Many of Texas' FLDS teen girls pregnant, mothers

More bad news regarding all those children taken into Texas custody when their parents' polygamist ranch was raided earlier this month. From AP:

SAN ANTONIO - More than half the teen girls taken from a polygamist compound in west Texas have children or are pregnant, state officials said Monday.

A total of 53 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 are in state custody after a raid 3 1/2 weeks ago at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado. Of those girls, 31 either have children or are pregnant, said Child Protective Services spokesman Darrell Azar. Two of those are pregnant now, he said; it was unclear whether either of those two already have children.

"It shows you a pretty distinct pattern, that it was pretty pervasive," he said.

To be fair, I know some churches that wouldn't fair much better on a non-pregnant, per-capita basis. The difference, of course, is that the pregnancies in the former were caused by a now-repudiated religious lifestyle while in the later they're borne of, as Juno's mom puts it, teenage boredom.

Pope says pedophiles can't be priests

Pope Benedict XVI said on Tuesday that following the Roman Catholic Church’s child sexual abuse scandals in the United States, the church is reviewing candidates for the priesthood with the objective of excluding those with a tendency to molest children.

Speaking to reporters on an airplane taking him for his first visit to the United States as pope, he addressed the scandal in the U.S. that has produced more than 5,000 sexual abuse victims since it erupted in 2002 and cost the church more than $2 billion.

“It is a great suffering for the church in the United States and for the church in general and for me personally that this could happen,” he said. “As I read the histories of those victims it is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betrayed in this way. Their mission was to give healing, to give the love of God to these children. We are deeply ashamed and we will do what is possible that this cannot happen in the future.”

Apparently drawing a distinction between priests with homosexual tendencies and those inclined to molest children, the Pontiff said “I would not speak at this moment about homosexuality, but pedophilia which is another thing. And we would absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry.”

“Who is guilty of pedophilia cannot be a priest,” he added.

The Pope said church officials were going through the seminaries that train would-be priests to make sure that those candidates have no such tendencies. “We’ll do all that is possible to have a strong discernment, because it is more important to have good priests than to have many priests."

This from the NY Times. It seems like such a simple declaration, and yet it has taken so many years and cost so much pain for it to be made. Here's more on the pope's visit.

(That's a cutout image of the pontiff from the Mercury News.)

NBA player discusses growing up with polygamists

To this point, I haven't posted about the raid of a polygamist community in Texas that delivered some 400 children into foster care. But this interview from CBS' "Early Show" is a good entry point. (Blogger won't let me embed the video, so click here.)

The subject is Cleveland Cavaliers center Lance Allred, who grew up in a polygamist community. It's an odd rambling interview, and, when asked whether he ever saw signs of sexual abuse, Allred answers yes but then gives a strange qualification:

"You can get caught up in the black and white of it all. There are bad apples in every religion who exploit people."

CleanFlicks founder accused of sex with minor

The co-founder of CleanFlicks, a video editing service once used by many Christians, has been arrested in Utah for allegedly paying a 14-year-old girl for sex.

Daniel Thompson, who ran CleanFlicks till the courts shut it down in 2006, had more recently operated Flix Club, a family-friendly edited-movie video business in Orem, Utah. He was arrested last Thursday on two charges of forcible sexual abuse and two charges of forcible sexual activity with a 14-year-old. Thompson is out on bail.

Thompson’s business partner at Flix Club, Isaac Lifferth, was also arrested on similar charges.

As soon as I saw the words "CleanFlicks founder arrested," my mind jumped to the story laid out above. Why? Because it's sadly unsurprising to find somebody accused of behavior that they publicly fought against. Ted Haggard and Sen. Larry Craig should sound familiar. For a little more backstory and an explanation of why CleanFlicks was put out, read the rest of this post here.

LA Archdiocese sells headquarters

We knew this day was coming, and sadly, here it is.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has sold its 12-story administrative headquarters building to help pay last year's $660 million settlement with people alleging sex abuse by clergy, a spokesman said Tuesday.

The Archdiocesan Catholic Center was sold to Jamison Properties of Los Angeles for $31 million, archdiocese spokesman Tod Tamberg said.

Staffers who oversee the archdiocese's cemeteries will move to office space on the grounds of a cemetery, Tamberg said. Others will consolidate in four of the building's floors that church officials will lease from the new owner, Tamberg said.

