Southern Baptist minister, elders guilty of not reporting abuse

Failing to report child abuse is a crime for which there is no justifiable church exemption. And as Christa Brown brought to our attention, the consequences of failure to report fell on the heads of a New Hampshire Southern Baptist pastor and two elders last week.

She wrote:

In New Hampshire, [at Valley Christian Church] Southern Baptist pastor Timothy Dillmuth and two church elders, Richard Eland and Robert Gagnon, were found guilty of failing to report child sex abuse. ... According to the judge’s written ruling, pastor Dillmuth “had met with the parents of a child who had been molested by a member of the church, which he later confirmed after talking to the child.

“The information was shared with other members of the board of elders in September 2009,” and was discussed at some meetings of the church board.

A month later, when another member of the church urged the child’s parents to report the matter to authorities, pastor Dillmuth talked to the concerned church member and told him to “keep his mouth shut.”

They sought a religious exception to the law, the Union leader reported:

The three men, [District Court of Northern Carroll County Judge Pamela Albee] wrote, sought to have immunity from criminal liability in failing to report the case of suspected child abuse, "arguing that they acted in good faith in persuading the parents and the perpetrator to make report of abuse." The men were arrested in early February by Conway police and charged that they had reason to suspect a girl had been sexually abused but did not report it as required by state law.

Suppression of the sort they sought punishes the victim, is shameful and deserves legal action.

'Hare-brained game of pretending' to believe Obama is a Muslim

Campbell University Divinity School professor Tony Cartledge writes of President Obama's visit to Indonesia:

Unfortunately, since Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population, Obama-haters have used the event to play up their hare-brained game of pretending to believe the president is a secret Muslim (this article cites a number of examples). I never cease to be amazed that so many people are so gullible that they believe believe some of the hogwash they read or hear: a recent Pew Research Center poll reported that 18 percent of Americans believe President Obama -- who self-identifies as a Christian and who reiterated his Christian faith while speaking in Indonesia -- is a secret follower of Islam. That's up from 11 percent in March 2009.

Why confuse a mean-spirited conspiracy theory with something as illuminating as facts and a man's word?

Good grief.

UK Baptist pastor faces up to 80 years in prison

Christa Brown writes about the case of Robert Dando:

• Dando was very closely connected to the highest levels of Baptists’ worldwide leadership. He previously served as executive assistant to the president of the Baptist World Alliance. This was a guy who ran with the big dogs.
• Dando “was embroiled in another child sex abuse scandal when he was a minister at Orchard Baptist Fellowship” in the United Kingdom. In 2001, when the leader of the church, Dr. Anthony Gray, was convicted of serious sex offenses against a 14-year-old boy, Dando said this: “All our youth work is carried out within proper guidelines.” Yet, we now know that Dando too was sexually abusing kids, and had been since at least as far back as 1995. (Do these guys run in packs?)
• At the time of his arrest, Dando was the prominent senior minister of Worcester Park Baptist Church in suburban London.
• Dando pled guilty to repeatedly abusing 2 boys in Virginia, starting when they were 7 and 8 years old. Virginia prosecutors said that, under questioning, Dando also admitted to sexually abusing boys in the United Kingdom.
• Dando had plenty of access to kids. His wife was a national vice-president of the Boys’ Brigade, a Christian youth organization with more than 500,000 members in 60 countries. Dando also worked for a children’s charity in India.
• Dando previously worked as a magistrate on a family court panel, which dealt with child care and child access proceedings.

Update: Dando target of UK investigation

Claire Fox of the Guardian writes:

A Baptist minister who admitted abusing children in the US faces a British police investigation after confessing to similar offences.

Reverend Robert Dando, 46, a senior minister at Worcester Park Baptist Church, pleaded guilty in Fairfax, Virginia, to four counts of sexually molesting the two young sons of family friends.

Dando sexually abused the boys between 1995 and 1999, from the ages of seven and eight.

Officials told Fairfax County Circuit Court one of the victims said Dando molested him by touching his genitals on 50 to 60 different occasions.

Fairfax County prosecutors have also revealed Dando admitted under questioning to touching young boys in the United Kingdom in a similar way.

What should Catholic politicians who support Roe v. Wade say?

Mark Silk led us to this from George Dennis O'Brien's new book:

Stop trying to avoid the issue by saying that you are personally opposed to abortion or that you accept the Church's views on abortion, but it is not your responsibility as a legislator to impose your moral will on the country. That is a cop-out. Any-slavery legislators in the nineteenth century did not retreat into personal opinion or religious cover--they thought that there was something wrong with the law of the land that needed radical change. The problem with abortion for a sensible legislator is not whether it is right or wrong, religious or impious; it is that it cannot be legislated away. When rounded on by one's local bishop for "supporting abortion," don't duck for cover--ask the bishop just what law he would recommend that would accomplish the prohibition of abortion. You won't likely get an answer.

Health reform delay's price in human lives

The Southern Baptist Convention's Richard Land stumbled over the heels of the exit polls to argue without foundation that in the mid-term elections, "American voters" demanded the Republicans "repeal ObamaCare."

Land is wrong, as Dan at Bold Faith Type explained:

Edison Research's exit polls - which are used by the Associated Press, CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox News - show that a minority of midterm voters (48%) wanted to repeal health care reform, with 31% wanting it to do more and 16% wanting to leave it as is. Furthermore, voters who turned out on Tuesday were more conservative than the country at large. Taking a wider view, a Gallup poll that was in the field last weekend showed that less than ¼ of Americans (23%) think repealing health care should be Congress's top priority after the election.

Inattentive to the polling data, Land appeared to be instead parroting the message of right-wing strategist Richard Viguerie. Both said the voters had decided "to give the Republicans one more chance" to cut the size of government, although the polling data shows that Americans' overarching concern is the economy.

Centers for Disease Control analysis suggests that any further health reform action should take the form of an expansion of benefits. Not repeal. As Reuters reported:

Nearly 59 million Americans went without health insurance coverage for at least part of 2010, many of them with conditions or diseases that needed treatment, federal health officials said on Tuesday.

hey said 4 million more Americans went without insurance in the first part of 2010 than during the same time in 2008.

"Both adults and kids lost private coverage over the past decade," Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a news briefing.

The findings have implications for U.S. healthcare reform efforts. A bill passed in March promises to get health insurance coverage to 32 million Americans who currently lack coverage.

Lack of health insurance kills at a rate of about one American every 12 minutes, Harvard Medical School researchers found.

How many would Southern Baptists like to see sacrificed on the altar of the Land/Viguerie political goals?

