Hundreds of Victims Abused by Southern Baptist Convention Leaders

For years some have said that the Southern Baptist Convention ("SBC") had a major sex abuse problem of its own despite the media's greater focus on the Roman Catholic Church.  Worse yet, like the Catholic Church, the SBC leadership was aware of the problem and did little or nothing to address it. Rather, the focus was on covering up abuse and avoiding scandal that would hurt the denomination's image. What is stunning is that there 700 victims of abuse in Texas alone.  The problem is likely far larger and, in my view, stems from the SBC's ridiculous dogma on human sexuality which parallels that of the Catholic Church which has changed little since the 12th century. No one should be surprised that when this distorted approach to sexuality was combined with the often unchallenged power afforded pastors and church leaders, bad things were guaranteed to happen. The SBC obviously should have spent less time striving to make life hell for gays and subordinating women and cleaned its own house.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post:

“20 years, 700 victims” So reads part of the headline of a sweeping investigation that has found years of sexual abuse perpetrated by hundreds of Southern Baptist church leaders against an even larger number of victims.

The Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News reported that nearly 400 Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers have faced sexual misconduct allegations in the past two decades. As many as 700 victims — some as young as 3 — were sexually abused, some raped and molested repeatedly, according to the report.

But instead of ensuring that sexual predators were kept at bay, the Southern Baptist Convention resisted policy changes, the newspapers found. Victims accused church leaders of mishandling their complaints, even hiding them from the public. While the majority of abusers have been convicted of sex crimes and are registered sex offenders, the investigation found that at least three dozen pastors, employees and volunteers who showed predatory behavior still worked at churches.

The revelations, published Sunday, have not only led to a chorus of condemnation and calls for restructuring, but have also pushed church leaders to grapple with the troubling history — and future — of the largest Protestant denomination in the country.

The investigation comes amid a string of recent allegations of widespread sexual abuse by Catholic priests and coverups by the church hierarchy. Just a few days earlier, Pope Francis acknowledged that members of the Catholic clergy had abused nuns for years.

The abuses described in this [Houston Chronicle] article are pure evil,” [SBC president J.D.] Greear wrote. “I join with countless others who are currently ‘weeping with those who weep.’ ”

Greear called for “pervasive change” within the denomination, including taking steps to prevent abuse, fully cooperating with legal authorities when people reported abusive behavior and helping survivors recover. He did not go into detail about what those steps would look like, except to say that “change begins with feeling the full weight of the problem.”

In Texas, where the newspapers said many of the abuses happened and where the Southern Baptist Convention has some of its most prominent congregations and pastors, church leaders expressed similar feelings of alarm.

Lively told The Post last year that she was raped in 2003 when she was pursuing a master of divinity degree in women’s studies at the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. The seminary’s president at that time, Paige Patterson, urged Lively to not report the alleged abuse to police and to forgive her assailant, she said.

“The worst part is that we have known for years. I have known most of this for years, and spoken out about it. No one wanted to listen. It did not matter enough to investigate and act,” Denhollander said. “Grief and repentance and silence to learn is the only proper response."

Denhollander’s husband, Jacob, said the number of instances of sexual abuse is not the primary problem.

“Better training and protection policies can help address that,” Jacob Denhollander tweeted. “The bigger issue is that there is a pattern of leaders, who knew of the abuse, protecting the perpetrator and shaming the victims.”

Why Leaving the Catholic Church the Moral Thing to Do

I left the Catholic Church in early 2002 in the wake of the sex abuse scandal explosion in the Archdiocese of Boston.  I had not been a casual Catholic.  I had been an altar boy for 10 years and was involved in the Knights of Columbus and achieved the 4th Degree.  But on finding that bishops, cardinals - and yes, popes - had known of the abuse of children and youths for decades (if not centuries) and viewed it as no big deal but for the bad PR for the Church.  With three children of my own, I cannot comprehend the callousness of the celibate, self-centered, power hungry clergy to whom the rape and molestation of children and youths was no big deal.   Yes, coming out as gay was an added reason to leave a gay-hating church, but ultimately I believed it was the only moral thing to do.  Over time, the balance of my family has followed suit. An opinion piece in The Week by a recent refugee from the Catholic Church lats out this moral argument.  Here are excerpts:

