Traditional Christian Family Values

KOUNTZE - The children that Silsbee minister Lester L. Banks is accused of molesting were two males under the age of 17, according to the three indictment papers the Hardin County District Court released Friday.

Banks is accused of engaging in oral sex with one of the youths and touching the genitals of the other, according to court documents.

Because the youths are between the ages of 5 and 17, Banks was indicted on three second-degree felonies, according to the Texas Penal Code.

If convicted, Banks faces up to 60 years, with each charge carrying a maximum punishment of 20 years in jail and up to a $10,000 fine.

Banks is pastor of Union Baptist Church at 340 South 21st St. in Silsbee and still is listed as such on the sign outside the church.

read more here

HIGH POINT — A prominent High Point businessman and deacon at Emerywood Baptist Church has been charged by a Guilford County grand jury with 32 counts of sex crimes against a child or children.

read more here

OTTAWA - For three decades, Willie Blackwater suppressed the pain. At age 39, he released his torment when a compassionate RCMP officer named Al Franczak asked if he’d ever been sexually abused.

What poured out was a horrific account of repeated rape and beatings 30 years earlier at the Port Alberni residential school on Vancouver Island.

Blackwater’s courageous revelations, along with those of 17 other former students, helped seal some of the very first related criminal convictions against Arthur Henry Plint, a sadistic dormitory supervisor.

They also bolstered the class-action claims that would ultimately lead to a massive compensation settlement and a historic apology to be offered Wednesday in Parliament.

Blackwater will be in the House of Commons when the prime minister finally stands to atone on behalf of all Canadians for what so many terrorized, isolated children endured.

Ottawa conceded 10 years ago that physical and sexual abuse in the defunct network of federally financed, church-run schools was rampant. But no prime minister has ever officially apologized.

original story here

and learn more here

A third anonymous lawsuit alleging child sexual abuse by the Rev. Francis G. DeLuca was filed Friday in Delaware Superior Court against the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington.

In the suit, the 56-year-old plaintiff alleges more than 100 acts of sexual abuse by DeLuca from 1962 to 1965, starting when the alleged victim was 10 years old. According to the suit, the victim was an altar boy supervised by DeLuca at St. John the Beloved Church.

The suit, filed in Kent County, is the third anonymous DeLuca-related complaint filed this year and the fourth since Delaware’s Child Victim’s Act went into effect last July. The law eliminated the civil statute of limitations in cases of child sexual abuse and opened a two-year “window” during which previously time-barred complaints could be filed.

Robert Quill of Florida, the first to file suit under the new law, settled his case against DeLuca, the diocese and St. Elizabeth’s Church earlier this year for an undisclosed sum.

The four DeLuca-related cases filed so far cover 14 years — 1961-75 — of the priest’s 35-year ministry in the Diocese of Wilmington. DeLuca was allowed to retire to Syracuse when allegations of sexual abuse arose against him in 1993. He was arrested in 2006, pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a teenage relative and was sentenced to 60 days in jail.

Attorney Stephen J. Neuberger, whose firm has represented all four DeLuca-related plaintiffs, said he expects to file two more DeLuca-related cases this month.

read more here

The mother of a 13-year-old boy claims her son suffers from permanent emotional injuries after having been sexually abused by his youth pastor, according to a lawsuit filed June 4 in Madison County Circuit Court.

Jane Doe claims Anthony Muzzarelli was a youth pastor at Mt. Zion General Baptist Church in Granite City and worked directly with her son. The child had been invited him to Muzzarelli’s home as part of the ministry, the lawsuit claims.

Doe claims her son was sleeping at Muzzarelli’s home on Feb. 25, 2006, and was awakened when Muzzarelli allegedly started to fondle him.

She claims the alleged incident occurred during the course of Muzzarelli’s employment with Mt. Zion.

Muzzarelli and the church are named as defendants.