Tamberg did not know what would be on the building's other eight floors.

Cardinal Mahony assaulted because of clergy scandal

The LA Daily News reported today that shortly after the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to a massive settlement with victims of pedophile priests that Cardinal Roger Mahony was beaten up outside Cathedral Our Lady of the Angels.

Mahony, 71, revealed the attack during an annual conference in October before hundreds of stunned priests, saying a man assaulted him because of the scandal, according to four priests who attended the conference.

News of the assault comes as the bulk of the church's $660 million settlement with victims began being paid out Monday, with more than $500 million in checks going out in the mail. The settlement with 508 alleged victims was approved by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge July 16.

The attack on Mahony occurred in July near Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral in downtown Los Angeles, and it took the cardinal about a month to heal, said the Rev. Sal Pilato, principal at Junipero Serra Catholic High School in Gardena. The cardinal was dropping off letters at a mailbox when he was assaulted, priests said.

"Somebody recognized him and attacked him," Pilato said Mahony told the gathering. "It was shocking because it was an act of violence and it was someone we know and respect."

Mahony declined to comment on the reports.

"Whatever conversation might have taken place between the priests and their bishop was a private conversation and not meant to be public," said Carolina Guevara, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Archdiocese.
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Mahony told the priests that after his attacker recognized him, the man began shouting expletives and knocked him to the ground, said another priest who asked not be identified.

(skip)

It was not known whether Mahony's attacker was a victim.

Those at the October conference at Our Lady of the Angels said Mahony shared the story about the assault within the context of the sexual-abuse scandal. Priests described the confession as both deeply moving and, because of the violence, disturbing.

Mahony was telling the priests they all had a price to pay for the sexual abuses perpetrated by their brethren when he relayed the story of the assault as an example of the personal toll he's endured, several priests said.

I believe that Cardinal Mahony is sincerely sorry for the behavior some of his parish priests exhibited before and after he took charge of the archdiocese in 1985. I can even accept that church officials thought sending pedophiles to therapy instead of reporting them to police was in the best interest of everyone. But, considering Mahony's legacy, Father Joseph Shea's intimation that he took the attack like a sacrificial lamb -- "Like Jesus, we must offer our lives and even suffer for Christ, even for things we didn't do" -- is a bit sickening.

(Hat tip: Brent Hopkins)

Double the lashings for gang-rape victim

You read that headline twice, right? I must have made a mistake. Judges don't punish the rape victim. Right? Well, they do in Saudi Arabia. From Mere Rhetoric:

As predictable as it is infuriating as it is surreal:

The General Court in Qatif yesterday doubled the number of lashes for a rape victim... TA year-and-a-half ago in the Eastern Province town of Qatif, a seven men gang-raped a 19-year-old girl 14 times. Three judges from the Qatif General Court sentenced the rape victim to 90 lashes for being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape. The sentences for the seven rapists ranged from 10 months to five years in prison. The Appeals Court sentenced the victim to 200 lashes and six months in prison... A source at the Qatif General Court said that the judges had informed the rape victim that the reason behind doubling her punishment was "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media."

Bishop: Parishioners should pay for pedophile priests

So let me see if I've got this right: The Catholic Church shelters pedophile priests, endangering thousands of children across the country, and then when the bill comes due for all this sexual abuse, the San Diego Diocese asks the friends and family and neighbors of those who were abused to help pay?

"The people who are actually culpable, a lot of them are dead, and among the rest of us, nobody has any more culpability than anyone else," said Sheridan, a homemaker. "But I do think the Vatican can sell a painting or two. That would pay for it."

Still, some said they would gladly support Brom.

"This is our church and we love it," said Marie English, 76, a member at St. Mary. "If the church needs help, how can we deny it? Sometimes you have to pay for problems you didn't cause -- that's life. Let's pay and move on."

Oh, don't worry, Bishop Robert Brom has also asked parish priests to chip in for the $198 million bill. He's got a real global (catholic?) perspective. And I thought Cardinal Roger Mahony was out of touch.

The transsexual minister and the president's pick for America's physician

Talk about worlds colliding.

