those victims were on the path to the truth,” Soren Gisleson, an attorney who represents several of the victims, wrote in a court filing. “The rape of children is a thief that keeps on stealing.”
     
    #20     Jun 29, 2022