Mexican mega-church leader sentenced for child sex abuse

Rfi.fr – AFP, 9 June 2022 

Naason Joaquin Garcia , head of the La Luz Del Mundo church which claims five
million followers worldwide, was accused of coercing underage girls into performing
sexual acts by telling them that going against his wishes would be acting against
God Al Seib POOL/AFP/File

Los Angeles (AFP) – The leader of a Mexican mega-church who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting three young girls was sentenced in Los Angeles on Wednesday to nearly 17 years in prison. 

But the ruling, following a plea deal Naason Joaquin Garcia struck with prosecutors last week, was met with anger by victims, who at an emotional hearing called for their abuser to face trial and the maximum possible sentence. 

One victim in court Wednesday condemned officials for "negotiating with this rapist" while another said in a statement read to the court that the justice system "failed us." 

Garcia, head of the La Luz Del Mundo church which claims five million followers worldwide, coerced underage girls into performing sexual acts by telling them that going against his wishes would be acting against God, prosecutors said. 

He was arrested at a Los Angeles airport in June 2019. An initial human trafficking and child rape case was thrown out on a technicality, and charges were re-filed. 

Last Friday, on the eve of his trial, the 53-year-old -- who claims to be the last apostle of Jesus, and had initially denied all wrongdoing -- pleaded guilty to felony crimes of sexual assault of three minors. 

These included forcible oral copulation and a lewd act upon a 15-year-old, but not counts of rape, extortion and child pornography. 

California attorney general Rob Bonta hailed the sentence as a "critical step forward for justice." 

"While it will never undo the harm and trauma he caused as the leader of La Luz del Mundo, this sentence makes it crystal clear that abusers -- no matter who they are -- will be held accountable," he said Wednesday. 

Still, Garcia's church continued to back its leader, issuing a statement Wednesday to "publicly express our support for the Apostle of Jesus Christ" and praising his "integrity, his conduct and his work." 

The Spanish-language statement said evidence against Garcia had been fabricated and that the leader had no choice but to strike a deal as he would not have received a "fair and just" trial. 

In court, one victim who said Garcia had stolen both her virginity and her faith begged the judge to "make sure that this man is put away for life." 

"How is this justice?" she asked.

Benedict XVI becomes oldest pope in history

Yahoo – AFP, Catherine MARCIANO, September 4, 2020

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is now officially the oldest pope in history

At the age of 93 and nearly five months, Benedict XVI officially became the oldest pope in history on Friday, even if the record is complicated by the fact that he stepped down in 2013 and holds the status of "pope emeritus".

Benedict was the first pope to retire in 700 years -- citing his diminishing strength -- after eight years in office.

He was succeeded by Argentinian Jorge Bergoglio, 10 years his junior and who adopted the name Francis.

Born on April 16, 1927, Benedict -- whose civilian name is Josef Ratzinger -- officially broke the previous longevity record held by Italian Leo XIII who died in 1903 at the age of 93 years, four months and three days, according to the calculations of the Italian episcopal journal, Avvenire, and the magazine Famiglia Cristiana.

"34,111 days in the service of God, the world and the ecclesiastical community," wrote Famiglia Cristiana, referring to Benedict.

Aside from Benedict's retired status, Vatican experts say the record could also be disputed because, going back 1,400 years, the ages of previous popes may not always be completely accurate.

The previous record holder, Leo XIII, is known for having written the first encyclical on social problems.

Unlike Benedict's relatively short reign as pontiff, the Italian aristocrat led the church for more than 25 years. By comparison, Pius XI was pope for 31 years and John Paul II for 26 years.

And the first-ever pope, Peter, reigned for at least 34 years, said French historian, Christophe Dickes.

Benedict lives "hidden from the world" in a former convent inside the Vatican grounds.

Often in a wheelchair, he has appeared increasingly frail recently.

But the author of dozens of books, who was nicknamed "God's Rottweiler" as a cardinal, is still mentally sharp, according to people close to him.

Despite his limited mobility, Benedict travelled to his native Bavaria in June to the bedside of his 96-year-old brother, Georg.

The two were very close and Georg died on July 1. Both had been ordained priests on the same day, in June 1951.

Face shingles

On that visit, his first foreign trip since stepping down, Benedict started suffering a painful case of shingles affecting the face, which worsened after the death of his brother.

His private secretary, Georg Gaenswein told a German newspaper last month that the shingles were clearing up, although no official statement has since been issued about Benedict's health.