Southern Baptist Sharron Angle (& others)

Southern Baptist Sharron Angle misjudged the electorate in Nevada, and lost.

Amanda Marcotte makes a coherent argument that Angle's Mama Grizzly racism is to some conservatives an unbearable contradiction of her femininity. A deal breaker:

This contradiction exposed why it's so critical to the fundamentalist worldview that women stay at home and abandon ambition. In this world, women are supposed to be the light, the caretakers, the homemakers, those who smooth feathers and wipe brows. Aggression, meanness, ambition, and even lustiness are considered more masculine traits, even by the public at large. As Dave Weigel reports, the Republicans are beginning to feel that Sharron Angle, at least, spent too much time in the public eye. The longer the public stares at a Mama Grizzly, the more painful the contradiction between her ideals of femininity and her actual behavior.

Mark Silk makes the only slightly related argument that Angle and Christine O'Donnell would have done better if neither had been so much the culture warrior:

I would submit that Angle and O'Donnell lost not because of radical Tea Partyism but because they smelled too much of the unwanted social conservatism of yesteryear.

Who represents that social conservatism better than Angle's fellow Southern Baptist, SBC ethics czar Richard Land? His post-election analysis was first an echo of aging rightist Richard Viguerie (one more chance for the Republicans). Then, almost as though we held national referenda in this country, Land asserted a rejection of "Obamacare," a repudiation of judicial decisions with which he disagrees, a rejection of same-sex marriage and so on.

More about which, later.

Associate pastor barred from church pending resolution of sexual misconduct charges

Emerald Baptist Church Associate Pastor and Minister of Music Norman Henley Keesee has been barred from church activities and the church grounds pending resolution of charges of sexual misconduct and lewd acts.

Keesee, a Southern Baptist, was arrested by Greenwood, S.C., police after "the mother of a 13 year old girl and attendee of Emerald Baptist Church met with authorities to alert them to allegations made by her daughter."

According to GWD Today:

The victim stated that during private keyboard lessons conducted in the victims bedroom, Keesee would touch areas of her body that were not conducive with the lesson. The victim said that she would pull away from Keesee but that he would continue his actions during the lesson. According to the mother, Keesee had given her daughter keyboard lessons from February to July of this year. The victim had told her mother at the end of July that she no longer wanted to play the keyboard, which according to the mother was very strange at the time. The victim also gave a second child's name with which Keesee had given keyboard lessons.

Associated Baptist Press reports that Pastor Curtis Eidson said:

As the pastor of the church, I am not here tonight to defend anyone's innocence nor to declare anyone's guilt. It's not my place. I am here to say tonight, though, that with all that is going on Norman is still my brother in the Lord and the victim is still my sister in the Lord. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will change that.

North Carolina youth minister arrested

Thomas L. Elliott, who is a youth minister at Autryville Baptist Church in North Carolina, was arrested in an undercover internet sex sting by the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office Thursday evening, the Sampson Independent reported.

Elliot was a volunteer youth minister at Evergreen Baptist Church before being hired at Autryville Baptist.

[Cross posted at BaptistPlanet.wordpress.com]

Scottish Catholics asked to come up with the cash, fast

Scottish Catholics asked to dig deep this weekend, apparently in part because Pope Benedict XVI attracted 30,000 fewer pilgrims than anticipated. They're being asked to come up with another £800,000 ($1.1 million). That's on the heels of £1.7 million they were asked to come up with prior to the visit.

There is a price in Baptistland for defending those sexually abused by clergy

The passion of religious faith transmuted into meanness, explains Christa Brown:

I never imagined a world of so much meanness until I stepped onto the terrain of Baptistland with pleas for clergy accountability and for care of abuse survivors.

Worst of all . . . it’s a malignant meanness that masks itself as religion.

What N.C. Southern Baptist fundamentalists want in an editor?

About the abrupt resignation of North Carolina Biblical Recorder Editor Norman Jameson John D. Pierce of Baptists Today writes

In 2000, Herb Hollinger retired from the helm of Baptist Press — the Southern Baptist Executive Committee public relations arm that masquerades as a legitimate news service. In a meeting shortly afterward, longtime editor of Louisiana's Baptist Message, Lynn Clayton, asked then-SBC Executive Committee President Morris Chapman what kind of person would be chosen to lead BP.

Without hesitation, Chapman responded: “Someone loyal to me and the conservative cause.” While he expanded on that response, there was no mention of competence or experience, just loyalty to those looking for help in carrying out their Fundamentalist agenda. Chapman found such a person in Will Hall. North Carolina will find one too.

The Anglican Communion's women bishops

The 28 women bishops in the Anglican Communion, reviewed by Ruthie Glendhill, religion correspondent for The Times of London.

None in England.

After the review, Glendhill interviews Christina Rees, who has campaigned for the ordination of women in the Anglican Church and is now the Chairperson of WATCH (Women and the Church), about "the prospects for women bishops in the Church of England after initial analysis of the General Synod election results from 2010" indicated a shift against them:

Texas Baptist 'Valleygate' lawsuit settled

The Valleygate lawsuit filed by the Rev. Otto Arango alleging libel and slander by the Baptist General Convention of Texas and others has been settled in mediation and without an admission of fault to or by Arago, according to confidential sources and documents we were provided.

The overall terms of the settlement "are confidential."

The burden of the settlement with Arango is shared, we were informed, by the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT), the Dallas-based Texas Baptist Standard, Calvary Baptist Church of Mineral Wells, Texas, and the other defendants, through their insurance carriers.

Terms were apparently agreed to in mediation last month.

It was Cavalry Baptist Church Pastor David Montoya, through his blogging as the Spiritual Samurai, who first called attention to the issues involved.

Asked to comment on the matter today, Montoya told us, "I understand that the insurance company for my church has settled on my behalf as well as the church. The amount is confidential. I never had any malice toward Pastor Arango. I was upset with the people in charge of Church Planting at the BGCT back at that time for their complete lack of oversight as found by the investigators in their 2006 report, that was to whom my blogging was directed."

As Sam Hodges of the Dallas Morning News explained in August, 2008, when the original action was filed:

The Rev. Otto Arango claims he was defamed by the Dallas-based BGCT as it dealt with allegations of "phantom churches" and misspent money in a scandal that came to be known in Baptist circles as "Valleygate."

In an independent investigation commissioned by the BGCT noted that Dr. Arango and two other pastors sponsored a reported 258 new churches, which together received more than $1.3 million in BGCT funds.

