#roman catholic archdiocese of los angeles

[cruger2984]

THE DESCRIPTION OF SAINT PATRICK The Apostle of All Ireland Feast Day: March 17

"Hear me, people of Ireland. For God has sent me back to you to show you His way. He is not a God who asks for these sacrifices. For He took our sins and sacrificed Himself for our salvation. He does not ask for your body to be burned, but for your heart, that He might fill it with His love, His abundance, and His light!"

Patrick was born in 385 in Roman Britain (now modern-day United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland).

At the age of 16, he was sold as a slave in Ireland, where he tended sheep in Dalriada. He lived for six years among mountains and forests, growing in faith and holiness, and during his time in captivity Patrick became fluent in the Irish language and culture.

After a miraculous escape, Patrick, after hearing a voice urging him, to travel to a distant port where a ship would be waiting to take him back to Britain. On his way back to Britain, Patrick was captured again and spent 60 days in captivity in Tours, France. During his short captivity within France, Patrick learned about French monasticism.

Shortly afterward, he was told in a dream by some Irish people (notably Victoricus) to go back and evangelize them.

In 431, having completed his theological studies in Lerins Abbey, he was sent as a missionary to Ireland. The following year, Pope Celestine I had him consecrated as bishop. His first mission was in the north of the island, where he had formerly pastured cattle as a slave. Then, he traveled the whole country, converting many pagans by the force of his faith and the many miracles granted by God.

Patrick's success aroused the envy of the pagan priests and the druids, who plotted to kill him. One day, he exchanged his seat with the one of the charioteer, who was killed in the journey by a spear intended for himself. After three decades (30 years) of labor and prayer, the Catholic church was successfully established through Ireland.

Patrick gave his last blessing from the summit of Cruachan Aigli (now Croagh Patrick), the 2,510-foot 'mount of the eagle' in County Mayo on Ireland's west coast.

There, after a fast of 40 days, he had a vision of thousands of future Irish saints, who were singing out: 'You are the father of us all!'

He died soon afterwards in 461 in Saul, Dal Fiatach, Ulaid, Gaelic Ireland (present-day Northern Ireland) and was buried at Saul, where he had built his first church (St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh).

[courseyoulovemeyoudontknowme]

Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993, Bill Duke)

16/04/2024

[sassyfrassboss]

I am catholic, went to catholic school. We had two different orders of nuns at my HS, one order wore the habit, the other didn't. So it depends on the order. Once when I moved to a new town and was looking for a church we found this church that called itself a Catholic "community." We went expecting it to be like every other catholic mass we'd been to and we didn't recognize the service at all. So the clue there is the "community" in their name. That signals to me it's not really Roman Catholic.

That's what I was thinking as well.

Plus this:

1970: (March 28):  The new lay Immaculate Heart Community was founded by 220 of the former IHM Sisters, no longer under the control of the Los Angeles Archdiocese.

[your-fave-is-catholic]

Your Fave Is Catholic: Ricardo Montalban 

Known for: Mexican actor and Emmy award winner, Ricardo Montalban is best known in a variety of genres, from crime to musicals to comedy. Some of his most notable works include the series of Planet of the Apes (early 1970s), TV series Fantasy Island (1977–1984), and his portrayal of Khan Noonien Singh in the original Star Trek series (1967) and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982).  The younger generations may know him best as Grandfather Valentin in the Spy Kids franchise and as Señor Senior Sr. in Kim Possible. 

Evidence of Faith:  Montalban was raised Catholic by his Spanish-immigrant parents and continued to practice the faith until his death in 2009. Pope John Paul II awarded papal knighthood to many prominent Catholics in the L.A. area, among them Ricardo Montalban who became a Knight Commander of St. Gregory. In 2002, when he received the first Spirit of Angelus Award for “a body of work of surpassing quality complemented by a faith lived with integrity and generosity”, Montalban cited his faith as the most important thing in his life, closely followed only by his marriage, family and two countries. Similarly, when he won the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003, he said it was his “tenacity and faith” that saw him through many years in the entertainment industry. He is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, CA which is a Roman Catholic cemetery operated by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

[twoflipstwotwists]

All Olympia Gymnastics Center, the world renown Hawthorne academy, recently finalized a $1 million settlement with World Championships silver medalist Mattie Larson, her attorney confirmed to the Southern County News Group.