Shingles are "a very painful disease, but not deadly," Gaenswein said, adding that the former pope had suffered "pain that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy".

The virus that causes the rash is the same herpes zoster behind chickenpox, and can reactivate after long periods spent dormant.

Benedict's German biographer, journalist Peter Seewald, had raised the alarm about the former pope's health after meeting him on August 1 to hand over his latest book.

"According to Seewald, the pope emeritus is now extremely frail," the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper wrote at the time.

Benedict has lived with a pacemaker since 1997, while a brain haemorrhage in 1991 left him blind in his left eye.

The former theology professor, who taught for 25 years before being appointed Archbishop of Munich, went on to become the man in charge of preserving Catholic doctrine by defending points of Christian tradition which seem to be in danger.

On the death of John Paul II in 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected the 265th pontiff, becoming Benedict XVI.

Head of US Christian college steps aside in flap over photo

Yahoo – AFP, Brendan Smialowski, August 8, 2020

President of Liberty University Jerry Falwell, Jr, shown here with US President Donald
Trump during the shool's commencement ceremony in 2017, posted a controversial
photo of himself with a woman on Instagram

Jerry Falwell Jr. has taken an indefinite leave of absence as president of a prominent US evangelical university amid a furor over an Instagram picture of him and a young woman, both with pants partly unzipped.

The 58-year-old Falwell, whose father was one of the country's best-known televangelists and who founded Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, is stepping aside at the request of the school's trustees.

He himself had posted the controversial picture showing him standing on a private yacht with one hand around the waist of a young woman -- later said to be his wife's assistant -- and the other holding an unidentified dark beverage.

Both sport broad smiles and have their zippers a few inches down, baring their midriffs.

A terse statement Friday from the Christian university said the trustees' executive committee had asked Falwell to "take an indefinite leave of absence from his roles as President and Chancellor of Liberty University, to which he has agreed, effective immediately."

It offered no explanation.

Falwell previously told radio station WLNI that he and the woman were at a costume party and "it was just in good fun."

He said he should never have posted the photo, adding, "I've apologized to everybody and I promised my kids I'm going to try to be a good boy from here on out."

The university has a strict code of conduct for students, who are told they must "dress modestly and appropriately at all times" while on campus and "avoid the appearance of impropriety."

One Republican member of Congress who is on a Liberty advisory board, Mark Walker of North Carolina, has called on Falwell to resign.

"I just think there's a code that leaders have to live by, especially when you're leading the largest Christian evangelical university in the country," he told CNN.

Falwell has been a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, who appeared on the campus twice before his 2016 election.

In one appearance, Falwell introduced him as "one of the greatest visionaries of our time."

Russian Church mulls stop to practice of blessing nukes

Yahoo – AFP, 4 February 2020

Blessing ships and aircraft such as this SU-27 SM fighter jet is believed to
bestow divine protection

The Russian Orthodox Church has proposed a stop to the practice of having priests bless weapons of mass destruction, though sprinkling holy water on planes and ships is still deemed appropriate.

The Church on Monday published a draft document outlining its role in blessing Orthodox Christians who "protect the Fatherland" and "carry out their military duty", inviting internet users to discuss the proposal online.

Russians often ask priests to bless anything from new cars and flats to Soyuz spaceships in the belief that the gesture bestows divine protection.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, priests have also begun blessing troops, planes and ships, and all sorts of weapons, from Kalashnikov rifles to nuclear-capable Iskander ballistic missiles.

But the document proposed that "blessing any type of weapons the usage of which can inflict an indefinite number of deaths, including weapons with indiscriminate effects or weapons of mass destruction... be removed from pastoral practice."

At the same time, it remains "appropriate" to "bless transport used by soldiers on land, water and in the air", to ask God to protect the men using them, it said.

The Russian military has forged ever closer ties to the Church under Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, who is overseeing the construction of a huge cathedral for Russia's armed forces outside Moscow.

It is to be opened on May 9, the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War.

Since 2010 the military has inducted priests into its ranks, including an airborne unit which can deploy with mobile inflatable chapels.

Blessing ships and aircraft such as this SU-27 SM fighter jet is believed to bestow divine protection.