The LA Times this morning took note of a transsexual United Methodist minister -- the former Rev. Ann Gordon, now Drew Phoenix -- mentioned here in May. But an interesting twist on the story is this:

(w)hen Phoenix, 48, was reappointed to another year of ministry this spring by his bishop, it sparked a protest in the United Methodist Church.

The denomination's highest authority, the Judicial Council, will take up the case next month, deciding whether the church should accept transgender pastors. The decision will determine Phoenix's future; it could also have political implications.

Presiding over the Judicial Council is Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., President Bush's nominee for surgeon general and a longtime lay leader of the United Methodist church. Democrats have objected to Holsinger in large part because of work he has done for his church over the years.

Holsinger, whom you might remember from here and here and here, has been attacked fro the left and right because of his position on homosexuality. He wrote a 1991 paper for the denomination describing homosexuality as unnatural, ruled last year in favor of a minister who wouldn't allow a gay man to join his church and supports ex-gay therapy.

The United Methodist playbook -- known as the Book of Discipline -- has "no specific policies regarding gender reassignment."

Nuns on the run (sort of)

Sister Angela Escalera didn't molest Catholic youths, but the sins of the fathers -- and the $660 million settlement the Archdiocese of Los Angeles made with more than 500 people who claimed they were sexually abused by Catholic priests -- is forcing out Escalera and the other nuns of Sisters of Bethany house in Santa Barbara. From the LA Times:

SANTA BARBARA -- For 43 years, Sister Angela Escalera has lived and often worked out of her order's small convent on this city's east side, helping the area's many poor and undocumented residents with translation, counseling and other needs.

Now retired and partly disabled at 69, the nun thought she would live out her days here, in the community where she is still an active volunteer and in the dwelling that was built for the order in 1952.

But she and the other two nuns at the Sisters of Bethany house recently received word that their convent, which is owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, will be sold to help pay the bill for the church's recent, multimillion-dollar priest sex abuse settlement.

The nuns have four months to move out, according to a letter from the archdiocese. The notice, which was dated June 28 but not received until the end of August, asked the women to vacate the property no later than Dec. 31 -- and noted that an earlier departure "would be acceptable as well." Signed by Msgr. Royale M. Vadakin, the archdiocese's vicar general, the letter offers the nuns no recourse but thanks them for their understanding and cooperation during a difficult time.

"We're just so hurt by this," Escalera, the order's local superior, said this week. "And what hurts the most is what the money will be used for, to help pay for the pedophile priests. We have to sacrifice our home for that?"

Accused pedophile allegedly faked his death

GREAT FALLS, Mont. - A former youth pastor accused of sexually assaulting a child in Texas was tracked down living here Tuesday, six months after he allegedly faked his own death.

Kevin Othell Laferney, 40, is wanted in Upshur County, Texas, on four counts each of aggravated sexual assault of a child and bail jumping.

According to the U.S. Marshals Service, he faked his death in February and disappeared before he was scheduled to appear in court.
Great Falls police and U.S. Marshals deputies arrested Laferney without incident at about 5 p.m. Tuesday when authorities knocked on the door of his apartment.

That's from AP, via DMN religion blog.

Paradise lost for LA Times religion reporter

William Lobdell's story about losing his faith while covering the Catholic sex scandal for the Los Angeles Times has gotten a lot of play.

The 3,272-word piece, which ran Saturday in the Times' coveted Column One slot, recounted Lobdell's born-again moment, his praying and pleading to cover religion (for the same reason I got on the beat: because of a frustration with general news coverage of religion as a circus show) and finally his disenchantment with God's representatives here on earth.

First as a columnist and then as a reporter, I never had a shortage of topics. I wrote about an elderly church organist who became a spiritual mentor to the man who tried to rape, rob and kill her. About the Orthodox Jewish mother who developed a line of modest clothing for Barbie dolls. About the hardy group of Mormons who rode covered wagons 800 miles from Salt Lake City to San Bernardino, replicating their ancestors' journey to Southern California.

Meanwhile, Roman Catholicism, with its low-key evangelism and deep ritual, increasingly appealed to me. I loved its long history and loving embrace of liberals and conservatives, immigrants and the established, the rich and poor.

My wife was raised in the Catholic Church and had wanted me to join for years. I signed up for yearlong conversion classes at a Newport Beach parish that would end with an Easter eve ceremony ushering newcomers into the church.

