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Los Angeles Attorney Declares Rampant Fraud, Many Abuse Claims Against Catholic Priests are ‘Entirely False’ January 2, 2011 By TheMediaReport.comIn a stunning ten-page declaration recently submitted to the Los Angeles County Superior Court, veteran attorney Donald H. Steier stated that his investigations into claims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests have uncovered vast fraud and that his probes have revealed that many accusations are completely false.Counselor Steier has played a role in over one hundred investigations involving Catholic clergy in Los Angeles. In his missive Mr. Steier relayed:"One retired F.B.I. agent who worked with me to investigate many claims...

When the famous falter, people pay attention. That’s as true today as it was 85 years ago, when the most prominent evangelist of the day suddenly vanished. Aimee Semple McPherson disappeared from Los Angeles on this date in 1926. The woman at the center of this mystery seemed to have everything – beauty, eloquence, the fame that accompanied one of the first major multimedia ministries. Pentecostal minister Aimee Semple McPherson established the 5,000-seat Angelus Temple based on her Foursquare Gospel. She built her ministry over years of tent revivals, newspaper columns, radio broadcasts and charismatic flourishes that included faith healing...

Protests are growing against Pope Benedict XVI's planned trip to Britain, where some lawyers question whether the Vatican's implicit statehood status should shield the Pope from prosecution over sex crimes by pedophile priests. More than 10,000 people have signed a petition on Downing Street's website against the pope's four-day visit to England and Scotland in September, which will cost UK taxpayers an estimated STG15 million ($A25 million). The campaign has gained momentum as more Catholic sex abuse scandals have swept across Europe. Although Benedict has not been accused of any crime, senior British lawyers are now examining whether the pontiff...

April 13, 2007 — Sanctuaries are designed to make us feel safe. They provide us peace and a place to pray. Bells call the good to worship and warn the evil to stay away. This is the kind of American church that a young Christa Brown was drawn to. As a teenager in the 1960s, Brown learned to love music and her God. She grew up in the church, sang in the choir and played the piano. But as Brown would find out, churches don't always protect the innocent. Sometimes these sanctuaries shield the guilty and even lure predators to...

A FORMER deacon affiliated with the Anglican Church appeared in court today charged with sex offences. The 82-year-old, who cannot be identified, has yet to plead to seven counts of indecent assault allegedly committed between January 1980 and May 1983. Police will allege the charges relate to the abuse of a male street kid - claims that arose during an inquiry into sexual abuse within the Anglican Church. Magistrate Greg Clark remanded the man on continuing bail to appear in court again in October.

PINEVILLE, Mo. - Residents of a southwest Missouri county best known for canoe streams and its yearly Jesse James festival were in shock Friday over allegations that children were ritually abused at a remote church community known to few before the case broke. The gated church compound on a 100-acre farm a mile from the nearest paved road remained a mystery. Neighbors and other residents of McDonald County said they knew little or nothing about the Grand Valley Independent Baptist Church, where investigators said up to 100 people lived until recently. The church's pastor, his wife and her two brothers,...

A Toledo Roman Catholic diocesan priest charged in the 1980 slaying of a nun was accused yesterday in a civil lawsuit of repeatedly torturing and raping a young girl in ritual abuse ceremonies at a north-side church. An unidentified woman claims she was the victim of bizarre demonizing ceremonies conducted by the Rev. Gerald Robinson and other clergy nearly 40 years ago in the basement of St. Adalbert Parish on Warsaw Street. The woman and her husband, who are listed as Survivor Doe and Spouse Doe, respectively, filed the lawsuit in Lucas County Common Pleas Court. Father Robinson, who is...

I stood there, rooted to the spot, stroking my son’s hair, gently touching his cold face, gazing at my precious child. “Eric,” I thought, “oh, Eric.” Then I turned to walk down the church aisle as the funeral attendants closed the casket. Numb from shock, I joined the rest of my family, clutching my husband’s hand tightly, feeling his arm caressing my shoulder. Now, three years later, I am sitting at Eric’s computer, the one on which he typed his suicide note, painfully recalling the series of events that culminated in his death. Slowly, painstakingly, our family grapples with the...