Ethiopian churches oppose gay travel company's tour plans

Yahoo – AFP, 3 June 2019

Anti-gay: Ethiopia is one of the majority of countries in Africa where same-sex
relations are illegal

Ethiopia's religious leaders on Monday urged the government to block a US gay travel company from touring the country's ancient sites, and one group warned visiting homosexuals could face violence.

The Chicago-based business, Toto Tours, which describes itself on its website as "the only gay tour company in existence", told AFP it has received death threats since announcing a 16-day trip to Ethiopia, which includes numerous historical religious sites.

Their itinerary has sparked ire in Ethiopia, which like many in Africa is deeply homophobic and has strict anti-gay laws, punishing homosexual acts with up to 15 years in prison.

"Tour programmes and dating programmes that try to use our historical sites and heritage should be immediately stopped by the Ethiopian government and we urge Ethiopians supporting these sinful and evil acts to desist from their acts," Tagay Tadele of the Inter-Religious Council of Ethiopia told journalists.

The council counts seven Islamic and Christian denominations as members.

An influential Ethiopian Orthodox organisation, the Sileste Mihret United Association, also held a press conference Monday to condemn the tour company.

"Homosexuality is hated as well as being illegal in Ethiopia. Toto Tours are wrong to plan to conduct tours in our religious and historical places," the organisation's vice chairman, Dereje Negash, told AFP.

"If Toto Tours comes to Ethiopia where 97 percent of Ethiopians surveyed oppose homosexuality, they will be damaged, they could even die," he said.

Dan Ware, the president of Toto Tours, said the company had been "terribly misunderstood", in an email to AFP.

Map of sub-Saharan Africa showing the 28 countries with anti-homosexuality 

laws, according to Human Rights Watch

"Our company is not aimed at spreading values contrary to local cultures when we travel around the world. We are simply an organization where like-minded people can travel comfortably together to experience the world's most precious wonders.

"We come with only the greatest respect and humility."

He said the tour had been advertised on the company's social media pages and spotted within Ethiopia, leading to "death threats", and called for protection for the tour group from both the US State Department and the Ethiopian tourism ministry.

"This is terrible discrimination, and when the word of this spreads internationally, as it is most likely to do, it will have a negative impact on the important tourism industry in Ethiopia."

He said that by the time the tour takes place in October "the eyes of the entire world will be on the people of Ethiopia to see what happens to us."

Twenty-eight out of 49 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have laws penalising same-sex relationships, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Some countries, like Angola, Mozambique and Seychelles, have moved to scrap anti-gay laws.

However Kenya's high court earlier this month refused to do so, in a major blow to gay activists on the continent.

Anti-gay: Ethiopia is one of the majority of countries in Africa where same-sex relations are illegal

Map of sub-Saharan Africa showing the 28 countries with anti-homosexuality laws, according to Human Rights Watch.

‘Death to gays’ preacher Steven Anderson banned from Netherlands

DutchNews, May 1, 2019

Steven Anderson preaching at his church. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Homophobic preacher Steven Anderson will not be allowed to enter the Netherlands as part of a speaking tour later this month. 

Gay rights campaign organisation COC, MPs from across the spectrum and Amsterdam’s mayor, Femke Halsema, all urged the government to block Steven Anderson after he announced his plan to speak in the capital on May 23. 

Junior justice minister Mark Harbers said on Wednesday that measures would be taken to stop Anderson at the border, though he did not specify what these were. 

Anderson has been banned from other countries, including the UK, South Africa and Botswana, for saying that gay people should be put to death. In 2016 he called the death of 50 people in an attack on a gay bar in Orlando ‘good news’ because ‘there’s fifty less pedophiles in this world’. 

The Israeli information centre CIDI also supported the ban because Anderson has disputed whether the Holocaust happened. 

Harbers said there was no place in ‘a democratic state such as ours’ for discrimination, incitement to hatred or intolerance or violence towards another group.

Macron vows to rebuild a 'more beautiful' Notre-Dame in 5 years

Yahoo – AFP, Stuart WILLIAMS and Clare BYRNE, April 16, 2019

Notre-Dame's spectacular Gothic spire collapsed as fire engulfed the cathedral
(AFP Photo/Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT)

Paris (AFP) - President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday vowed to rebuild Notre-Dame cathedral "even more beautifully" within five years, as France reeled with shock from the fire that gutted the great Paris landmark.

Macron announced the fast timescale -- for a process some experts said would take decades -- in an address to the nation where he hailed how the disaster had shown the capacity of France to mobilise and unite.