He was going through conversion classes when the clergy sex scandal broke.

IN 2001, about six months before the Catholic clergy sex scandal broke nationwide, the dioceses of Orange and Los Angeles paid a record $5.2 million to a law student who said he had been molested, as a student at Santa Margarita High School in Rancho Santa Margarita, by his principal, Msgr. Michael Harris.

Without admitting guilt, Harris agreed to leave the priesthood. As part of the settlement, the dioceses also were forced to radically change how they handled sexual abuse allegations, including a promise to kick out any priest with a credible molestation allegation in his past. It emerged that both dioceses had many known molesters on duty. Los Angeles had two convicted pedophiles still working as priests.

While reporting the Harris story, I learned — from court records and interviews — the lengths to which the church went to protect the priest. When Harris took an abrupt leave of absence as principal at Santa Margarita in January 1994, he issued a statement saying it was because of "stress." He resigned a month later.

His superiors didn't tell parents or students the real reason for his absence: Harris had been accused of molesting a student while he was principal at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana from 1977 to 1979; church officials possessed a note from Harris that appeared to be a confession; and they were sending him to a treatment center.

In September 1994, a second former student stepped forward, this time publicly, and filed a lawsuit. In response, parents and students held a rally for Harris at the school, singing, "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." An airplane towed a banner overhead that read "We Love Father Harris."

It was downhill from there for Lobdell's faith. His subsequent stories about televangelist Paul Crouch, head of the Trinity Broadcasting Network empire (you know, that gaudy all-white building in Costa Mesa that looks like an oil refinery during Christmas time) didn't help.

This morning, Lobdell was on NPR's Day to Day. (Listen to the interview here.) I found this interview much more interesting than the Column One piece. His answers were concise and his reasoning seemed more thoughtful. In the end, it seems Lobdell went from Christian convert to Catholic-in-the-making to agnostic-approaching-atheism because of that age-old problem, theodicy -- understanding why a good God would create such an awful world.

(Photo: LA Times)

Cardinal Mahony as the serpent and the mayor as Adam

I'm been writing of late about Cardinal Roger Mahony and the LA Archdiocese's massive settlement with 508 alleged victims of clergy sex abuse and about Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's philandering ways.

Well, the LA Daily News put the two together in this cover for the Sunday Viewpoint section. That's Mahony as the serpent and the mayor chasing his adulterous lover Mirthala Salinas through the "Garden of Telemundo." You obviously get the reference.

(Thanks, LAObserved)

LA Archdiocese to sell headquarters

Well, we knew this was coming. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles said yesterday it needs to sell up to 50 properties, including its Wilshire headquarters to fund at least $250 million of that $660 million settlement with alleged sexual abuse victims (insurers and religious order pick up the rest). From the LA Times:

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and others have said the archdiocese, which drained its litigation reserve fund in payouts for a partial clergy-abuse settlement in December, will try to avoid harming "essential ministries" and does not plan to sell any parish or school properties.

Still, the archdiocese, the most populous in the country, "will have to be a much leaner operation than it is now," church attorney J. Michael Hennigan said.

Sounds a bit like the problems facing the news business, except, of course, for the sexual perversion.

Cardinal Mahony on Line 1

Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony has been eating some much-deserved crow since the Archdiocese of LA, which he heads, agreed Saturday to settle for $660 million with about 500 people who had accused Catholic Church priests of abusing them.

He offered this apology at Mass yesterday, and he just got done getting grilled by my former colleague Chris Weinkopf, the Catholic editor over the LA Daily News' editorial pages. Here are some the notes from their conversation (Weinkopf in bold, Mahony below):

I tried to stress the difference between "I'm sorry about what's happened to you" versus "I'm sorry for what I have done." Isn't there an important difference between the two?

That's true, but that's not what (victims are) looking for. They would love to meet the offender and hear him say that. They're looking for an apology from the Church.

On why he didn't call the police when he learned of abuses:

Unfortunately, in those times we just didn't do that as readily, we didn't understand the depth of the problem.... The McMartin trial was first time in the state of California that this whole issue came into the spotlight, into the light of day...

In those days we didn't think of it in those terms. We would send (offenders) to a licensed psychologist, psychiatrist, or therapist we knew and we told the police that if they discovered there really was an abuse that they would notify law enforcement....