But many of those new churches failed, others were mere "extension units" of existing churches, and some never existed at all, the investigators found in a report sharply critical of the BGCT for lax oversight.

Although the investigators' report referred to a "troubling deposits of checks into Dr. Arango's personal bank account," no criminal charges were filed. The BGCT chose not to pursue recovery of any of the more than $1.3 million in BGCT funds involved, arguing that civil action was “neither practical nor would it represent good stewardship of churches’ resources.”

Arango's subsequent suit was filed in Hidalgo County (TX) District Court and sought damages for both lost earnings and "past and future mental anguish." Arango's attorney said in 2008 that the matter had made it hard for Arango to continue working with churches in Texas and across Latin America.

[This item is cross-posted on WordPress.]

Caner hangs out his 'Islam Expert for Hire' shingle

Ditched amid uproar as dean of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary but (huh?) retained as a professor, Ergun Caner visited Bristol, Va., Friday to dismiss it all:

We saw it (controversy) coming. My brothers and I have been dealing with it for years. This just happened to bounce big, and I paid no attention. News means little to me, and the Web is — well, bloggers for the most part — are just frustrated people in their basements.

Also still for hire is Crying Wind, the not-an-Indian whose profitable history of pretending to an American Indian life story is detailed by Phil Johnson in Evangelical Bunco Artists. There is a long list, to which Johnson sadly appends Caner.

Caveat emptor.

U.S. Air Force Academy & damage from the Christian conservative religious push into the military

How did the U.S. Air Force Academy come to be so "overrun with Christian conservative fanatics" that a coalition of civil rights and interfaith groups was driven to send a letter Tuesday to the Department of Defense.

That letter detailed a startling cadet email and included "testimony from the parents of an academy graduate who believe their daughter was 'methodically brain washed' by a fundamentalist group there, demanding an investigation of the academy and the evangelical academy ministry Cadets For Christ."

It all began with the chaplains, who have as a group become steadily more fundamentalist. As Jeff Sharlet explains:

"It was Vietnam which really turned the tide," writes Anne C. Loveland, author of the only book-length study of the evangelical wave within the armed forces, American Evangelicals and the U.S. Military, 1942-1993. Until the Vietnam War, it was the traditionally moderate mainline Protestant denominations (Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians), together with the Catholic Church, that dominated the religious life of the military. But as leading clergymen in these denominations spoke out against the war, evangelicals who saw the struggle in Vietnam as God's task rushed in. In 1966, Billy Graham used the pulpit of the Presidential Prayer Breakfast to preach a warrior Christ to lead the troops in Vietnam: "I am come to send fire on the earth!" he quoted Christ. "Think not that I am come to send peace but a sword!" Other fundamentalists took from Vietnam the lessons of guerrilla combat, to be applied to the spiritual fight through the tactic of what they called infiltration, filling the ranks of secular institutions with missionaries both bold and subtle. That same year, one Family organizer advised inverting the strategy of the Vietcong, who through one targeted assassination could immobilize thousands. Winning the soul "key men" in the military could mobilize many more for spiritual war"

"Evangelicals looked at the military and said, 'This is a mission field,'" explains Captain MeLinda Morton, a former missile launch commander who until 2005 was a staff chaplain at the Air Force Academy and has since studied the history of the chaplaincy. "They wanted to send their missionaries to the military, and for the military itself to become missionaries to the world."

Sharlet argues that this has been carried out in a way that corrupts the process of officer training in very much the ways described in the coalition letter to the Department of Defense.

Read more of the excerpt from his book, C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy, [here].

A Fair(y) Use Tale

Regarding Bishop Chaput and press bias against religion

Bishop Chaput and others don't want to hear it, and his first comment on this topic included unfortunate language, but Mark Silk is exactly right:

I've spent the better part of two decades studying, writing about, and contributing to news coverage of religion. As in any other field of endeavor, there's the good, the bad, and the ugly. And that means the field can be cherry-picked to make a case for hostility to one or another religious tradition, or to religion in general. But with the exception of certain cult-like groups (the Church of Scientology, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, etc.), across-the-board bias is not to be found--and certainly not against the Catholic Church.

Another military religious intimidation incident

For refusing to attend a Christian band concert soldiers at Fort Eustis were reportedly confined to barracks.

That was in August, not long after the Air Force Academy elected to keep secret its 2010 religious climate survey which apparently indicated the tensions which boiled over this week into allegations of conservative Christian intimidation.

One writer found humor in the apparent decision of a few U.S. Army Transportation Corps soldiers to clean their barracks rather than "attend a concert by Christian 'rock' group Barlow Girl," writing, "Here is Barlow Girl (shudder):"

Still we know, don't we, that what we think of the music is, irrelevant.

Almost everyone remembers, don't they, that any application of military force to promote a religious view makes a mockery of freedom of religion.

Freedom of expression

The Center for Inquiry had a Campaign for Free Expression contest:

The Center for Inquiry is pleased to announce that Gregory Walsh and John Schmid of Maryland are the Grand Prize winners of its Campaign for Free Expression Video Contest, which asked contestants to submit short videos in the form of a public service announcement that addresses the importance of free expression.

They're all about secularizing society, which in the context of this publication space, underlines the message.

YouTube video admonishes Eddie Long to 'tell the truth'

Openly gay and bisexual Rev. Dennis A. Meredith, pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church in Atlanta, has posted a YouTube video admonishing scandal besieged Lithonia Eddie Long to "tell the truth:"

Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Shelia M. Poole wrote:

The nearly four-minute video was posted on YouTube on Monday, the day after Long made his first public comments about the scandal in which four young men sued the pastor, accusing him of coercing them into sexual relations.

. . .

Meredith said he decided to make the video because he was "saddened and disappointed" that there seemed to be little concern for the four men by Long and members of the 25,000-member church, who were interviewed later by the media. Meredith, who describes himself as openly gay and bisexual, said he called on a film crew, that's also making a documentary about himself and his church, to shoot the video with downtown Atlanta as a backdrop.

Meredith said his congregation is about 85 percent gay, lesbian and bisexual. Meredith said he has lost some members to New Birth because they disagreed of his views about welcoming gays in the church.

U.S. Air Force Academy cadets allege Christian conservative religious intimidation: Addendum

Air Force Academy Chapel

A U.S. Air Force Academy cadet has written in an email to Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) , warning that:

Mr. Weinstein, USAFA is literally overrun with Christian conservative fanatics. And the leadership here either knows this or is ridiculously blind to it. If any of us gave even the slightest indication that we weren’t one of their number, our lives would be even more miserable than they already are due to the fact that we are all living lies here. Despite the Cadet Honor Code we all lie about our lives. We have to. We don’t have a choice. Thus we are all “invisible” to our tormentors.

