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Former priest pleads guilty, could get 18 months for touching Elyria teen: A former local Catholic priest pleaded guilty Monday to a sex charge alleging he had sexual contact with a teenage boy 12 years ago. Patrick O’Connor, 51, pleaded guilty to a single count of corruption of a minor as part of a plea agreement that could end up with him serving 18 months in prison.

Former priest held on sex charges: A Valparaiso man will not be released from jail after being arrested on charges of attempting to have sex with a 15-year-old teen. U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Rodovich filed the decision Wednesday in federal court, saying in his order that Wayne E. Wigglesworth, 68, had been shown to have previous contact with a 9-year-old boy after being told by Valparaiso police to stop.

Monsignor Testifies in Clergy Abuse Case: A former high-ranking official with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has testified that Cardinal Roger M. Mahony ordered a subordinate to delay reporting claims of sexual abuse by clergy members to the police until the priest in question could be defrocked, according to court papers.

Ex-priest, long tolerated in Chicago archdiocese, deemed too dangerous for parole: A former priest who was allowed to keep his parish assignments in the Chicago archdiocese despite complaints of sexual abuse is too dangerous to be released on parole, according to Illinois prosecutors.

Pedophile ex-priest’s parole being fought: Convinced there are other victims who have not come forward, prosecutors and parishioners at St. Agatha Roman Catholic Church spent the last two years trying to keep convicted sex-offender Daniel McCormack locked up after his prison sentence.

Church to ordain sex offender: A small Kentucky church is planning to ordain a convicted sex offender as a minister to its flock. The decision has led some members of an abuse victims group to ask the church to reconsider.

Ex-NY pastor pleads guilty to taking church cash: A former Staten Island pastor has pleaded guilty to stealing more than $84,000 from his congregation’s accounts earmarked for the needy and the upkeep of church grounds. Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan Jr. says the Rev. William Blasingame pleaded guilty to felony grand larceny charges on Tuesday.

Former pastor stole from York church, police say: A former pastor of Small Memorial AME Zion Church in York remains free on $20,000 bail for allegedly embezzling nearly $18,000 in insurance money earmarked to fix the church’s roof.

Hearing involving former pastor Dale Giffin indefinitely postponed: A hearing on admissibility of evidence in the case of Dale Giffin, the former pastor of Zion Lutheran Church, who is charged with raping a female former parishioner, was indefinitely postponed without explanation moments before it was to have occurred this afternoon.

Catholic Church urges whistleblowers to report sex abuse priests: The Roman Catholic Church is urging whistleblowers to speak out against bishops, clergy, monks and nuns who they suspect might be guilty of sexual or other abuse.

Lost souls fled clerical abuse: It is estimated that 10,000 survivors of abuse in schools and reformatories run by Catholic religious orders in Ireland now live in Great Britain.

Trial date for Melissa Huckaby could be set Friday: A trial date could be set for a Northern California woman charged with kidnapping, raping and killing an 8-year-old Tracy girl whose body was found stuffed in a suitcase. Melissa Huckaby is set to appear Friday in San Joaquin County Superior Court in Stockton. The 28-year-old former Sunday school teacher has pleaded not guilty to murdering Sandra Cantu, as well as to charges she drugged two other people.

Dad admits killings to reporters, blames crime on ‘spirit’: Mesac Damas, 32, said he wanted to take his own life, but did not have the courage to go through with it, “because if you kill yourself, you’re not going to heaven.”

Two former bishops of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, Thomas Dupre and Joseph Maguire, sued by Williamstown man over alleged molestation: A Williamstown man announced Thursday that he is suing two former bishops of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield and another church administrator for allowing him to be molested by a priest who had admitted to sexually abusing other boys.

Catholic Church’s cruelty and greed told in the tragic story of an Irish mum: Philomena was one of thousands of Irish women sent to convents in the 1950s and 60s, taken away from their homes and families because the Catholic Church said single mothers were moral degenerates who could not be allowed to keep their children. Such was the power of the church, and of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, that the state bowed before its demands, ceding responsibility for the mothers and babies to the nuns.

Teacher facing jail after sex with schoolboy, 15, she met on Facebook: A religious education teacher is facing jail after she admitted having sex with a 15-year-old pupil.

Calif. pastor gets life term for abusing 5 girls: A 65-year-old California pastor has been sentenced to life in prison for beating and drugging her five adopted daughters and locking them in a Riverside County garage.

Connecticut Man Charged with Sexually Abusing Boys From School He Founded in Haiti: Perlitz received funding from a religious organization to found Project Pierre Toussaint in 1997.

Teen Birth Rates Higher in Highly Religious States: U.S. states whose residents have more conservative religious beliefs on average tend to have higher rates of teenagers giving birth, a new study suggests.

Garrido’s twisted path led often to God: Garrido invoked God at every turn before he was arrested Aug. 26 and accused of kidnapping, raping and imprisoning Jaycee Dugard for 18 years in his backyard.

Two men settle suits alleging priest abuse: Two men who filed lawsuits alleging they were sexually abused by a former priest have reached settlements with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pueblo, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Deranged Baptist preacher thinks killing Obama, abortionists and gays isn’t murder: Anderson says he would prayer for the interviewer to die of brain cancer.

All articles continue at links.  Part of a series that never ends [1] [2] [3] [4].  The mass media is usually quick to identify these offenders as ex-priests or former deacons or in some other way say that they aren’t really Christians.  A real Christian wouldn’t do these things, these things were done, therefore these people aren’t real Christians.  But the Christians who do these things and the Christian groups that keep them in place even when decades of evidence against them is available for all to see suggest that no, they are real Christians and the mass media is wrong to segregate them.  There is apparently nothing in Christianity that causes immoral behavior to not occur.  Where, then, is its moral high ground?  Why, then, aren’t the prisons full of atheists instead of nearly devoid of atheists?