Pledges worth around 700 million euros ($790 million) have already been made Tuesday from French billionaires and businesses to restore the Gothic masterpiece.

Most of the roof has been destroyed, its steeple has collapsed and an unknown number of artifacts and paintings have been lost. The main organ, which had close to 8,000 pipes, has also suffered damage.

But the cathedral's walls, bell towers and the most famous circular stained-glass windows at France's most visited tourist attraction remain intact.

'Our history never stops'

Macron's defiant comments indicated he wants the reconstruction of the cathedral to be completed by the time Paris hosts the Olympic Games in 2024.

"We will rebuild the cathedral even more beautifully and I want it to be finished within five years," Macron said from the Elysee Palace. "And we can do it."

Macron said that the dramatic fire had brought out the best in a country riven with divisions and since November shaken by sometimes violent protests against his rule.

"What we saw last night in Paris was our capacity to mobilise and to unite," Macron said, hailing France as a nation of "builders".

"Our history never stops and that we will always have trials to overcome," he said.

Firefighters said the blaze had been extinguished after 15 hours (AFP 

Photo/Hubert Hitier)

'Saved in half an hour'

Images from inside the cathedral Tuesday showed its immense walls standing proud, with statues still in place and a gleaming golden cross above the altar.

However the floor was covered in charred rubble from the fallen roof and water while parts of the vaulting at the top of the cathedral had collapsed.

Junior interior minister Laurent Nunez told reporters at the scene that work to secure the structure would continue into Thursday, allowing firefighters access to remove remaining artifacts and artworks.

He said the building had been saved within a critical time window of 15-30 minutes by a team of 400 firefighters who worked flat out throughout the night.

Though "some weaknesses" in the 850-year-old structure had been identified, overall it is "holding up OK", he added.

President Donald Trump relayed Americans' "condolences" to Macron over the fire, the White House said.

French fire chiefs had earlier dismissed as "risible" comments by Trump that the fire should be tackled with water bombers, saying this risked destroying the entire edifice of the cathedral.

The Paris fire service said that the last remnants of the blaze were extinguished Tuesday, 15 hours after the fire broke out.

Renovation work on the steeple, where workers were replacing its lead covering, is widely suspected to have caused the inferno after the blaze broke out in an area under scaffolding.

Investigators interviewed witnesses overnight and began speaking with employees of five different construction companies that were working on the monument, said public prosecutor Remy Heitz.

"Nothing indicates this was a deliberate act," Heitz told reporters, adding that 50 investigators had been assigned to what he expected to be a "long and complex" case.

The world reacted in shock after the blaze enguled Notre-Dame (AFP Photo)

'For future generations'

A public appeal for funds drew immediate support from French billionaires and other private donors as well as from countries including Germany, Italy and Russia which offered expertise.

French billionaire Bernard Arnault and his LVMH luxury conglomerate, rival high-end designer goods group Kering, Total oil company and cosmetics giant L'Oreal each pledged 100 million euros or more.

Support came from outside France as well, with Apple chief Tim Cook announcing the tech giant would give an unspecified amount to help restore a "precious heritage for future generations."

But experts had warned a full restoration will take many years. "I'd say decades," said Eric Fischer, head of the foundation in charge of restoring the 1,000-year-old Strasbourg cathedral.

Treasures evacuated

Thousands of Parisians and tourists watched in horror Monday as flames engulfed the building and rescuers tried to save as much as they could of the cathedral's treasures.

Many more came Tuesday to the banks of the river Seine to gaze at where the roof and steeple once stood.

A firefighter suffered injuries during the blaze, which at one point threatened to bring down one of the two monumental towers on the western facade of the cathedral that is visited by 13 million tourists each year.

The Holy Crown of Thorns, believed to have been worn by Jesus at his crucifixion, was saved by firefighters, as was a sacred tunic worn by 13th-century French king Louis IX.

Rescuers formed a human chain at the site of the disaster to evacuate as many artifacts as possible, which were then stocked temporarily at the Paris town hall.