The settlement stems from Larson’s lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against AOGC and its directors Artur Akopyan and Galina Marinova that alleged their treatment of Larson led to her being sexually abused by former U.S. Olympic and USA Gymnastics national team physician Larry Nassar. While Akopyan and Marinova agreed to pay Larson $1 million in June the deal was only recently completed.

The suit alleged All Olympia and Akopyan and Marinova  “fueled an abusive, harassing and degrading environment.” That environment “allowed, concealed and promoted abusive behavior” by Nassar, former U.S. national team directors Bela and Martha Karolyi and USA Gymnastics. Specifically the suit alleged Akopyan and Marinova “directed degrading, abusive, and harassing comments and actions towards” Larson.

AOGC is shutting down its Hawthorne location according to a Nov. 3 letter from Akopyan and Marinova to AOGC gymnasts, parents and coaches. The closing and the Larson settlement mark a fall from grace for AOGC that few could have imagined in the early years of this decade.

AOGC gained global recognition with the emergence of Larson and later McKayla Maroney, the 2012 Olympic champion whose celebrity transcended the sport, only to now find itself near the center of the Nassar sexual abuse scandal that this week led the U.S. Olympic Committee to take the first step toward stripping USA Gymnastics of its national governing body status.

Akopyan and Marinova did not respond to a request for comment.

The USOC’s bid to revoke USA Gymnastics’ NGB status and the AOGC case, however, are just two strands of a multi-layered scandal that is being played out in courtrooms and board rooms from coast to coast.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Indianapolis office on Tuesday refused to accept a subpeona requesting records in three-time Olympic champion Aly Raisman’s lawsuit against the USOC, according to a person familiar with the case.

Even as USA Gymnastics faces decertification and potentially hundreds of millions in legal settlements and the FBI comes under increasing scrutiny for its potential role in the cover-up of Nassar’s abuse, a number of high profile gymnastics coaches and officials continue to rally around the NGB and polarizing figures like Akopyan and Marinova.

“It is a sad day when Southern California looses (sic) a gym that has been so instrumental for the development of gymnastics,” Carol McIntyre, president of the So Cal Women’s Gymnastics Coaches Association, wrote in an email Monday to the Southern California gymnastics community. “I can’t imagine how devastating this is to Galina.

“…With USA Gymnastics being in the hot seat once again, Lets work together and show the pride and Class Southern California is famous for. We have always been the leaders of the country. Lets rise above the negative perception that has been bestowed on our beautiful sport by no fault of our own. Lets all remember we are competitive, but we are colleagues first. Athletes will come and go but we will all remain.

“Lets band together and show the country we will not buckle under the pressure. We will hold our heads high and continue to show this country and community true leadership.”

McIntyre did not respond to a request for comment.

John Manly, an attorney for Larson and dozens of other survivors, said McIntyre’s comments were “emblematic of the culture of USA Gymnastics where athletes come and go sort of like cattle and that’s how they look at them. It’s an abusive culture.”

“People,” Manly added, “don’t pay a million dollars if they didn’t do anything wrong.”

The Justice Department’s inspector general’s office is investigating how the FBI handled the Nassar case.

Former USA Gymnastics chief executive Steve Penny consulted with W. “Jay” Abbott , the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Indianapolis office as early as July 2015, a month after Penny was first informed of allegations that Nassar had sexually assaulted gymnast Maggie Nichols at a U.S. national team training camp at the Karolyi Ranch.

In a July 29, 2015 email to Abbott, Penny wrote “Below are two pieces of our communication strategy moving forward. We wanted to share them with you for your quick review to be sure they are consistent with FBI preferences. Please let us know if you concur with our messaging.”

Then USA Gymnastics board chairman Paul Parilla, an Orange County attorney, and Scott Himsel, an attorney representing USA Gymnastics, were copied on the email.

Abbott replied to Penny later that day “certainly respond as you deem appropriate.”

A day later Penny emailed Abbott again.