Three months ago, I announced I was leaving the Catholic Church. My reason was that the latest revelations in the church's interminable sex abuse scandal had revealed "a repulsive institution — or at least one permeated by repulsive human beings who reward one another for repulsive acts, all the while deigning to lecture the world about its sin." Let's just say subsequent events haven't led me to regret the decision.

That would include Wednesday's news that the offices of the cardinal-archbishop of Galveston-Houston, who also happens to serve as president of the United States Catholic bishops' conference, were raided by "dozens of local and federal law enforcement officers … looking for evidence in a clergy sexual abuse case." A couple of weeks ago, the story was the Vatican's decision to nix plans by the American bishops to devise some kind of response to the scandal — on the grounds that it's mostly just a conspiracy drummed up by troublemaking right-wing clerics and laypeople. A week or a month from now, the story is bound to be something arising from the dozen or so investigations underway by the Justice Department and attorneys general around the country.

It's hardly surprising that writers deeply devoted to the Catholic Church would reject the reasons for my decision to leave the church. . . . . As I say, the response was unsurprising, even perfectly understandable. Though I do wonder whether any of these apologists for the church quite grasps why I left the church — and why so many others are likely to make the same move over the coming months and years.

The Catholic Church does make extraordinarily high claims for itself — not that its priests and bishops and cardinals and popes are angels but that the church as an institution is, of all the churches that follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, the one most fully and rightly ordered through time.

If I may be permitted some speculation of my own — this time of a psychological variety — I'd like to suggest that those objecting to the departure of fellow Catholics from the church may be moved to express those objections because they recognize how weak and frankly unpersuasive such ecclesiological claims really are. They are really arguing with themselves, in other words, trying to muster reasons to continue affirming something that, at a certain level, they fully recognize to be just a few millimeters away from outright absurdity.

What's absurd? The claim that, of all the Christian churches, the Roman church is the very best, the truest of all, the one most fully and rightly ordered through time. That would be not only the church of the great diabolical popes of the past (like John XII and Alexander VI and Boniface VIII and Leo X), but also the church that in recent decades has seen literally thousands of priests in countries across the globe accused of sexually abusing children — 271 of them in the archdiocese of Boston alone — with untold numbers of bishops covering it up year after year after year. The number is untold, by the way, because we are still nowhere near knowing just how many members of the Catholic hierarchy around the world — all the way up to popes themselves — knew exactly what was happening and responded like self-protective bureaucrats and PR flacks out to protect a corporate brand from bad press.

It's become commonplace for Catholic laypeople to ask themselves why the clergy has responded in the way it has to the scandal — how Pope John Paul II (along with Neuhaus) could have turned a blind eye to the myriad abuses committed by Marcial Maciel Degollado; how Archbishop Cardinal Bernard Francis Law could have been rewarded with a cushy sinecure at the Vatican as his "punishment" for basically overseeing a decades-long child-rape gang in Boston; and how Theodore McCarrick could have been promoted to one of the most powerful and prestigious positions in the Catholic Church in the United States after decades of alleged sexual predation with the full knowledge of (once again) untold numbers of priests, bishops, and possibly popes.

The behavior is only mysterious if you assume that anyone in their place would respond the way you and I would: with revulsion. But it isn't mysterious at all if you assume what should be obvious by now to everyone: They just didn't think it was such a big deal. Judging by the current stance of the Vatican to the pope's pesky American critics, the character of that response hasn't changed one bit down through the years.

[T]o believe that this particular church, of all the Christian churches in the world, is the one most fully and rightly ordered through time, over and above all of the others? You can't possibly be serious.