Firefighters were praised for helping save many of the most-celebrated treasures of Notre-Dame by dashing inside the burning cathedral, but officials warned that others were in a precarious state or entirely lost in the flames https://t.co/pF0qxYfXeL pic.twitter.com/MTeRjyI2dN

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 16 april 2019

Related Article:

"The End of History"- Nov 20, 2010 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) - (Text-Version)

".... Europe

Let's talk about Europe - Eastern and Western Europe. Look at the history. I want you to look at the history of the Europeans. What do you know about them? What did you study in school about them, American? You had to learn all those dates and facts. You sit in a country that's barely 200 years old and you had to memorize all the battles and all those conquerors and all those army specifics for hundreds of years! Fourteen hundreds, 1300s - all the way to the present century they seemed to be conquering each other on a regular basis. They warred with each other like the tides of the ocean, constant and predictable. When they got tired of that, they conquered other continents. The small country of Spain alone is responsible for conquering all of South America, middle America and well up into North America. Millions today are speaking their language who never did before they arrived.

The armies of Napoleon spread across parts of Europe like water flowing in a river, conquering everything in its path. There are some cities today in Europe that still don't know which country they belong to! This is because their borders kept changing so often! Now, that's history. I want you to look at it carefully. Still, there would be those who say, "This is just what men do. They create borders and cultures and they go to war. That's Human nature."

Fifty years ago, this new energy started to arrive. Oh, the alignments go slow, dear Human Being, but it was here. It was starting; it was beginning. Fifty years ago, something happened in Europe and you didn't hear much about it back then. Some very clear thinkers got together after World War II and said, "If we don't do something different and out of the box of today's thinking, it's all going to happen again because this is what we do. Men make war." Even the young country called America was involved in war. America itself almost split apart before that, because that's what men do. They split good things apart. It was obvious to these wise men that they could try something, something that might work - a uniting instead of separation. And so they formed an idea. Let me tell you what it was.

They said to themselves, "What if we could get as many countries as we can to agree to become a collection of 'country states'? If we start this now and go at it slowly, we could eventually have a system where we would trade together to the point where the borders come down, no checkpoints and no passports. All these cultures and former enemy countries would all trade evenly together, and for that to happen we might even have a common currency. Look at the United States, for this is how it works there. Europe would never go to war with itself again. It couldn't, since it would be allied financially."

Of course, they were laughed at! Everyone who heard it said it couldn't' be done and that there were just too many issues to solve. Those who objected said, "No, no, no. That's not what we do. We have too many different cultures. There's some with strong currencies, there's some with weak currencies. There are too many objections. Imagine going from one country to another without being inspected at the border? That won't work. Who are you to suggest something of this nature?" And the forward thinkers said, "We are unifiers. And we think it's a good idea so we will have strength and will never war again." That was two generations ago, 50 years.

Today, you have the European Union of States. There are more all the time, way past the original number of countries. Some are "standing in line" to be accepted! The borders are gone and the checkpoints are missing and the currency called the Euro is the strongest currency on Earth - stronger even than yours [the USA]. Now, let me tell you what did that. It's a consciousness shift that even 50 years ago was developing. Through two generations, it slowly allowed for free thinkers to unify things that had never been unified before. The result? These countries will never conquer each other again, because "history" ended at that moment. They started a new paradigm for Europe and one that has no historic profile known to man. The old history of the area is gone, and it will not repeat itself.

Those in the old Eastern Bloc of Europe, where there is still to this day very little unity, will still say, "History will again repeat itself. We are victims of it. It's only a matter of time." But not all of them feel this way. There are some who are starting to feel a unity of spirituality within their own cultures that they were never allowed to speak of before. So they are free thinking, out of the box of the old paradigm. It's new.

There are those who are standing on podiums and in pulpits and are proclaiming, "History is ended. It's the end of suffering. It's the end of dictatorships. It's the end of those who would put us in a low place. Instead, it's the beginning of discovering who we are." And although they don't say it in these exact words, they are discovering the creator inside - that which is the unity of God. So it's a full circle back to what the Angel told Muhammad, isn't it? For unity was the key to peace, and still is. It is a sacred principle and will never change.

Who would have thought this would have happened? The United States is what it is because 200 years ago the founders said, "Let us make a group of state countries without physical borders in a system that's never been tried. It's one of unity - the UNITED States of America." Oh, it had its tests, but the unifiers won. And it is why this country is what it is and is seen and respected for what it is and for what it's done. So young, it is, but representing the new energy, it is.

Your Declaration of Independence was channelled. Did you know that? It was collective effort channelling by those who had asked God for help. Go read it and feel that which is sacred inside, for it unifies and does not separate.

