This Week In Holy Crimes

Over the last seven days…

California: Pastor Leonel Pelayo charged with sexual assault of a 14 year-old girl.
Ottawa: Father Robin Barrett convicted of possessing tens of thousands of child porn videos and images.
Florida: Pastor Steven Rowe charged with molesting four students at the Christian middle school where he is headmaster.
Texas: Father Chester W. King arrested for lewd behavior in a public park.
California: Pastor Carlton F. Hammonds on trial for sexual assault of two teenagers.
Florida: Pastor Gregory Sims pleads guilty to embezzling $800K from the union benefit fund he managed and funneling the loot to his church.
Britain: Reverend Alex Brown sentenced to four years in prison for conducting 360 sham marriages between EU citizens and undocumented immigrants. Each couple paid up to £15,000 for Brown to marry them.
Louisiana: Father Alejandro Flores convicted of child molestation.
Connecticut: Father Martin Federici sued by convicted rapist who claims his molestation at Federici’s hands turned him into a sexual predator.
Massachusetts: Father Thomas M. Curran once again accused of child molestation after being cleared by his Archdiocese in 2007.

This Week’s Winner
Belgium: An independent commission has released a report documenting the cases of over 500 victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests and officials of the Belgian Catholic Church. Two-thirds of the victims are male and 13 suicides are linked to the assaults. Cardinal Godfried Danneels this week admitted wrongdoings and apologized for the cover-up. Belgium has no law requiring church officials to report sexual crimes to the police.