In the email published by Veterans Today, the cadet says he represents a group of about 100, mostly mainstream Protestant cadets who despair of command intervention.

"The MRFF and allies from a myriad of civil rights and interfaith groups sent a letter Tuesday to the Department of Defense (DoD) detailing the cadet's email and other startling complaints," writes Mike Ludwig of truthout, "including testimony from the parents of an academy graduate who believe their daughter was 'methodically brain washed' by a fundamentalist group there, demanding an investigation of the academy and the evangelical academy ministry Cadets For Christ."

The group also seeks official release of the recent USAFA study of the religious climate at the academy. It was leaked to the press. According to those leaked results, "353 cadets (almost 1 out of every 5 survey participants) reported having been subjected to unwanted religious proselytizing, and 23 cadets (13 of them Christians) reported living 'in fear of their physical safety' because of their religious beliefs."

Truthout further reports:

Mikey Weinstein, a USAFA graduate and MRFF founder, told Truthout that USAFA Superintendent Lt. Gen. Mike Gould was dishonest about the results of the Climate Study, and told the public that everything was fine at the academy without releasing the actual results. He said it's time for a legitimate investigation of the "fundamentalist culture" in the academy.

At Veterans Today Darryl Wimberley wrote of the email which precipitated this controversy:

This cadet’s view, from what I saw in a recent year at USAFA, is truthful. Now, I can imagine a grad from, say ’71, reading the letter penned below with incredulity. The letter was sent to Mikey Weinstein’s MRFF organization to dispute USAFA’s public stand that it’s officially religion-neutral. The details will be hard for many/most to believe who haven’t been plugged into Academy life for a while. So for context here is a bottom-line judgment that I reached after a recent year in Fairchild Hall: USAFA has had a problem distinguishing religious freedom from religious harassment ever since the Frank Dobson center got established at the South Gate. The profile of young folks coming to USAFA has become more narrow with the end of Selective Service; the body is less diverse than during the years where a young man had to worry about the draft.

Addendum

The Air Force Academy decision to keep the climate study secret was protested in August by 50 AFA backers.

A portion of the study obtained by the Colorado Springs Independent's Pam Zubeck revealed problems. Zubeck wrote:

— 141 cadets said they have been subjected to unwanted religious proselytizing sometimes, often or very often. Another 212 said they had been once or twice. Staff numbers were lower.

— 263 cadets said they were less accepting of bisexual men or women, 330 were less accepting of gay men and 268 were less accepting of lesbians since coming to the academy. The numbers were about half for those who had grown more accepting.

— 25 percent of civilian females said women received less favorable treatment in performance evaluations, and 27.5 percent of civilian racial minorities said so. Also, 33.3 percent of racial minorities among the civilian ranks said they received less opportunities for leadership positions; 30 percent of civilian women said this about themselves.

— Although sexual assault numbers were "too small to report," the survey found 43 percent of female active duty personnel at the academy witnessed sexist behaviors and 40 percent of women witnessed crude or offensive behaviors. With men, the ratios were 18 percent and 23 percent.

— 14 male cadets and 47 female cadets reported feeling in fear of their physical safety because of their gender; 23 felt in fear due to religious beliefs (13 of them Christians), and 13 felt in fear due to their race (8 being Caucasian).

— 46 percent of female cadets said they witnessed harassment or discrimination based on gender, and 27 percent of minorities said they had witnessed harassment or discrimination based on race or ethnicity.

— Those who have experienced some for of discrimination or harassment broke down this way: physical assault or injury, 42; terrorized or tormented, 54; threats of violence or stalking, 36; taunted or ridiculed, 235; humiliated, 171; oppressed, 85; persecuted or treated unfairly, 159; insulted or offended, 372; ignored, snubbed or excluded, 281; looked down upon, 304. Permanent staff's reports trended the same by category but at lower numbers/.

Weinstein responded to Zubeck's account, saying, "The data is malodorous. It stinks, and it can't be explained away. It's the tarantula on the wedding cake; it's very hard to tell the bride and groom to just ignore it. And the ramifications are already being seen."

NPR: Church tackles sex abuse by Eddie Long and others

Garland's cross-denominational study

Why predatory clergy flourish

Sexually abusive pastor profile and technique

On NPR, Baylor's Diana Garland, co-author of "How Sexual Misconduct Happens," and Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, clinical associate professor of Pastoral Studies at Catholic University, address how church tackles sex abuse by clergy.

They address both the problem in general and the Eddie Long case.

Garland's study found that the problem cuts across denominational lines.

Christine O’Donnell’s fantasy satanism

Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell told Bill Maher, "I dabbled into witchcraft," and added a couple of details which suggest that her story was made up for its sensationalistic appeal. Imagine that.

Fred Clark writing at slactivist nails it down to the dubious sources:

That evidence -- her claim to have seen a "Satanic altar" with "a little blood there" -- is cribbed entirely from Mike Warnke, the subject of the second book I'm recommending here: Selling Satan: The Evangelical Media and the Mike Warnke Scandal, by Mike Hertenstein and Jon Trott. Selling Satan is a remarkably thorough piece of investigative journalism by two devout evangelical Christians whose reluctance to cast judgment on a purported fellow believer lends them to document Warnke's lies in devastating detail. (The Cornerstone magazine articles summarizing this investigation can be read online here.)

Watch. You don't have to be Paul Ekman to make a reasonable decision about the veracity of her claims in this case:

The Druid Network first pagan group recognized under UK's 2006 Charities Act

The Druid Network this week became the first pagan religion in the United Kingdom recogized under the 2006 British Charities Act.

Their announcement says:

The Druid Network received notification yesterday (24th September) that our application to be registered as a charity furthering the religion of Druidry has been finally accepted. This has been a long hard struggle taking over five years to complete. Greater detail shortly and a big thank-you to all who helped make this important recognition possible.

Brynneth writes at The Pagan & The Pen

The Druid Network has charity status – not registered yet, but rubber stamped as fulfilling the requirements for registration, so pretty much there. This is very big news. It makes tdn the first recognised Druid charity in the UK and the first pagan group to be registered under the 2006 Act. It’s taken years and a lot of very wonderful people have fought very hard to make this possible – dealing with a system that had been set up to handle religions shaped more like Christianity than not.