Iran hijab protester sentenced to year in jail: lawyer

Yahoo – AFP, April 14, 2019

Iranian women wearing hijab walk down a street in the capital Tehran in this file
picture taken on February 7, 2018 (AFP Photo/ATTA KENARE)

Tehran (AFP) - A woman who protested against Iran's compulsory hijab law by removing the Islamic veil in public last year has been sentenced to one year in prison, her lawyer said Sunday.

Vida Movahedi was arrested in October after removing her hijab from her head at Tehran's Enghelab Square, Payam Derafshan told AFP, confirming his earlier comments to state news agency IRNA.

Movahedi, in her mid-20s, was charged with "encouraging corruption and debauchery" and sentenced by a court in Tehran to one year in prison on March 2, Derafshan added.

The lawyer said Movahedi had stated her opposition to the "compulsory hijab" and that she wanted to express her opinion in "a civil protest".

Movahedi has staged protests against the law in the past.

In December 2017, she stood on a pillar box on Enghelab Avenue without the mandatory long coat and raised her white veil on a stick, an act that was copied by women in different cities.

Enghelab means revolution in Farsi and the square and avenue are among the busiest areas in the capital.

Movahedi's move sparked similar protests by other women, including some at the same spot, and they soon won recognition as "Dokhtaran-e enghelab", or the Girls of Revolution Street.

Like other women who copied her, she was arrested, but she was only fined for her first protest.

In her latest case, she has already spent more than five months in prison even though she is eligible for a pardon and the judge promised he would look favourably on a request for parole, Derafshan said.

"The judge was very sympathetic to the fact that Ms. Movahedi has a two-year-old daughter and that she had not had a political motive for her actions," the lawyer said.

According to Derafshan the judge "had urged Movahedi to make a parole request and that he would grant it as soon as he received it," however bureaucratic hurdles have prevented Movahedi from sending in her request.

"Movahedi has repeatedly made the parole requests in writing, but none of them have been sent," by Gharchak Prison where she is incarcerated.

Movahedi is also now eligible to be part of a mass pardon, but because the prison authorities have not yet updated her legal status she cannot receive it, Derafshan said.

"We have tried many times to overcome this bureaucratic dilemma but more than a month later we are nowhere, that's why we've gone to the media," Derafshan said.

US Southern Baptist churches embroiled in sex abuse scandal

Yahoo – AFP, Nova SAFO, February 12, 2019

After the sex abuse scandals that roiled the Catholic Church, the largest Protestant
denomination in the US -- the Southern Baptist Convention - faces allegations
 that hundreds of sexual predators in its ranks preyed on more than 700 people,
many of them children (AFP Photo/SEBASTIEN BOZON)

Chicago (AFP) - The United States' largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, is facing a sexual abuse crisis after a bombshell report revealed hundreds of predators and more than 700 victims since 1998.

The report by two Texas newspapers found some 380 church leaders and volunteers have faced public accusations of abuse, mostly of children as young as three years old.

Some of the accused continued to work at Southern Baptist churches, the newspapers said.

In response to the report, church officials acknowledged the number of victims could actually be higher and urged survivors to come forward.

"One of the things I'm encouraged by are the number of pastors that are actively engaged right now," in the report's aftermath, convention leader Russell Moore told AFP on Tuesday.

The revelations threatened to engulf the denomination -- with some 47,000 churches and 15 million members mostly in the southern US -- in the same type of scandal that has roiled the Catholic Church.

A more comprehensive response was likely to come from the Southern Baptist organization next week when president JD Greear "is scheduled to give an update on a sexual abuse study he commissioned last summer," said spokesman Roger Oldham.

Lax oversight

Unlike the Vatican, the Southern Baptist Convention is a loose network of churches allowed to run autonomously, ordain their own ministers -- who are not required to be celibate -- and hire staff and volunteers based on each church's own standards.

The decentralized system, which lacks a shared database of personnel records, has been rife for exploitation by sexual abusers, according to the investigative report first published over the weekend by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News.

Lax oversight allowed some abusers with criminal convictions -- even registered sex offenders -- to continue working at Southern Baptist churches, according to the report, which found 220 offenders who were convicted or took plea deals.

"In the denomination, each congregation governs its own affairs. There are no bishops. There are no supervisors," Moore said.

"But churches can decide with whom they fellowship," he said. "No one can use church autonomy as an excuse."

In at least 35 cases, abusers were able to leave one church and find work in another over the last two decades. In some cases, congregations knew about the past abuse.

