Popery Jihad and Nirvana

[6souls]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49667769

Imperial Valley Ministries, who operate 30 churches in the US & Mexico, is accused of forcing homeless into slave labor. 12 of the group's leaders have been arrested.

The church, which represents its pastors as "missionaries to drug addicts", lured victims by promising them food and shelter and opportunities to get back on their feet at "no cost", federal officials say.

"The indictment alleges an appalling abuse of power by church officials who preyed on vulnerable homeless people with promises of a warm bed and meals," the lead prosecutor, US Attorney Robert Brewer, said at a news conference after the arrests.

"These victims were held captive, stripped of their humble financial means, their identification, their freedom and their dignity."

A statement from the prosecutor added that "windows were nailed shut at some group home locations, leading a desperate 17-year-old victim to break a window, escape, and run to a neighbouring property to call police".

Victims were allegedly locked in group homes, and forced to beg for nine hours a day, six days a week.

According to prosecutors, victims were told "the only thing to be read is the holy bible" and "if any of the rules are broken there will be discipline".

Punishments included the withholding of food, and if they asked to leave they were told their children would be taken away, it is alleged.

Church leaders refused to allow a diabetic victim with low blood sugar to obtain medicine, said officials.

They were also banned from using the telephone, and told to avoid their family because "only God" loved them now, said officials.

If they did manage to leave, church leaders continued to withhold their money, along with important documents such as immigration paperwork and food benefit cards.

[Tyrath]

I honestly thought this thread was about Popeyes.

[6souls]

https://www.npr.org/2020/01/09/79501...vahs-witnesses
https://juddocumentservice.mt.gov/ge...d?DocId=299650

Montana's supreme court finds that the Jehovah's Witnesses broke no laws for not reporting child abuse.

The unanimous decision from seven state Supreme Court justices found that religious authorities are not always obligated to report child sexual abuse to authorities due to an exemption in Montana state law.

In the court's opinion on Wednesday, Justice Beth Baker wrote that the church was not a mandatory reporter of abuse because of the exception in the state law. The law states that "a member of the clergy or a priest is not required to make a report under this section if the communication is required to be confidential by canon law, church doctrine, or established church practice."

The opinion finds that Jehovah's Witnesses maintain confidentiality as part of their religious canon or practice unless they are required by state law to report child abuse to authorities. Nunez's lawyers have argued that "because the decision to report child abuse to local authorities ultimately lies within the discretion of each elder, confidentiality is optional, not required," the opinion states.

[6souls]

https://apnews.com/d8beadafd25d083dce9d3a9e796ee0c7

French priest Bernard Preynat admits to sexually abusing at least 75 boys since the 1970's.

He said he abused up to two boys “almost every weekend” from 1970 to 1990 when he worked as their scout chaplain, and as many as four or five a week when he led one-week scout camps.

He said parents first alerted the diocese in the 1970s, but his hierachy never punished him.

“I often said to myself ‘I have to stop’ but I started again a few months later. I blame myself today,” he told a hushed courtroom.

“It seemed to me that the children were consenting,” he said. “I was wrong.”

At the time of the abuse, Preynat was in charge of the Saint-Luc scout camp in a private Catholic school in Sainte-Foy-les-Lyons in the suburbs of Lyon for 20 years, then continued his career as a priest until 2015 in the mountains near Lyon.

It wasn’t until last year that the French Catholic Church found Preynat guilty of abuse and removed him from the priesthood.

[6souls]

https://www.npr.org/2020/04/06/82851...use-conviction

Australia's high court has overturned the child sexual abuse conviction for Cardinal George Pell. There is no retrial.

Pell, 78, had been serving a six-year prison sentence in the case. The High Court ordered that he be released.

He was convicted of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne.

[Tyrath]

Gross.

[Byrthnoth]

For those that don't want to click, it was "he said, he said, he dead" and apparently the Australian supreme court can get involved and declare reasonable doubt at random.

Rupert Murdoch's island is wild

[6souls]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52217977

The US Appeals court has ordered the case against Naasón Joaquín García, the leader of the La Luz del Mundo church, to be dismissed because of procedural errors. He was charged with human trafficking, producing child pornography, and raping a minor.

Mr García was arrested in California last year and denies the allegations.

The judges ruled the case should be dropped over a delay in granting him a hearing after new charges were added.

The appeals court determined on Tuesday that Mr García should have been given a hearing within 10 days of the new charges, including child pornography, being filed, AFP reported, but there were delays in the case.

Mr García, a Mexican national, and three female co-defendants also affiliated with the church, are accused of committing 26 felonies in southern California between 2015 and 2018.

Court documents alleged Mr García lectured several underage victims about "a king having mistresses and stated that an apostle of god can never be judged for his actions".

His co-defendants have been named as Alondra Ocampo, Azalea Rangel Meléndez and Susana Medina Oaxaca. Ms Meléndez remains at large, while Ms Ocampo and Ms Oaxaca are in custody in Los Angeles.

[6souls]

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/0...er-abuse-probe

Pope Francis' Minnesota diocese Bishop-elect Michel Mulloy has resigned after an investigation is announced into the sexual abuse of a minor.

[6souls]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54507064

Italian teenager Carlo Acutis, who died to leukemia in 2006, has been named the "patron saint of the internet" by the Vatican.

[Salodin]

Stop it

I cant

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[archibaldcrane]

The absolute madman did it

https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1318959770783678464?s=19

[BaneTheBrawler]

worth pointing out that civil unions are not the same thing as marriage.

[BerenTebogo]

This is why we'll never have another catholic president smh

[6souls]

[archibaldcrane]

This is why we'll never have another catholic president smh

Lol

[6souls]

https://twitter.com/BBCWorld/status/...109574659?s=20

[6souls]

The absolute madman did it

https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1318959770783678464?s=19

https://twitter.com/AP/status/1371428629700296704

[Tyrath]

The new progressive pope was just for PR? Ya don't say.

[Zealot]

Hey they're never going to say having gay sex isn't a sin, saying that the Church isn't opposed to gays being part of family units is a pretty monumental shift over the previous 1500 years.

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