The Druid Network having achieved charitable status will bring all kinds of benefits to the organisation, enhancing credibility and creating opportunities to promote and support Druidry. This is all good. It also means that any other pagan charity is going to have a much better chance of getting charitable status. No other Druid group is going to have to prove that Druidry is a valid religion. Other pagan groups will be able to use the tdn case to help express their own. The process that has got tdn charitable status has helped create understanding of nature based religion, modern polytheism, and things that are not remotely like Christianity. As this is a legal definition of tdn as a religious charity, it will have all kinds of wider legal implications too.

Jason Pitzl-Waters, who writes about modern pagan faiths, explains:

The 2006 act that Brynneth mentions is the Charities Act of 2006, which made it easier for smaller charities to become registered, and to appeal decisions of the Charity Commission. In Britain, there’s a marked difference between a charity and a nonprofit. While The Pagan Federation is a nonprofit organization, it is not a charity, and as such doesn’t receive the same tax privileges.

Who's smarter than an atheist?

Despite their claims to the contrary, neither Jimmy Akin of the National Catholic Register nor the staff of the Christian Science Monitor will help anyone answer that question.

No. Neither makes the mistake of relying on a shorter Pew Forum quiz to arrive at the wrong answer. That quiz only has 15 questions and the instrument on which the study is based has 32.

Yet both pieces use headlines which mislead readers toward believing that perhaps by comparing their scores on the full, 32-question quiz to the aggregate scores for atheists and agnostics who were surveyed, they can determine whether they're smarter than an atheist.

Not going to happen. No opportunity to disaggregate the Pew data to find you an atheist with whom to compare yourself is offered.

Nor is the full survey an intelligence test.

No, the measurement tool reveals and was designed to reveal social trends.

The data can be useful to those who analyze and apply it. As opposed to the recreation of applying the measurement tool to yourself.

Eddie Long accuser Jamal Parris speaks (you decide)

Read the Parris lawsuit [.pdf].

Sex encounters on church grounds

Did NAMB president give short shrift to the welfare of his church's children?

Refuse to testify and fail to warn your church's members about a sexual predator in their midst.

That was newly elected Southern Baptist North American Mission Board President Kevin Ezell's reaction when in 2004 as pastor of Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, he learned that a volunteer at his church who had also taught at a school operated by his church [see addendum] was accused of sex crimes. And Ezell was himself subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury.

Christa Brown at Stop Baptist Predators writes:

When prosecutors subpoenaed pastor Ezell to testify before the grand jury, Ezell invoked the clergy-penitent privilege. In other words, Ezell claimed that he couldn’t be required to testify under oath (i.e., under penalty of perjury) because he claimed that, as pastor, he was entitled to keep secret whatever Bill Maggard had told him.

...

Furthermore, as reported in the Courier-Journal, “Ezell said he did not expect the church would announce Maggard's arrest to the congregation.”

In many states, Ezell would not have had recourse to clergy-penitent privilege and could have had difficulties himself if found to have failed to report "known or suspected instances of child abuse or neglect." The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Child Welfare Information Gateway explains:

In approximately 18 States and Puerto Rico, any person who suspects child abuse or neglect is required to report.3 This inclusive language appears to include clergy but may be interpreted otherwise.

...

As a doctrine of some faiths, clergy must maintain the confidentiality of pastoral communications. Mandatory reporting statutes in some States specify the circumstances under which a communication is "privileged" or allowed to remain confidential. Privileged communications may be exempt from the requirement to report suspected abuse or neglect. The privilege of maintaining this confidentiality under State law must be provided by statute. Most States do provide the privilege, typically in rules of evidence or civil procedure.4 If the issue of privilege is not addressed in the reporting laws, it does not mean that privilege is not granted; it may be granted in other parts of State statutes.

This privilege, however, is not absolute. While clergy-penitent privilege is frequently recognized within the reporting laws, it is typically interpreted narrowly in the context of child abuse or neglect. The circumstances under which it is allowed vary from State to State, and in some States it is denied altogether. For example, among the States that list clergy as mandated reporters, New Hampshire and West Virginia deny the clergy-penitent privilege in cases of child abuse or neglect. Four of the States that enumerate "any person" as a mandated reporter (North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Texas) also deny clergy-penitent privilege in child abuse cases.

States which require reporting without regard to clergy-penitent privilege simply place the welfare of vulnerable children first.

Ezell could have put the children first but, judging from available accounts, simply did not do that.

Addendum:

On March 19, 2004, the Associated Press reported:

Maggard, 56, was indicted in December on two counts of first-degree sexual abuse. He is accused of molesting seven boys between 1973 and 1975, when he was a fifth-grade teacher at Schaffner Elementary School.

The new indictment says Maggard molested the boys either at school or at his home.

Maggard was initially indicted Dec. 17. He pleaded not guilty at his Dec. 22 arraignment and later posted a $5,000 bond.

Maggard taught 13 years in Jefferson County Public Schools and later worked at a school operated by Highview Baptist Church, where he also volunteered in Sunday school and choir programs until recently.

The 6,000-member church is one of the state's largest Southern Baptist congregations.

On August 3, 2004, WLKY.com reported:

A former teacher pleaded guilty to sexually abusing seven boys in the 1970s and early 1980s.

The deal calls for Bill Maggard Jr., 57, to spend up to 10 years in prison, WLKY NewsChannel 32 reported Tuesday.

. . .

Maggard taught for 13 years in Jefferson County Public Schools, and later worked at a school operated by Highview Baptist Church.

The church has said it has no claims of abuse

At sentencing time, Maggard made the kind of plea for clemency that is eerily predictable for church-going predators. On October 01, 2004, Jason Riley of the Louisville Courier-Journal wrote:

"I'm sorry for my actions many years ago," he said during his sentencing hearing in Jefferson Circuit Court, adding that he sought treatment in the early 1980s and would be willing to do so again. "I faced my sin, sought forgiveness, sought help and God kept His promise."

What of his victims? The burden of warning them appears to have fallen to the press and an alert member of Ezell's congregation. As Christa explains:

And thank God for a member of Ezell’s congregation who saw what was happening in her church and worried about the safety of the kids. As reported in the Courier-Journal, a member of Highview knew about prior allegations of abuse by Maggard, and she was concerned about his being in contact with children in the church. So, she contacted the victims and encouraged them to go to police.

Did Maggard seek out his victims and provide treatment to them?

Were those seeking clemency for Maggard at least similarly concerned about finding and helping all of his victims? You know: The suffering children.

From housecoats to statesmanship at the NAMB?