“I am so sorry to continue bothering you with this issue. … As you can see below, we have a very squirmy Dr. Nassar. Our biggest concern is how we contain him from sending shockwaves through the community. In our conversations with Scott, we are trying to make sure any correspondence with him is consistent with FBI protocol. Right now we are looking for a graceful way to end his service in such a manner that he does not ‘chase the story.’”

Penny was forced to resign under pressure from the USOC in March 2017. He was arrested last month after a Walker County, Texas grand jury indicted him on felony evidence tampering charges. The indictment alleges Penny was involved in the removal and destroying and/or hiding of medical records from the Karolyi Ranch in central Texas, the longtime training site of the U.S. women’s national and Olympic team.

Both Penny and Amy White, the national team manager for USA Gymnastics acrobatic gymnastics program, have both indicated they will exercise their Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination in depositions related to Raisman’s lawsuit against USA Gymnastics and the USOC. The suit is scheduled to go to trial in U.S. District Court in San Jose in February.

USA Gymnastics board of directors, under pressure from the organization’s insurance carriers, has weighed filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Such a move could establish a bar date in which future claims against the organization could not be filed after a certain window. A Chapter 11 filing would also lead to an automatic stay on all proceedings and litigation, including discovery, against USA Gymnastics .

USA Gymnastics, which has tax exempt non-profit status, reported $34.47 million in revenue for the fiscal year 2016, according to filings with the Internal Revenue Service. The organization also reported $11.8 million in assets, $8.7 million in liabilities.

The National Gymnastics Foundation Inc., created to supported charitable and educational programs for USA Gymnastics, listed $16.27 million in assets in 2016 with only $788 in liabilities.

A Chapter 11 filing could also help the USA Gymnastics head off, at least temporarily, the USOC’s decertification process.

“If I was USAG and I wanted to stop decertification by the USOC I would go (to bankruptcy court) because it prohibits you from proceeding,” said attorney Jim Stang, who has written extensively on bankruptcy issues and served on the creditors committee in 13 child sexual abuse cases. “The bankruptcy court judge is like a traffic cop. Should I allow this decertification to continue? Or should I let it go for now or just stop it or keep the red light on? Is there something that can be worked out to keep USAG’s value (to raise funds to pay creditors)? What is the value if USAG is decertified?”

Establishing a bar date under Chapter 11 would also give USA Gymnastics’ insurance carriers “a tremendous amount of certainty,” Stang said.

“You’re going to get (in bankruptcy) court a deal that’s hard to get in state court,” he said.

The move could also enable the USOC as a related party to obtain a channeling injunction against future claims even without actually declaring bankruptcy itself.

Under this scenario the USOC would contribute to a settlement fund in exchange for being released from future claims.

Channeling injunctions have been issued in all 13 child sex abuse cases Stang has been involved with since 2004.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon filed for Chapter 11 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in July 2004 just hours before the scheduled start of a civil trial in which survivors who alleged they were sexually abused by a priest sought $160 million in damages. Other sexual abuse claims had already cost the archdiocese $53 million and its “major insurers have abandoned us,” Portland Archbishop John G. Vlazny wrote at the time of the bankruptcy filing.

“The pot of gold is pretty much empty right now,” Vlazny said

Michigan State reached a $500 million settlement with more than 300 of Nassar’s survivors in May. Nassar was a longtime member of the university’s sport medicine staff.

Under the terms of the settlement $425 million was paid to 332 known Nassar survivors with an additional $75 million placed in a trust fund for future claimants.

[livinginlandmarketing]

Despite statements from the Vatican and U.S. bishops that the unprecedented global coronavirus pandemic would make it “morally acceptable” for Roman Catholics to take the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the moral implications of using cell lines derived from an aborted fetus to test and produce the vaccine are being debated with some fearing that it might send a mixed message to the nearly 5 million Catholics in Southern California.

Johnson & Johnson, which got the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of its COVID-19 vaccine last month, uses fetal cell lines to test and produce its vaccines, unlike the Pfizer and Moderna, which use such cell lines only for testing and not to produce the vaccines. However, Johnson & Johnson has clearly stated that its vaccines do not contain fetal tissue.