For example, Illinois pastor Leslie Mason was convicted in 2003 on two counts of sexual assault. After being released from prison, he went on to lead a different church nearby.

'Changes are coming'

Florida pastor Darrell Gilyard, released from prison in 2011 after a criminal sex abuse conviction involving two girls, returned to preach services which children could not attend, because a court order required him to stay away from minors.

Moore said some Southern Baptists held erroneous views of forgiveness that "assumes these predators should be simply given a second chance."

In other instances, he said, churches believed horrific crimes could not occur within their ministries.

Moore also acknowledged that the Southern Baptist Convention rejected a proposal in 2007 that it should establish a registry to track abuse claims and prevent predators from getting rehired by other churches.

The newspapers found hundreds of abuse cases in the years since. And past church leaders have been accused of concealing or mishandling complaints.

"As a denomination, now is a time to mourn and repent. Changes are coming. They must," said Greear, the convention's current president, on Twitter.

The Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP), an organization mostly focused on the Catholic Church's abuse scandal, urged Southern Baptist survivors to report crimes to law enforcement.

"It is critical that law enforcement officials at every level of government look into these cases," the organization said in a statement.

Failure by Catholic Church officials to take action on sexual abuse allegations involving minors has been an urgent crisis hitting Roman Catholicism globally in recent years.

Pope Francis last week admitted that priests and bishops also had sexually abused nuns.

Pope admits priests, bishops sexually abused nuns

Yahoo – AFP, Catherine MARCIANO, February 5, 2019

Pope Francis, shown here accepting a gift from an Arab journalist aboard the
papal plane, said the problem of sexual abuse by priests could be found
"anywhere" (AFP Photo/LUCA ZENNARO)

ABOARD PAPAL PLANE (AFP) - Pope Francis admitted Tuesday that Catholic priests and bishops had sexually abused nuns, the latest scandal to rock the church.

"There are some priests and also bishops who have done it," the pontiff said in response to a journalist's question on the abuse of nuns, speaking on the return flight from his trip to the United Arab Emirates.

The papal admission followed a rare outcry last week from the Vatican's women's magazine over the sexual abuse of nuns, leaving them feeling forced to have abortions or raise children not recognised by their priest fathers.

The issue hit the headlines last year after a nun accused an Indian bishop of repeatedly raping her in a case that triggered rare dissent within the country's Catholic Church.

Francis said the problem could be found "anywhere" but was prevalent in "some new congregations and in some regions".

"I think it's still going on, because it's not something that just goes away like that. On the contrary," he added.

He said the Church has "suspended several clerics" and the Vatican has been "working (on the issue) for a long time".

'Must do more'

"I don't want to hear it said that the Church has not got this problem, because it has.

"Must we do more? Yes! Do we want to? Yes!" he said.

He said it was a cultural problem, the roots of which lie in "seeing women as second class".

The February issue of "Women Church World", a supplement distributed with the Vatican's Osservatore Romano newspaper, warned that nuns have been silent over abuse for decades for fear of retaliation.

It said the Vatican received reports of priests abusing nuns in Africa in the 1990s.

"If the Church continues to close its eyes to the scandal -- made even worse by the fact that abuse of women brings about procreation and is therefore at the origin of forced abortions and children who aren't recognised by priests -- the oppression of women in the Church will never change," editor Lucetta Scaraffia wrote.

In the Indian case, Bishop Franco Mulakkal was arrested on September 21 in the southern state of Kerala on suspicion of raping the nun in question 13 times between 2014 and 2016.

Pope Francis suspended him the day before his arrest, appointing another bishop in his place. Mulakkal, 53, who headed the diocese of Jalandhar in the northern state of Punjab, has denied the allegations.

The nun first spoke out in June but police only started formal questioning in September, as fury over the case mounted.

Five nuns -- in a rare public show of dissent within the Indian Church -- and dozens of supporters staged days of protests.

Failure by Church officials to take action on sexual abuse allegations has been one of the biggest scandals to hit Roman Catholicism globally in recent years.

Pope Francis's public admission that priests have used nuns as "sexual slaves" -- and may still be doing so -- marks a new chapter in the abuse crisis rocking the Catholic church, writes @ellaafp https://t.co/5KjjaLHVgY

— AFP news agency (@AFP) February 6, 2019

Prosecutors to decide if Nashville anti-gay charter breaches Dutch law

DutchNews, January 7, 2019 - Gordon Darroch

Kees van der Staaij is leader of the SGP party. Photo: Peter Hilz/ HH

The prosecution service is examining whether the Nashville Statement on marriage and sexuality breaches the law after a recent Dutch translation was condemned by equality organisations. 