Kevin Ezell, who was on Sept. 14 appointed president of the Southern Baptist Convention's troubled North American Mission Board, along the way blasted bloggers who were critical of his selection:

Typically those are bloggers who live with their mother and wear a housecoat during the day. Just ignore them, but I apologize if you are hurt by anything that they might say about me or indirectly about you.

Enid, Oklahoma, pastor Wade Burleson, well known for his blogging, responded calmly:

One of the things that turns leaders into statesmen is the ability to be gracious to all, even those who criticize. Regardless of whether or not the proposed NAMB President has the temperament to handle the criticism that will come his way, it would be helpful for him to be gently reminded that it is both inconsistent and illogical to call his critics "bloggers who live with their mother and wear housecoats" and then "apologize for the hurt" those bloggers cause. Criticism from respected leaders hurts. To publicly disrespect the character of one's critics and then turn around and acknowledge their criticism hurts is a fallacy. It's best to either remain silent in the face of criticism or answer the criticism while displaying respect for the critics.

Leaders who turn into statesmen learn this lesson quickly. I am hopeful Dr. Ezell learns this lesson quicker than most.

Others were also unimpressed. Even infuriatedbemused.

Ezell appears to be somehow new to the Southern Baptist blogosphere. He really must adapt. It can get rough. He ain't seen nothin' yet.

[H/T to Burleson for the House photo pun.]

Cross-posted from WordPress.

Church abuse survivors demand justice

Hilary Whiteman of CNN reports:

Sue Cox was 10 years old when she says she was raped by a priest in her family home on the eve of her Confirmation, a sacrament which signifies the cementing of bonds between baptised believers and the Church.

The attack occurred in her bedroom while her family was downstairs. "I was mortified. I started to self-harm. I was ashamed and guilty," she said. Her mother told her: "Perhaps it was one of God's plans."

It wasn't one of His better ones," Cox said.

Cox was interviewed by Ruthe Glendill, religion correspondent for the Times of London. Glendill uploaded the interview to YouTube:

Michael Hirst of BBC interviewed Cox, who told him:

I feel liberated because I am now able to speak out; I believe that secrets keep you sick.

They do.

Cross-posted from WordPress

Mural hits Catholic Church failure to ordain women priests

St. John's, an Scottish Episcopal Church in Edenburgh, Scotland, has a tradition of murals which are an appeal to community conscience.

On their Web site, they explain:

Murals addressing contemporary issues relating to justice and peace have appeared at St John's for many years. They are intended to provoke discussion and a response from passers-by on Princes Street. The murals are painted by Artists for Justice and Peace and planned by a small group including the Rector and Associate Rector of St John's.

For the pope's visit they offered the following mural commenting on the Roman Catholic Church's refusal to ordain women priests, as the Scottish Episcopal Church has since 1994:

The pope is likely to have seen it, since the mural is along the procession route he followed.

The pope is meet Church of England Canon Jane Hedges this evening when he goes to Westminster Abbey for prayer. Four years ago, she was the first woman appointed as a residentiary canon at Westminster Abbey. She is a leading candidate to become the Church of England's first female bishop.

Denominational secrecy is a pervasive 'insult to Southern Baptists'

Norman Jameson, editor of North Carolina's Biblical Recorder, gets right to the point:

Being a denominational journalist or any Baptist with a contrary opinion in the current era of Southern Baptist Convention upheaval sometimes feels a bit like a tick picker atop a rhino. It’s an important role, but the rhino is going to go where he will.

And nowadays, he gets there in secret.

His immediate concern is the closed-door session in which the SBC North American Mission Board on Sept. 14 "interviewed, discussed and voted on their new president behind closed doors."

The 37-12 vote hiring Kevin Ezell for that job was ferreted out, but not announced.

As Jameson argues, secrecy is the longtime, continuously destructive rule at the Southern Baptist Convention.

For example:

• Ezell's two predecessors were forced to resign in closed deliberations.
• An entire book, Misspending God's money, deals with otherwise secret expenditures under former NAMB president Bob Reccord.
• Baptist Salaries, known and unknown deals with how little is known to the public about compensation to executives like Ezell.
• Great Commission Resergence Task Force meetings were closed and recordings of the deliberations sealed for 15 years.
• The powerful SBC Executive Committee meets primarily behind closed doors.

We agree with Jameson that the result is destructive:

Baptists want to believe in the work of our institutions. We want to continue supporting them. Closed doors indicate a lack of trust in us. It is hard to support an organization that doesn't trust you.

Do Southern Baptists who refuse to put up with it have to leave the denomination?

Mid-Term elections come to Mayberry, N.C.

Andy Griffith, beloved as sheriff of Mayberry, has been hit by mid-term elections health reform backlash:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Mayberry WTF
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

'Dude you have no Qu'ran!' & nothing was burned in Amarillo:

Watch the video here.

Read 'The Scariest Verses in The Qu'ran'

All the way to the bottom, read Tia Lynn's "The Scariest Verses in The Qu'ran!!!"

[H/T: Mainstream Baptist]

Supremes say the Orly Birther has to pay

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Orly Taitz to pay the $20,000 fine for filing "frivolous" litigation.

Benny Hinn says he had just a "friendship" with Paula White

Somewhat like his marriage, "the relationship is over," reports Charisma. But allegations of an affair were characterized by Hinn as, "a lie."

Just knocks you over, doesn't it?

The Benny Hinn knockdown match

Ever theatrical and controversial, Benny Hinn flails away:

Bad Universe (is out to get you)

The Bad Astronomer, Philip Cary Plait, is hosting a new show on Discovery:

Canberra Declaration announced & Manhattan begs for money

Australia's Canberra Declaration was announced today on the Parliament House lawn in Canberra at the Government of God Conference.

It is apparently descended from the 2009 Manhattan Declaration in the U.S. and the 2010 Westminster Declaration in the U.K.

Born into a country where Christianity is hardly ascendant and the prime minister is an atheist (not their first), it may be a less effective email-address collection tool than either of its predecessors, the first of which is already begging for money. In a drum-beating email to the Manhattan Declaration list, Chuck Colson wrote Wednesday:

. . . although we are seeing a tremendous response from people to the emails, updates, and information on the website, we could use your help to cover the expenses related to these efforts. So we are asking you to please consider giving a small gift today. . . . We're going to increase our frequency of communication with you over the next few months, so check the website often, and watch your email for future updates.

Or adjust your spam filter.

Celluloid pastor/priest Polanski set free

Efforts to extradite Roman Polanski apparently collapsed in a heap of miscommunication.