Some Catholic bodies, including the Vatican-appointed commission on COVID-19, have urged people to take whatever vaccine is available to them to help protect against the virus, which has killed more than 500,000 people in the United States alone. But others, such as the Archdiocese of New Orleans, have deemed the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as “morally compromised” because “it uses the abortion-derived cell line in development and production of the vaccine as well as testing.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement on March 2, saying that when Catholics have a choice, they should choose the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines over the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. When the first two options are not available, however, the bishops say it is “morally acceptable to receive COVID-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process.”

This can be a confusing message for Catholics, said Richard Carpiano, professor of public policy and sociology at UC Riverside.

“In a time when there is an emergency with a real need for us to be considering our own safety and the safety of our loved ones and our communities, it is important for faith leaders to speak with a unified voice,” he said. “By adding these caveats, there is potential to sow a bit of confusion.”

Carpiano said the message he takes away from the Vatican, as well as Pope Francis’s statements about COVID-19 vaccines, is that it is the moral responsibility of faithful people to get vaccinated.

“People are so far removed from the act of the fetal cell lines,” he said. “It happened many generations ago. If people feel culpable as they take the (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine, they shouldn’t feel that way.”

Representatives for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the Diocese of Orange and the Diocese of San Bernardino all confirmed they are embracing the U.S. bishops’ recommendation that the faithful should opt for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines if possible.

The Catholic bishops’ recommendation was a key factor in Orange County’s decision to give people the option to choose which vaccine they wish to receive, said Aaron Kheriaty, rector of the medical ethics program at UCI Health and a member of the county health agency’s COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force.

Kheriaty, a practicing Catholic, said that based on the bishops’ message, a devout Catholic would do their best to avoid the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. On Wednesday, March 10, Orange County officials announced that the Christ Cathedral campus, which is the headquarters for the Diocese of Orange, will host mobile COVID-19 vaccination clinics.

Orange County Health Care Agency Director Dr. Clayton Chau, center, gives a tour of the new mobile vaccination site to Timothy Freyer, auxiliary bishop of the diocese of orange, right, and Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do, at Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove, CA, on Wednesday, March 10, 2021.  (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Clayton Chau, director and acting health officer for Orange County’s health care agency, said Thursday that the county will only provide Pfizer and Moderna vaccines at the Christ Cathedral clinics out of respect for the church’s moral teaching.

Kheriaty said while the Johnson & Johnson vaccine itself doesn’t have fetal tissue or cells, the vaccine is manufactured using cells from an aborted fetus. Kheriaty explained that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is an inactivated adenovirus vector — similar to a cold virus — which codes for the coronavirus “spike” protein. This virus is grown in the aborted fetal cells and harvested from them. All that material is then filtered off later in the process.

“So the connection to the fetal cell lines that were derived from an aborted fetus is less remote compared to (Pfizer and Moderna),” Kheriaty said. “It’s important to remember that the bishops did not say you cannot take the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Their determination came because we do have alternatives right now.”

In Riverside County, residents will be able to see which vaccine is offered at the time they make an appointment, said county spokeswoman Brooke Federico.

“They can then opt to make the appointment or not,” she said, adding that this information is one of the first screens to pop up as people go through the appointment process.

San Bernardino County officials haven’t heard any specific concerns about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on religious grounds, said county spokesman David Wert. He said the county-operated clinics exclusively offer the Pfizer vaccine. A majority of vaccines administered in the county are at non-county-operated locations, however.

“We cannot speak to whether any of those providers are offering a choice of vaccines,” Wert said. “The county considers the three available vaccines to be equally efficacious.”

Los Angeles County residents will not have the ability to choose their vaccine brand, as stated recently by Dr. Barbara Ferrer, director of Los Angeles County Public Health. All three vaccines “are extraordinarily powerful and, in clinical trials, were 100% effective preventing hospitalizations and deaths,” she said.

Mark Ghaly, who leads the state’s health and human services agency and publicly received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine Thursday at a state pop-up vaccination site in Baldwin Hills, said people should take whichever vaccine is available.