The document, signed by around 250 hardline Protestant ministers, states that marriage is the ‘covenantal, sexual, procreative, lifelong union of one man and one woman’ and that ‘it it is sinful to approve of homosexual impurity or transgenderism.’ 

A spokesman for the public prosecution service said it was examining the statement to see if there was any basis for a criminal investigation. The service gave no indication how long the study might take. 

Article 1 of the Dutch constitution states that ‘discrimination on the grounds of religion, belief, political opinion, race or sex or on any other grounds whatsoever shall not be permitted.’ 

One of the signatories to the Nashville Statement is MP Kees van der Staaij, leader of the testimonial party SGP which has two seats in parliament and draws most of its support from the Dutch bible belt. On Monday he said he supported ‘Biblical notions of marriage, family and sexuality’, but refused to elaborate further. 

Opera singer Francis van Broekhuizen has filed a formal police complaint against Van der Staaij, the first step towards prosecution. Van Broekhuizen, who is a Pride Ambassador, told NPO Radio 4: ‘The whole pamphlet is a call to renew discrimination against LHBTI people. I feel really hurt and very sad.’ 

Emancipation minister Ingrid van Engelshoven described the emergence of a Dutch version of the Nashville Statement as a ‘step back in time’ and evidence that ’emancipation is still a long way off.’ 

‘Dangerous’ 

Around 200,000 people in the US have signed the English version of the statement since it went live in 2017. 

Dutch gay and transgender rights campaign group COC has said the statement is putting ‘LHBTIs back in the closet’. 

‘This statement gives the impression that gay feelings can be changed but dozens of research projects have show that homosexuality cannot be changed with treatment and therapies, and that such treatments are downright dangerous,’ the organisation said. 

Last year, research by the government’s socio-cultural think-tank SCP said members of the Protestant churches are among the least likely in society to accept homosexuality, with 16% saying they are negative about the LHBT community. 

The SGP believes the Netherlands should be governed ‘entirely on the basis of the ordinances of God as revealed in the Holy Scriptures’. The party won 2.1% of the vote in the 2017 general election.

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Dutch cardinal says the pope is endangering church unity

"The Akashic Circle" – Jul 17, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Religion, The Humanization of God, Benevolent Design, DNA, Akashic Circle, (Old) Souls, Gaia, Indigenous People, Talents, Reincarnation, Genders, Gender Switches, In “between” Gender Change, Gender Confusion, Shift of Human Consciousness, Global Unity,..... etc.)  - (Text version)

“… Gender Switching

Old souls, let me tell you something. If you are old enough, and many of you are, you have been everything. Do you hear me? All of you. You have been both genders. All of you have been what I will call between genders, and that means that all of you have had gender switches. Do you know what happens when it's time for you to switch a gender? We have discussed it before. You'll have dozens of lifetimes as the same gender. You're used to it. It's comfortable. You cannot conceive of being anything else, yet now it's time to change. It takes approximately three lifetimes for you to get used to it, and in those three lifetimes, you will have what I call "gender confusion."

It isn't confusion at all. It's absolutely normal, yet society often will see it as abnormal. I'm sitting here telling you you've all been through it. All of you. That's what old souls do. It's part of the system. …”

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“.   New Tolerance

Look for a softening of finger pointing and an awakening of new tolerance. There will remain many systems for different cultures, as traditions and history are important to sustaining the integrity of culture. So there are many in the Middle East who would follow the prophet and they will continue, but with an increase of awareness. It will be the increase of awareness of what the prophet really wanted all along - unity and tolerance. The angel in the cave instructed him to "unify the tribes and give them the God of Israel." You're going to start seeing a softening of intolerance and the beginning of a new way of being.

Eventually, this will create an acknowledgement that says, "You may not believe the way we believe, but we honor you and your God. We honor our prophet and we will love you according to his teachings. We don't have to agree in order to love." How would you like that? The earth is not going to turn into one belief system. It never will, for Humans don't do that. There must be variety, and there must be the beauty of cultural differences. But the systems will slowly update themselves with increased awareness of the truth of a new kind of balance. So that's the first thing. Watch for these changes, dear ones. ...."