Futile British appeal for women priests

"Pope Benedict Ordain Women Now", a UK "group of women and men who care deeply about the Roman Catholic Church" called Catholic Women's Ordination will be shouting from London bus sides.

It will appeal to deaf Vatican ears throughout September. We say deaf because, last Thursday the Vatican issued a declaration which among many other things said "the 'attempted ordination of a woman' to the priesthood was one of the most serious crimes in church law."

Campaign for Free Expression video contest

Center for Inquiry Campign for Free Expression is running a public service announcement video contest. The general idea is:

There is a $2,000 prize.

Here are the instructions and rules for entries, which must be submitted by Sept. 20.

Don't be shy.

Some South Carolina Baptists smeared themselves

Some South Carolina Baptists helped carry that "raghead" water which did not douse Nikki Haley's bid the South Carolina Republican gubernatorial nomination.

Failing Newsweek opens a war on marriage?

Soon to be radio showless but voice unlowered, Albert Mohler, dean of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, finds that besieged, failing and for-sale Newsweek has begun the culture war to end marriage. Just like that. Mohler wrote:

The Newsweek article represents what may be the most direct journalistic attack on marriage in our times. Though only an op-ed column, it presents arguments that had to date been made largely, if not exclusively, outside of mainstream circles. Consider this column an opening salvo in a battle to finish marriage off, once and for all.

"I Don't" is, however, still just a well-written op ed in an increasingly obscure and endangered magazine.

Another price of clerical sexual abuse

Roman Catholic author Peter Steinfels reminds us at dotCommonWeal that in his book, A People Adrift:

I warned that the Catholic church in the U.S. faced “thoroughgoing transformation or irreversible decline.” Yes, the gates of hell will not prevail but that did not guarantee the church’s flourishing or even existence in any given time or place.

He feels The Atlantic's Ross Douthat has made the same point "even more bluntly."

Douthat does not say the Roman Catholic Church is finished. Instead he writes:

But if the Church isn’t finished, period, it can still be finished for certain people, in certain contexts, in certain times. And so it is in this case: for millions in Europe and America, Catholicism is probably permanently associated with sexual scandal, rather than the gospel of Jesus Christ. And as in many previous dark chapters in the Church’s history, the leaders entrusted with that gospel have nobody to blame but themselves.

Not that Roman Catholic clergy are alone amid the rising waters and scrabble of feet abandoning ship.

The Southern Baptist Convention, just for example, continues year after year to resist necessarily forceful action against clerical sexual abuse.

How 'forgiveness' becomes cover-up for church sexual predators

Christa Brown calls our attention to a story of a Southern Baptist church's negligence in dealing with a preacher's sexual abuse of his adopted children. She quotes from the Anchorage Daily News:

Church officials knew the oldest daughter, Renee, was being abused long before Diana did. One of them, according to Renee's sworn testimony, told her to forgive her father and not tell anyone what he had done. It was three years before Renee got the courage to speak up again. By then, her father had started in on her two little sisters.

You see in that horror why sexual predators regard churches as attractive environments.

For example, one predator told a researcher [.pdf]:

I considered church people easy to fool...they have a trust that comes from being Christians...They tend to be better folks all around. And they seem to want to believe in the good that exists in all people ... I think they want to believe in people. And because of that, you can easily convince, with or without convincing words.

Thus forgiveness becomes cover-up, with hellish results for victims.

Impetus for Belgian police raids on Catholic Church offices

Vatican outrage which greeted raids by Belgian police last week on church offices and a cathedral in the Archdiocese of Malines-Brussels was misplaced.

Doreen Carvajal of the New York Times reports that they were the result of "a formal accusation that the church was hiding information on sexual abuse lodged by the former president of an internal church commission handling such cases."

The Flemish newspaper Nieuwsblad reported [via Google translate] that Godelieve Halsberghe, who from 1998 to 2008 "directed the [church] commission for handling complaints of sexual abuse in a pastoral relationships," went to authorities after receiving a phone call warning that she and commission files she had were in danger. She turned over her files and talked to authorities about the possibility that the church was hiding other files.

Taking action on serious, formal complaints like those lodged by Ms. Halsberghe, a retired magistrate, is the responsibility of the police in a free society.

The incandescent Vatican response, which descended to references to Communist police state tactics, was inappropriate.

[H/T: Religion Clause]

Australia's atrophied religious right vs faithless Baptist PM

Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard is a "non-practicing Baptist [atheist]" who lives without benefit of matrimony with her male companion.

Australians, it seems, are even less attentive to the blandishments of their religious right than voters in this country have become to the overstated suasions of the likes of Southern Baptist Convention's Richard Land. As Joel Gibson wrote recently for the Sydney Morning Herald:

We're a weird mob when it comes to God and politics. Two-thirds of us tick a religious box in the census but research for the Herald by Nielsen last year found three-in-four don't care whether our leaders believe in God. There are as many of us who abhor it in politics as there are who crave it, and both are small minorities.

Macquarie University academic, Marion Maddox, whose book For God and Country details the religious dynamics in Australian politics, says "Australians are suspicious of anyone who sounds too religious." She has also said she expects the religious beliefs of politicians to fade from public discourse.

Aussie Labor Party member Gilliard isn't like to be the final test of that, but this far she has been a boon to her party. She and her allies ousted failing Labor PM Kevin Rudd and the Herald Sun reports:

Ms. Gillard has turned around Labor's fortunes, even in Western Australia where support had slumped to 28 per cent thanks to the mining tax. A poll in The West Australian yesterday showed support had jumped to 36 per cent in the wake of her promotion.

She's expected to call for an election soon to establish her own governing mandate.

Don't expect an American-style debate over the church she doesn't attend. Indeed, that uproar Down Under isn't happening already.

Addendum

Gillard attracted attention Wednesday by announcing her opposition to gay marriage.

Pope seeks (somewhat like Southern Baptists) 'renewed evangelization'

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is not alone in its quest for a Great Commission Resurgence, or something somewhat similar:

Pope Benedict XVI announced he is establishing a pontifical council for new evangelization to find ways "to re-propose the perennial truth of the Gospel" in regions where secularism is smothering church practice.

. . .

"I have decided to create a new organism, in the form of a pontifical council, with the principal task of promoting a renewed evangelization in the countries where the first proclamation of faith has already resounded and where there are churches of ancient foundation present, but which are living through a progressive secularization of society and a kind of 'eclipse of the sense of God,'" he said.