“Johnson & Johnson is going to be distributed widely across the state,” he said. “The FEMA sites did receive it earlier. But it is starting now. Yes, I believe this is a great vaccine like the other two. That’s why the message is to get the vaccine that’s available for you now.”

Staff writer David Rosenfeld contributed to this report.

-on March 11, 2021 at 09:31AM by Deepa Bharath

[webionaire]

After Congress let nonprofits and religious organizations participate in the first place, Catholic officials lobbied the Trump Administration for a second break. Religious organizations were freed from the so-called affiliation rule that typically disqualifies applicants with more than 500 workers.

Without that break, many dioceses would have missed out because — between their head offices, parishes, schools and other affiliates — their employee count would exceed the limit.

Among those lobbying, federal records show, was the Los Angeles Archdiocese. Parishes, schools and ministries there collected at least $80 million in paycheck aid, at a time when the headquarters reported $658 million in available funds heading into the fiscal year when the coronavirus arrived.

Catholic officials in the U.S. needed the special exception for at least two reasons.

Church law says dioceses, parishes and schools are affiliated, something the Los Angeles Archdiocese acknowledged “proved to be an obstacle” to receiving funds because its parishes operate “under the authority of the diocesan bishop.” Dioceses, parishes, schools and other Catholic entities also routinely assert to the Internal Revenue Service that they are affiliated so they can maintain their federal income tax exemption.

---

trump had to intervene to allow the scheme.

[sassyfrassboss]

Hi i wrote the post re: insight into who Meghan was really attacking, and i agree with the anon who finds the Catholic nun story as suspicious. I don’t know how you would be able to categorize your school as a private all girls Catholic high school when the founding Sisters renounced their vows. I was educated in the Catholic school separate system, from elementary to high school, albeit it was not private education, I had a nun as a French teacher in high school but we also had some students that were atheists attending (it made for very entertaining debates between the student and the teachers:). As usual with every story Meghan weaves you have to take it with a big grain of salt. I am afraid this story might end up like the Soap commercial story, twisted beyond all recognition. I double checked Lady c’s Sussex bio to see if she wrote about the Nun issue at Immaculate Heart but nothing. All she mentioned was that the School was founded in 1906 and remained a Catholic prep school for the Hollywood elite and “aspirational” would send their children.

Hi again! Welcome back!

I just chatted with my mom as well and she was raised strict Roman Catholic. I read her that paragraph and she said she needed a glass of wine to relax her mind after trying to figure that nonsense out.

She did say though that for it to be a Catholic School, it had to be "ordained?" by the church. She said if the nuns renounced their vows then the school would no longer be Catholic.

But I went online and did some research. As usual, Meghan left out a lot of details. So some nuns quit, but the ones remained are why Immaculate Heart continued.

Immaculate Heart Community[edit]

By the 1960s there were 600 professed Sisters in 68 elementary schools, 11 high schools, one college, and two hospitals. In the late 1960s a dispute arose between the institute and Archbishop James Francis McIntyre of Los Angeles. The IHM Sisters took part in a process of renewal led by the psychologist Dr. Carl Rogers, founder of the Center for the Study of the Person, an affiliate of the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute. Carl Rogers, and his associates Bruce Meador and Bill Coulson, conducted encounter groups according to the principles of the Human Potential Movement.[5] In such encounter groups, under the direction of a facilitator, participants were encouraged to share their real feelings as they interacted with the other group participants.

The first encounter group was held in the summer of 1966 at the Immaculate Heart Novitiate in Montecito, California. With its apparent success, the experiment was begun en masse in 1967, with all the sisters and the schools they ran in the Los Angeles Archdiocese participating. The encounter groups facilitated change in the IHM community. It was among the first groups of women religious to modernize their rule in accord with the directives of Vatican II. Changes included a more democratic form of governance and replacing their religious attire with civilian dress. Cardinal McIntyre refused to let the sisters teach in archdiocese schools unless they wore habits and adhered to a variety of traditional rules.[6] The sisters, in turn, objected to the Archbishop dictating their attire, bedtimes, and hours of prayer.[7]

Then-superior Anita Caspary remained firm in implementing the reforms and on February 1, 1970, about 300 of the IHM Sisters followed Caspary and were subsequently dispensed from their vows and fired from the schools in the archdiocese.[7][8][9] They went on to form a non-canonical group that admits both men and women known as the Immaculate Heart Community.[10] The 68 sisters who decided to remain were allowed to keep the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary as their name. As of 2015 there are five sisters.