ALBANY -- A distraught clergy sex abuse victim has threatened to kill Bishop Howard Hubbard if his alleged abuser is cleared of sexual misconduct allegations, according to attorney John Aretakis.Without naming the victim or the priest, Aretakis sent a Jan. 15 letter to Hubbard's lawyer, Michael Costello, apprising him of the threat. Aretakis, who represents a number of clergy sex abuse victims, said he does not think the threat is credible, but said he still felt a warning to Hubbard was warranted."I feel a moral obligation to pass this information on," Aretakis said in the letter. "Please (tell) Bishop Hubbard...

Homosexuality Our Current Crisis: TRUTH and the Homosexual issue By Deacon Keith A FournierPresident/Founder Catholic teaching on homosexuality must be clearly articulated and followed Catholic Way - Our Current Crisis: TRUTH and the “Homosexual” issueCatholic Online © Third Millennium, LLC By: Deacon Keith A Fournier I am a faithful Catholic. I love serving the Church as a member of the clergy, a deacon. I cherish and embrace the wealth of wisdom that is the Churches teaching. A Polestar of that teaching is that every single human person has an inestimable dignity because they are created in the image of...

NEW YORK The Archdiocese of Portland, the first in the nation to file for bankruptcy in the face of mounting sex abuse claims, began running ads in major U.S. newspapers this week alerting priest abuse victims that their time to file a claim against the diocese is running out. The $250,000 ad campaign, required as part of the bankruptcy proceeding, asks any alleged victims who have not yet come forward to file a complaint naming their abuser by April 29. Over the next three weeks, the ads will run three times in 21 newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and...

BALTIMORE, Maryland (AP) -- A priest who was shot and wounded in 2002 by a former altar boy he allegedly molested more than a decade ago has been defrocked by Pope John Paul II, The Associated Press has learned. The pope decided in October to dismiss Maurice Blackwell, and the Archdiocese of Baltimore received the official paperwork earlier this month from the Vatican, archdiocese spokesman Sean Caine said Wednesday.

With the clergy sexual abuse scandal in full force, the number of people attending Mass in the Archdiocese of Boston dropped dramatically last year as about 50,000 fewer parishioners attended weekly church services than in 2001. And, despite an increase in the Bay State's Catholic population in recent years, the number of those joining the faith also fell dramatically, with a convocation at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross for prospective Catholics drawing only 600 yesterday, compared to about 1,000 last year and 770 five years ago. The figures place Boston solidly in a national trend showing the scandal to...

<p>Boston's Bernard Cardinal Law was just following orders from his boss - Pope John Paul II - when he sent suspected pedophile priests back to work in parishes with kids, a damning church document reveals.</p> <p>The pope, in a 1999 order defrocking a Boston priest with a history of molesting boys, acknowledged that the man "ought to live away from the place where his previous condition is known."</p>

Subject: NIGHTLINE: The Big PictureTONIGHT'S SUBJECT: For months now, we've been reporting on the scandal rocking the Catholic Church. But for the most part, we talk about one case here, another there. But just how widespread is the problem? Tonight we'll have the results of an investigation done by our colleagues at the Dallas Morning News. The numbers are actually pretty shocking. ---- I'm sitting here, having a little trouble getting started. We have reported on this scandal several times so far. For the most part, the stories are fairly similar, the anguish of the victims, and their anger, and...

Priest accused by four serves at hospitals Brothers say pastor molested them as children; monitoring of his work as a chaplain is questioned By MARY ZAHN and TOM HEINEN of the Journal Sentinel staff After being told that a priest had sexually molested four children in a large Catholic family, the Milwaukee Archdiocese assigned him to work for years as a hospital chaplain, despite an agreement that he would never be placed in a job where he had access to children. "If you can imagine it, he did it. A lot of times I'd try to tell my parents that...