To react with anger and incredulity to this suggestion isn't to display unrealistically high hopes or expectations about the church. It's to respond reasonably to a claim that the church makes about itself — a claim that is flatly implausible on its face.

And that, my former fellow Catholic communicants, is why I have left the church — and why I fully expect quite a lot of the rest of you to be joining me in my unregretted exodus very soon.

Decent and moral people should want nothing to do with this corrupt and disgusting institution.

Hundreds of German Choir Boys Abused Over Six Decades

As the Roman Catholic Church remains outwardly hostile towards LGBT individuals and continues to let go of its 12th century understanding of human sexuality (and the writings of church fathers who seemingly had some mental health issues), a new report out of Germany reminds us that the Church's unnatural and bizarre approach to human sexuality inflicts a cost on many, especially children and youths.  Sadly, the Church's celibacy requirement for its all male priesthood makes that priesthood a safe haven for the psycho-sexually dysfunctional and abnormal particularly when the near obsession with all things sexual is combined into the mix.  Sex abuse cases continue to unfold in America, all hell is breaking lose in Australia where the number three man at the Vatican has been charged with sex crimes, including rape, and similar stories are unfolding in Guam, India and various parts of Africa.  The problem is systemic yet no high cleric who was involved in aiding and abetting or covering up for such sex crimes has been punished.  Pope Francis' commission to address this has done nothing. As an institution, the Church is morally bankrupt.   Here are highlights from the BBC on the latest bombshell:

At least 547 young members of the Regensburger Domspatzen boys choir in Germany were subjected to physical and in some instances sexual abuse over a period of 60 years, a new report says.

The report accuses 49 members of the Catholic Church of carrying out the abuse between 1945 and the early 1990s.

The alleged perpetrators are unlikely to face criminal charges because of the amount of time that has elapsed.

Victims said the experience was like "a prison, hell and a concentration camp".

The alleged physical abuse relates to children attending both the Regensburger Domspatzen's pre-school and high school, according to the lawyer tasked with investigating the abuse, Ulrich Weber.

Among those singled out for criticism in the report was former choirmaster Georg Ratzinger, elder brother of retired Pope Benedict XVI.

Mr Weber said that while Mr Ratzinger, now 93, had no knowledge of sexual abuse, "one can accuse him of looking the other way and failing to intervene".

Presenting his findings on Tuesday, Mr Weber said the investigation had found 500 cases of physical abuse and 67 instances of sexual abuse over six decades.

However, he said he was unable to contact or speak directly to a number of former students and said he estimated the true number of victims to be as high as 700.

Of the 49 church members who carried out the abuse under what was described as a "culture of silence", nine were found to have been involved in sexual abuse, Mr Weber added.

He said the alleged perpetrators had been identified but were not expected to face criminal charges because the alleged crimes took place too long ago to be legally valid.

He said the victims described their experiences at the boarding schools in southern Germany as "the worst time of their lives, characterised by fear, violence and hopelessness".

The 1,000-year-old choir was initially rocked by allegations of widespread sexual abuse in 2010.  A 2016 report into the allegations found that 231 children had been abused.

Mr Weber also criticised Regensburg Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, who is now a cardinal, for the weaknesses of the initial review of the scandal when it first came to light in 2010. The cardinal has rejected his findings.

The UN has accused the Vatican of "systematically" adopting policies allowing priests to sexually abuse thousands of children.

I ask again: how can  a morally decent person remain a member in this church and, worse yet, continue to support it financially? 

Top Catholic Cardinal in Australia Charged with Sex Offenses

Cardinal Pell with Pope Francis

As has happened in many parts of the world, Australia has seen an ongoing and growing sex abuse scandal involving the Catholic Church and its leadership's systematic cover up of sex crimes against children and youths.   While not yet on the scale of what happened in Ireland where the Church's power has collapsed and the country now has a gay prime minister, the problems have been growing.  Now, Cardinal George Pell, Australia's highest Catholic cleric has been charged with at least three (3) sex offenses.  For many months Pell has been pummeled for his role in cover ups.  Now, it seems that Pell may have been a predatory himself. The Sydney Morning Herald reports on this development that one can only hope will put new pressure on the Vatican to clean house of bishops and cardinals involved in the aiding and abetting of predator priests and their subsequent protection.  Here are story excerpts:

Cardinal George Pell, Australia's highest ranking Catholic will face at least three serious sex assault charges, including at least one count of rape.  Victoria Police has confirmed Cardinal Pell has been charged on summons over multiple allegations against multiple victims and is due to face Melbourne Magistrates Court on July 18 for a filing hearing.

Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton confirmed in a brief press conference that Cardinal Pell had been issued with multiple charges relating to historic sexual abuse allegations. The charges were served on Cardinal Pell's legal representatives in Melbourne on Thursday, Mr Patton said.

Police did not take any questions during the press conference and did not detail what the allegations were.  Mr Patton said it was important that due process was followed.

"Preserving the integrity of that process is essential to us all and so for Victoria Police, it is important that it is allowed to go through unhindered and allowed to see natural justice is afforded to all the parties involved, including Cardinal Pell and the complainants in this matter," he said.

All was quiet at Cardinal Pell's Roman residence as the news broke.  He lives in a block of apartments on a square just outside the Vatican walls, metres from St Peter's Square, and a minute's walk from the doors to the Basilica.

[T]he announcement is set to send shockwaves through the Catholic Church in Australia and around the world. . . .  Cardinal Pell is the third most senior Catholic at the Vatican, where he is responsible for the church's finances.

The charges are likely to force Cardinal Pell to step aside from his Vatican post while he fights the charges. . . . . a legal source told Fairfax Media that the Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions, John Champion, has been assessing whether Cardinal Pell should face charges of rape, buggery or indecent assault.

As Australia has no extradition treaty with the Vatican, Cardinal Pell may avoid prosecution should he choose not to return to Victoria, but he is expected to come back to fight the charges.

 One can only wonder if and when accessories to child sex crimes within the Church hierarchy will ever be held accountable by the Vatican.  I am not holding my breath.  Meanwhile, moral people should walk away from Catholicism until a thorough house cleaning takes place against bishops and cardinals involved in sex abuse and sex abuse cover ups. 

Chicago Priests Raped and Pillaged for 50 Years

It's a story of conduct and crimes that have been repeated all across the globe, but nonetheless, a document dump of records for the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago brings to stark reality just how morally depraved the Catholic Church hierarchy was - and still is notwithstanding Pope Francis Charm and PR offensive.  The question remains one of why, if Francis is serious about cleaning up the sexual abuse mess, he hasn't sacked countless bishops and cardinals who were up to their eyeballs in cover ups and abetting of sexual predators.  In my view, until such a sweeping house cleaning occurs, no one decent and moral should continue to be a churchgoing Catholic.  By attending and worse yet giving financial support, one becomes complicit in the crimes against children and youths.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at the filth and horrors revealed by the Chicago documents.  Here are excerpts (Note: it's not just boys who were being molested, so blaming it all on gays fails):

Some of the accusations against perverted priests are handwritten letters penned by worried mothers. Others are emails sent decades after the abuses occurred. There are letters so old the mimeographed typewriting is smudged and difficult to read. There are emails so recent, they call into question just how much of the clerical abuse is still going on. In all, more than 15,000 pages from the secret archives of the Chicago Archdiocese’s Office for Child Abuse Investigations and Review have been released on the Chicago Archdiocese website relating to hundreds of lurid sexual-abuse crimes by 36 perverted priests dating back to the 1950s. The most recent documents are only a year old.

The disturbing document dump was released Thursday as the retiring Cardinal Francis George prepares to leave the post he has held since 1997. They follow a similar gesture last January when the archdiocese released 6,000 pages of documents pertaining to 30 pedophilic priests as part of a legal settlement brokered by Chicago attorney Jeff Anderson. The Chicago Archdiocese has paid more than $130 million in abuse-victim settlements.

