Tag Archives: religion

The Allentown Morning Call reports: A scathing grand jury report released Tuesday reveals sexual abuse by hundreds of priests that went unchecked for decades in dioceses across Pennsylvania, including Allentown. Instead of reporting pedophiles, dioceses routinely shuffled them from parish to parish, enabling them to prey upon new victims, the document shows. The statewide grand jury spent two years on …

Penn Live reports: At a news conference Wednesday in Westmoreland County, Attorney General Josh Shapiro called Father John Sweeney of the Greensburg Diocese a predator. Sweeney, 75, is the first priest convicted as a result of the 40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury, which recently concluded an investigation into sexually abusive priests and clergy in six of the state’s eight Catholic …

The Guardian reports: Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, has laid a ceremonial brick at a Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and said he might one day buy a “holiday home” there. The two-time Republican presidential hopeful and father of the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, used a cement trowel to pave a wall in the …

The Christian Post reports: A former New Jersey pastor who co-founded the Creation Festival, which bills itself as the country’s largest Christian music festival, has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for sexually assaulting multiple young children. Harry Thomas, 75, who formerly pastored Come Alive New Testament Church in Medford and went on to help create the popular music …

The New York Post reports: A pair of hosts on one of New Jersey’s top radio stations have been bounced from the airwaves after they mocked the state’s attorney general — who is a Sikh-American — as “turban man” on the air, the station said early Thursday. “You know the new attorney general? I’m never going to know his name, …

The Idaho Statesman reports: The house where a retired Boise priest lived for 15 years — until he was accused in February of sharing child pornography online and of drug possession — has been cleaned out, freshened up and blessed by an exorcist, according to the priest preparing the property for sale. “We bless houses all the time,” said Father …

Hemant Mehta reports at the Friendly Atheist: Sandra Little Brown is in a runoff election tonight in a race for Jefferson County Commissioner in Alabama. And according to her own campaign literature, she has a special endorsement… from Jesus. In a Facebook video sent to AL.com on Monday, Brown stood by the flyer, which was paid for by her campaign. …

Hemant Mehta reports at The Friendly Atheist: In a bizarre and possibly unconstitutional promotion of religion, the Crandall Police Department in Texas just posted a Facebook video of officers lip-synching to the theme song from God’s Not Dead. It’s not just the lyrics of the song that are problematic. The camera shows the phrase “In God We Trust” on their …

Reuters reports: A federal jury in Brooklyn, New York today convicted two men for their roles in an international scheme to make millions of dollars by illegally trading on corporate press releases that were stolen by computer hackers before they became public. Vitaly Korchevsky, a Pennsylvania pastor and former Morgan Stanley (MS.N) vice president, and co-defendant Vladislav Khalupsky were each …

The Hill reports: Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter said on Sunday he believes “Jesus would approve of gay marriage.” “I think Jesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else and I don’t see that gay marriage damages anyone else,” Carter, who describes himself as a born-again Christian, told HuffPost …

ABC News reports: An Auburn church with a controversial message on a sign has been forced out of their building. ABC21 reached a church member by phone Saturday who confirmed the news. On Wednesday, June 27, Remnant Fellowship Church in Auburn posted a sign reading, “LGBTQ is a hate crime against God. Repent.” When asked whether or not the church …

The Philippine Star reports: President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday vowed to immediately resign if Christians can prove that their God exists. “If there is anyone of you there, the noisy ones, who would say that you have been to heaven, talked to God, saw him personally, and that He exists, the God that is yours, and if He does is …

The Hill reports: President Trump marked the Fourth of July on Wednesday by hailing the “noble sacrifice” of U.S. servicemembers. In a video posted online, Trump recounted the story of the Declaration of Independence and the war against Great Britain that ensued. “It was 242 years ago today in Philadelphia that 56 brave representatives of the American people adopted our …

The Christian Post reports: Brad Waller, a married father and senior pastor of the Grace Church of the Islands, PCA, in Savannah, Georgia, has left his church and several others in his congregation in shock after confessing to abusing multiple men and boys under his spiritual care with sexual foot massages, which prompted his swift removal from ministry by the …

The BBC reports: A Catholic archbishop in Australia has been given a maximum sentence of 12 months in detention for concealing child sexual abuse in the 1970s. Philip Wilson, now archbishop of Adelaide, is the most senior Catholic globally to be convicted of the crime. He was found guilty by a court last month of covering up abuse by a …

Apparently men wearing 19th century suits were once chased around the American frontier by dinosaurs. The Scottsbluff Star-Herald reports: North Hills Baptist Church in Lingle, Wyoming has brought the Semisaurus mobile creationism museum for its vacation Bible school this weekend, which will be open to the public. Brian Young, a former teacher and the director of the Creation Instruction Association …

The Charlotte Observer reports: A website tied to a candidate for the North Carolina General Assembly says God is a racist white supremacist and that Jews are descended from Satan. Russell Walker is a Republican candidate running for state House District 48 which includes Scotland and Hoke counties. On Tuesday, the North Carolina Republican Party withdrew its support for Walker. …

From a press release published by Christian Newswire: We, the priests and deacons of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy in the United States, declare our solidarity with our brethren of the British Province of the CCC particularly in their recent statement on the fiftieth anniversary (July 25, 1968) of Humanae Vitae. We, too, profess our total acceptance of the infallible …

From American Family Association president Tim Wildmon: What if I told you that you could clean your family’s laundry and help reach the next generation at the same time? That opportunity is here – through a company called Redeem Clean. The company was founded by Lynn Ingram and Jim Duncan specifically to help American Family Association. I first met Lynn …

Politico reports: Republicans have quietly imposed a new tax on churches, synagogues and other nonprofits, a little-noticed and surprising change that could cost some groups tens of thousands of dollars. Their recent tax-code rewrite requires churches, hospitals, colleges, orchestras and other historically tax-exempt organizations to begin paying a 21 percent tax on some types of fringe benefits they provide their …