Doe claims Mt. Zion knew or should have known facts which would have caused suspicions of abuse, including various inappropriate encounters on church grounds and at Muzzarelli’s home. Doe claims some encounters were witnessed by various administrators of the church.

According to Doe, Mt. Zion willfully and wantonly failed to supervise Muzzarelli’s activities and contacts with her son when it knew that contact posed a risk of harm.

In addition, she alleges Muzzarelli intentionally assaulted her son without justification in violation of criminal statutes.

Muzzarelli pleaded guilty to aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a minor between the ages of 13 and 16 and is listed as a sexual predator on the Illinois State Police (ISP) website.

ISP lists his address as 4062 Sara, Apt. 96, in Granite City.

According to Doe, her son has suffered serious, painful and permanent injuries of a physical and emotional nature which caused him to suffer permanent pain, mental anguish, disability and medical expenses.

read more here

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) The University of Maine at Augusta has changed the name of a scholarship that had been named for a priest who has been linked to sexual abuse.

The scholarship had been named for the Rev. John J. Curran, who died in 1976 and had served as priest of St. Augustine Church in Augusta from 1962 to 1972.

Since Curran’s death, at least two people have said he sexually abused them when they were children. Roman Catholic Diocese officials have said they would bar Curran from ministering if he were alive today and would request that the Vatican remove him from the priesthood.

University President Allyson Hughes Handley said the scholarship will now be called the Leadership and Service Scholarship.

original story here

INDIANAPOLIS — A top leader at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting urged fellow Baptists to drive sexual predators out of the churches.

Morris Chapman, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s executive board, told more than 7,200 church representatives meeting here Tuesday that preventing sexual abuse in the church is the responsibility of local congregations.

“One sexual predator in our midst is one too many,” Chapman said. “Our denomination and our local churches must condemn publicly this vile act.”

The executive committee announced Tuesday it would not create a national database of Baptist ministers accused or convicted of sexual abuse. The church representatives — called messengers — asked the committee last year to consider creating such a database.

“The convention has no ecclesiastical authority over local churches,” Chapman said.

read original story here

KANSAS CITY (AP) - Two more lawsuits have been filed accusing Catholic clergy of sexually abusing two boys more than three decades ago.

The lawsuits, filed Friday against the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, allege the two priests worked at St. Elizabeth Parish in Kansas City during the 1970s.

One of the lawsuits makes claims against Monsignor Thomas O’Brien, who has been named in at least a dozen other similar cases, The Kansas City Star reported. It was filed by the mother of a man who died in 1999 in a car accident.

The second case accuses Earl Johnson, a member of the Capuchin order, of sexually abusing another man 30 years ago.

The suits are the latest of about 20 local cases filed by 43 plaintiffs in recent years, alleging that clergy abused children.

read more here

Guilty pleas were heard in a Calgary courtroom Friday from a 43 year-old former Centre Street Church volunteer who was charged with more than a dozen sex-related offences.

Kelly Malcolm Grant pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual touching of girls under the age of 14 and two counts of sexual exploitation while being in a position of trust.

The abuse involved three teen girls and happened over an eight year period beginning in 1994. Grant will be sentenced October 1. He remains free on bail until then.

Grant is facing 10 other charges but, it’s expected the Crown will deal with them during sentencing.

original story here

The Church of Latter-day Saints knew its Sunday School teacher Raphael Caccioppoli had a history of sexual offending against boys but didn’t tell police because it did not think it legally had to.

Neither did the Mormon hierarchy tell the parents of the children he was left to supervise on his own.

Instead, it excommunicated the Justice Ministry judicial officer following a church court hearing in June last year.

Police become aware of his offending only after a tip-off from one of his associates in September.

Caccioppoli, 36, admitted 13 charges when he appeared in the Invercargill District Court on Friday, including five of committing indecent acts on a boy under 12 and a further three on two other victims aged between 12 and 16.

He was also convicted of one charge of sexual violation, one of indecent assault and two charges of assault.

He also admitted an indecent act with a bull mastiff dog.

read more here