The allegations include accusations of priests plying young victims with alcohol and cigarettes, of fondling, masturbating, and performing oral sex on minors, and a strong current of denial and well-documented coverup by the church that can be traced all the way to Rome.

Take the case of Father Gregory Miller, whose 275-page dossier is filled with congratulatory letters of advancement within the archdiocese. But his file is also dotted with frequent warnings of misconduct. On Page 105 of the Miller dossier (PDF), one brief summary of an allegation states, “while in Fr. Miller’s quarters in the rectory, he instructed XX to remove his clothes; Fr. Miller also removed his clothes and had an erection; Fr. Miller took his hand and rubbed XX’s leg two times, then placed his hand on XX’s stomach and began to move his hand down to XX’s genital area” the rest of the complaint has been blocked by the diocese.

Reading through the documents is frustrating at times because full pages are blackened out, like the memos concerning Father William Lupo, a priest who faced multiple allegations, including “exposure of full naked body in bed to 14 year old girl in rectory and of partial nakedness to two other teen-age girls in/around his bedroom shower; passionate kissing and hugging over approximately six years with at least 3 teenage girls.”

Some priests, like Father Joseph Savage (PDF), apparently not only raped children, they also pillaged Episcopalian churches in the area. The documents in his lengthy dossier clearly point to suspicion that he often brought young teenage boys into churches to steal precious relics. Yet he was allowed to keep his collar.

The revelations in the Chicago document trove show the church was clearly involved in the coverup and proliferation of pedophile abuse by not removing the abusers, which is something victims’ groups have always known. David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, says the latest revelations prove his group’s point. “This information could and should have been revealed years ago,” he said. “Lives could have been saved. Crimes could have been prevented. Families could have been preserved.” Instead, Clohessy accuses Cardinal George and dozens of his clerical colleagues of opting to put their own reputations first.

The latest documents are apparently endorsed by Pope Francis, who assigned a special child-abuse SWAT team almost a year ago with an eye toward greater transparency. John O’Malley, special counsel to Cardinal George on misconduct issues, told the Associated Press, “Cardinal George wanted it finished on his watch.” The victims understandably wish he would have “finished it” when he started almost 20 years ago, not on his way out.

Francis may have endorsed the document release, but why hasn't he stripped George of his rank, sacked him, and kicked him out without a luxurious retirement? 

‘Sons of Guns’ Reality Show Star Arrested for Rape of 11-Year-Old

The right wing types really know how to pick "stars."  The more dysfunctional you are, the more celebrity you will have.  Sarah Palin is a perfect example of the phenomenon.  Now, a "star" of a gun nut reality show (he's pictured above) has been arrested for raping his 14-year-old daughter in a series of assaults that began with him taking her virginity at the age of 11.  Frankly, it's par for the course.  The more folks claim to laud "American values" and represent "real Americans" the more suspect they ought to be.  The Raw Story looks at this disturbing story.  Here are highlights:

The star of the Discovery Channel’s reality show Sons of Guns was arrested Tuesday on charges of aggravated rape of his daughter.

According to FoxNews.com, the East Baton Rouge, Louisiana Sheriff’s Department confirmed that Hayden is accused of raping his 14-year-old daughter in a series of assaults that began with him taking her virginity at the age of 11.

TMZ reported that Hayden’s daughter is backing up the allegations, claiming that her father forced her to participate in oral and vaginal sex “almost daily” for the past three years.

When asked why she didn’t report the sexual assaults earlier, the girl said that she was afraid her father would hurt her.  “Don’t tell them nothing,” he reportedly told her, “because I’m all you’ve got.”

Sons of Guns is a five-season reality program that centers around Hayden’s business, Red Jacket Firearms, which sells, builds, designs and repairs guns. Red Jacket specializes in weapons fabrication and modification.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune said, “On Aug. 9, Hayden was arrested and booked on molestation charges of a juvenile and crimes against nature. Hayden reportedly told TMZ that charge was sparked from an ex-girlfriend’s allegations. Red Jacket Firearms released a statement denying those allegations.”