LA Church to pay big for its pedophile priests *

There have been some big settlements so far, but the Los Angeles Archdiocese's agreement to pay $600 million to abuse victims, according to the AP, trumps them all.

Attorneys for the archdiocese and the plaintiffs are expected to announce the deal Monday, the day the first of more than 500 clergy abuse cases was scheduled for jury selection, according to two people with knowledge of the agreement. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because the settlement had not been made public.

The archdiocese and its insurers will pay between $600 million and $650 million to about 500 plaintiffs — an average of $1.2 million to $1.3 million per person. The settlement also calls for the release of confidential priest personnel files after review by a judge assigned to oversee the litigation, the sources said.

This settlement is five years in the making, and I can only hope it will be looked back upon as the moment the Catholic Church washed its hands of the sins of its fathers.

*Updated: The settlement is $60 larger than originally reported, according to the LA Times. "It's been a long, hard slog," church attorney J. Michael Hennigan told the paper. "I'm delighted to see it's come to a conclusion."

Rudy's priest: the accused pedophile

For those of us not hot on history, the past six years have taught us plenty about the follies of presidents rewarding political loyalists with high-office jobs. Hurricane Katrina. The reconstruction of Iraq. The U.S. attorneys debacle. (It seems there should be some way to blame LA City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's recent run on Bush favoritism, but, alas, there is not.)

Now think about this: Rudy Giuliani, who continues to lead the polls among Republican presidential candidates despite losing the support of most evangelicals, employs his childhood friend despite Grand Jury accusations that the man is a pedophile. Salon has the story:

Giuliani employs his childhood friend Monsignor Alan Placa as a consultant at Giuliani Partners despite a 2003 Suffolk County, N.Y., grand jury report that accuses Placa of sexually abusing children, as well as helping cover up the sexual abuse of children by other priests. Placa, who was part of a three-person team that handled allegations of abuse by clergy for the Diocese of Rockville Centre, is referred to as Priest F in the grand jury report. The report summarizes the testimony of multiple alleged victims of Priest F, and then notes, "Ironically, Priest F would later become instrumental in the development of Diocesan policy in response to allegations of sexual abuse of children by priests."

Blogger Andrew Sullivan asks himself why Giuliani would affiliate with an alleged pedophile, even if charges weren't pursued.

Because he was Giuliani's childhood friend, best man at his first wedding, baptized his son, smoothed the way for his divorce annulment, and buried his mother. In Giuliani's world, family is family. Loyalty is loyalty. And the children can go to hell.

Jesuits to pay $16 million for dirty hands

The Jesuit order has agreed to a payout of $16 million to the families of nine children allegedly molested by Father Mark Falvey, who died 31 years ago. Via the LA Times:

"One of his victims, an 8-year-old girl, tried to commit suicide," said the lawyer for the victims, Raymond P. Boucher.

"This guy brought a lifetime of misery to a group of young children. They'll never get over it," Boucher said.

Though the Archdiocese of L.A. was not involved in this settlement, the news two days after L.A.'s Cardinal Roger Mahony announced clergy-abuse lawsuits may force the largest Catholic archdiocese in the country to sell its headquarters and other buildings.

Sex abuse will spur archdiocese to sell headquarters

The LA Archdiocese will have to sell its headquarters and possibly other properties because of the growing costs of fighting and settling lawsuits for clergy abuse, Cardinal Roger Mahony said yesterday. Plaintiffs' attorneys said the doomsday announcement was a PR ploy intended at generating sympathy. Via the LA Times:

"The cardinal has instructed his attorneys to pull out every weapon to try to deny victims a single nickel," said plaintiffs attorney John Manly. He said the church has enough insurance coverage and other assets to settle the cases without unloading real estate. "The notion that the cardinal would have to sell buildings to pay settlements is just laughable," Manly said.

A Mahony spokesman declined to answer any questions about the prospective sales, and an attorney for the archdiocese did not respond to an interview request.

The church has land holdings in Southern California worth an estimated $4 billion, a Times analysis has found.

The 12-story Mid-Wilshire headquarters, donated by Thrifty Payless donated in 1995, is worth more than $40 million. (Some history of the archdiocese's payouts from my blog morgue.)