No church planting required, reversing secularization is only in part of matter of reversing or at least slowing the decline in church membership and attendance in countries like Austria, Belgium and Germany. Yet as Philip Jenkins recently pointed out in The Christian Century, it is a battle with many fronts, including replenishing the depleting ranks of the priesthood:

Particularly in Western Europe, Catholic countries have been becoming steadily more secular for at least a generation, quite independent of any claims of priestly deviance. In no sense is European religion dying — just witness the continuing popularity of pilgrimage and other popular devotions — but loyalty to the institutional church has weakened disastrously. Rates of mass attendance have declined steeply, as have the numbers of those admitting even notional adherence to the church. Today, fewer than half of French people claim a Catholic identity. The number of priestly vocations has been in free fall since the 1960s, leaving many seminaries perhaps a quarter as full as they were in the time of Pope John XXIII.

Failure of atavistic movements like the SBC's GCR and the pope's pontifical council for new evangelization is probably foreordained by the degree to which the secularization they attack is embedded in the cultures to which they speak. Again, as Jenkins observes regarding secularization and the Roman Catholic Church:

One gauge of transformed Catholic attitudes has been the sharp drop in fertility rates and family size. Since the 1970s women increasingly pursued careers and higher education, and the use of contraception spread rapidly, despite stern church disapproval. Fertility rates plummeted, such that Spain and Italy today have among the lowest fertility rates in the world, far below the level needed for population replacement. Catholic Germany stands about the same level. German sociologist Ulrich Beck notes wryly that in Western Europe today, the closer a woman lives to the pope, the fewer children she has. Ireland's fertility rate today is less than half what it was in 1970.

There is no reason a couple with few or no children should not be fervently pious. But the trend away from large families reflects broader social changes. A society in which women have more economic autonomy is less likely to accept traditional church teachings on moral and sexual issues. The resulting conflicts have steadily pushed back the scope of church involvement in public life. Abortion became legal in Italy in 1978 and in Spain in 1985. The Irish church suffered a historic defeat in 1997 when a referendum narrowly allowed the possibility of divorce. Today, across Catholic Europe, same-sex marriage is the main moral battlefield—with Spain in the vanguard of radical secularism and sexual liberation. The Catholic Church struggles to present its views to a society suspicious of institutional and traditional authority of any kind and quite accustomed to ideas of gender equality, sexual freedom and sexual difference.

Austrians would ordain married men and women as Catholic priests

A telephone survey of 500 Austrian parish priests found 79 per cent support allowing married men to be ordained, and 51 per cent think women should be allowed to become priests.

Commissioned by ORF (Österreichischer Rundfunk: "Austrian Broadcasting"), 51 per cent said the Vatican does a poor job of handling sexual abuse cases.

A survey earlier this month of 406 Austrian Catholic priests by researchers from Kepler University in the Upper Austrian city of Linz found that more than half supported putting an end to celebacy.

Austrians in general support harsher reform, according to the Viennese public opinion agency Karmasin. They reported that "57 per cent of the 500-odd Austrians they interviewed were of the opinion Pope Benedict XVI should resign amid the wave of alleged sex abuse incidents across Europe were there a rule that enabled him to do so."

Their call for reform isn't toothless. Like Americans, Austrians have been leaving the Roman Catholic Church in droves:

Earlier this week, the head of the Vienna archdiocese's church tax office estimated that up to 80,000 of Austria's roughly 5.5 million Catholics could leave the church this year — a new record. Last year alone, 53,216 people formally had their names removed from church registries, a 31 percent increase compared to 40,654 in 2008.

Adding married men and women to the ranks of candidate priests could find doctrinal acceptance after the practical necessity has departed.

How to make free-speech martyrs of atheists

Deface their billboards, again(?). This time on the Billy Graham Parkway in North Carolina.

William Warren of Charlotte Atheists & Agnostics was civil in his response. According to the Charlotte Observer:

He said his group considered the vandalism an isolated act and not indicative of Charlotte’s religious community.

It would be ironic if Christians were found to be responsible for the vandalism. For the pledge in its original form, without the "under God" wording which was added in a Cold War heat in 1954, was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister (and socialist).

Re Belgium, the pope has lit some fires

Other fires were lit by incandescent papal response to Thursday's daylong Belgian police raids.

Mark Silk saw evidence that "the wheels are coming off the popemobile," while groups representing those abused by Catholic clergy were themselves outraged.

Neither was quite as blunt as Fr. Rik Deville, 65, interviewed by the Italian newspaper La Stampa interviewed Devillèon June 27. He was, for example, unimpressed by the Adriaenssens Commission, which resigned en masse to protest the Belgian police action:

The problem was its connection with the Archdiocese, and the absence of either a lay component internally or a connection with the civil authorities. I always hoped that a truly independent commission would be formed, an organism whose objective was to help justice take its course. That must be the way. It’s not up to the church to decide who violated the law and who should be punished.

As for whether "the plague of sexual abuse by clergy a common evil?"

It happens everywhere, believe me. Belgium believed itself to be an exception because no case ever came to light. Yet as early as 1994, I had collected 82 accusations. The victims wanted to be heard by the church, they wanted to break the curse. It’s been useless, at least up to now.

Perhaps the most shocking allegation came from the Belgian right, via Dr. Alexandra Colen, MP. She is a member of the Belgian House of Representatives and wrote in The Brussels Journal of a catechism textbook, Roeach. She alleges:

The editors of Roeach were Prof. Jef Bulckens of the Catholic University of Leuven and Prof. Frans Lefevre of the Seminary of Bruges. The textbook contained a drawing which showed a naked baby girl saying: “Stroking my pussy makes me feel groovy,” “I like to take my knickers off with friends,” “I want to be in the room when mum and dad have sex.” The drawing also shows a naked little boy and girl that are “playing doctor” and the little boy says: “Look, my willy is big.”

When the wheels come off, the vehicle may eventually be found deep in the weeds. The question was and remains, how deep?

Subsidy, not faith, is the issue in Hastings

The Christian Legal Society can still require voting members to sign a statement of faith in which they disavow "unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle." Thus effectively banning avowed homosexuals from becoming voting members.

The Supreme Court has ruled 5-4, however, that the University of California's Hastings College of Law has every right to continue to deny them recognition and the attendant public subsidies of an on-campus student group.

For the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote:

The First Amendment shields CLS against state prohibition of the organization's expressive activity, however exclusionary that activity may be. But CLS enjoys no constitutional right to state subvention of its selectivity.

Also:

CLS's conduct, not its Christian perspective, is, from Hastings' viewpoint, what stands between the group [and recognition].