At 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Red Jacket posted a notice on its Facebook page that said, in part, “Today, Red Jacket Firearms has received complete legal separation as an entity, from Will Hayden. We will continue to operate, although with heavy hearts and promise to do everything in our power to fill customer orders, back orders and provide support to those affected by these new developments.”

Afghanistan: “This Is What Winning Looks Like” - Child Rape

I make no secret that I view America's venture into Iraq and Afghanistan as a fool's errand that was launched by a cretin in the White House and a megalomania consumed monster at Blair House.  The result has been thousands of Americans killed and many times more seriously wounded, some horrifically, and the squandering of billions and billions of dollars.  And what has our "nation building" created?  Something very ugly and as hypocrisy filled as the world of the "godly Christian" Christofascists and the Catholic Church hierarchy only this nightmare operates under Islam.  Besides the rampant corruption and pilfering of American funds there is the rape and trafficking in children by those American taxpayers are supporting financially.  A new documentary, “This Is What Winning Looks Like,” provides a picture of the horrors done by our "Afghan allies."  Here is a sampling via the American Conservative: 

In December 2012, Maj. Bill Steuber heard that three boys had been shot dead while fleeing the Afghan police headquarters. A fourth was shot point blank in the knee as punishment for trying to escape.

Steuber, a U.S. Marine in charge of the police advisory team in Sangin district, Helmand province, marched into the office of Qhattab Khan, the assistant district chief of police. Journalist Ben Anderson filmed the exchange for the new stomach-churning documentary, “This Is What Winning Looks Like.”

“Why was there a boy on that police base?” Steuber asks Khan, “What did that commander say to you?”  There’s sadness and anger in Steuber’s voice, because he already knows the answer: police commanders routinely abduct young boys to serve as “chai boys,” house servants who are also kept as sex slaves.

This extent of child rape in Afghanistan is hard to measure, but it’s a practice widely attested by journalists, human rights investigators, NATO soldiers, and Afghans themselves. As the White House considers how to wind down the war in Afghanistan, it’s worth reflecting on one of the saddest, most sordid of aspects of that sad and sordid war.

In 2009 the Defense Department was concerned that NATO soldiers were bewildered and outraged by the sexual practices of Afghan civilians and soldiers: seeing old men trying to fondle young boys, being shown cell phone pictures of children by their Afghan counterparts. The military commissioned an anthropological study, “Pashtun Sexuality.” In 2010 the San Fransisco Chronicle reported on the study’s findings:

For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means “boy player.” The men like to boast about it.

“Having a boy has become a custom for us,” Enayatullah, a 42-year-old in Baghlan province, told a Reuters reporter. “Whoever wants to show off should have a boy.”

The authors of “Pashtun Sexuality” venture that the practice of bacha baazi is a function of a culture of extreme fear of female sexuality. The Chronicle article cites a 29-year-old who told a reporter, “How can you fall in love if you can’t see her face?…We can see the boys, so we can tell which are beautiful.”

The State Department has called bacha baazi a “widespread, culturally sanctioned form of male rape.” For instance, one military intelligence reservist related a story about an Afghan colonel who stood before a judge after he hurt a chai boy by violently raping him: “His defense was, ‘Honestly, who hasn’t raped a chai boy? Ha ha ha.’ The judge responds, ‘You’re right. Case dismissed.’”

Cracking down on this practice is nearly impossible, as the main culprits are often the very law enforcement and military personnel that the U.S. works alongside.

Steuber tells the camera later, “working with child molesters, working with people who are robbing people, murdering them. It wears on you after a while.”

Khan seems considerably less concerned.  “If they don’t f–k the asses of those boys, what should they f–k?” he asks at one point. “The p—–s of their own grandmothers? Their asses were used before, and now they want to get what they are owed.”

Yep, this is what American taxpayers are financially underwriting.  We need to leave Afghanistan NOW.