An ensuing property settlement left remaining the IHM sisters with certain properties, while those dispensed obtained control of Immaculate Heart College and Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles.

The headquarters of the Immaculate Heart Community are at 5515 Franklin Avenue near Western Avenue, in the Los Feliz district of Los Angeles. Immaculate Heart Blythe Street serves the San Fernando Valley, located in Panorama City, Los Angeles. The Immaculate Heart Community has since 1943 run a Center for Spiritual Renewal and La Casa de Maria on 26 acres in Montecito, California.[11] This was also the novitiate for many years.[12] As of 2011 the Immaculate Heart Community numbered 160 members.[6]

[multipleservicelisting]

Head of US bishops’ conference warns Biden would ‘advance moral evils and threaten human life’

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued a stark condemnation of President Biden’s abortion agenda on the day of his inauguration, arguing that he would advance “moral evil” on the “preeminent priority” for the faithful.

“I must point out that our new President has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender,” said Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez, who serves as the USCCB’s president. “Of deep concern is the liberty of the Church and the freedom of believers to live according to their consciences.”

His comments came amid a broader debate about U.S. politicians, like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who identify as Catholic but pursue policies that conflict with Church teaching. Biden, during the campaign, reversed his decades-old position on the Hyde Amendment, which blocks most taxpayer funding for abortions. He’s also pledged to codify Roe v. Wade, a move that conservatives say would allow abortion up till the moment of birth.

SOME ROMAN CATHOLICS SOUNDING ALARM ABOUT BIDEN ADMINISTRATION, CONFLICTS WITH MORAL TEACHING

Prior to Biden’s inauguration, he and Pelosi attended a mass held at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, D.C. It’s unclear whether they took communion but Archbishop Wilton Gregory said beforehand that he wouldn’t deny Biden the sacrament.

During the campaign, then-candidate Biden was denied communion by a South Carolina priest and  in August, Cardinal Raymond Burke, the former head of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, said the former vice president shouldn’t receive communion and wasn’t a Catholic “in good standing.”

For years, Biden supported the Hyde Amendment with the rationale that religious Americans shouldn’t have to pay for procedures they fundamentally oppose. He similarly argued that Americans shouldn’t be forced to embrace his faith’s view of abortion. He appeared to personally flout church teaching, however, when he officiated a same-sex wedding ceremony in 2016. He also picked a Health and Human Services secretary who previously sued nuns for opposing Obamacare’s contraception mandate.

Regardless, Gomez welcomed Biden and said it would be “refreshing to engage with a President who clearly understands, in a deep and personal way, the importance of religious faith and institutions.”

Gomez added in Wednesday’s statement that abortion “is not only a private matter, it raises troubling and fundamental questions of fraternity, solidarity, and inclusion in the human community. It is also a matter of social justice. We cannot ignore the reality that abortion rates are much higher among the poor and minorities, and that the procedure is regularly used to eliminate children who would be born with disabilities.”

BIDEN LAUNCHES ADS TOUTING HIS FAITH AFTER CARDINAL SAYS HE’S ‘NOT A CATHOLIC IN GOOD STANDING’

Both the Catholic Catechism and some clergy have indicated that politicians have an obligation to support anti-abortion legislation. The section of the Catechism discussing abortion says that the procedure and infanticide “are abominable crimes.”

After Gomez’s statement, Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich called it “ill-considered,” alleging that bishops only received it hours before it was released and was crafted without involvement from the body’s Administrative Committee.

“The internal institutional failures involved must be addressed, and I look forward to contributing to all efforts to that end, so that, inspired by the Gospel, we can build up the unity of the Church, and together take up the work of healing our nation in this moment of crisis,” Cupich said.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Pope Francis, meanwhile, called on Biden to work towards a society that respected every human’s rights.

“At a time when the grave crises facing our human family call for farsighted and united responses,” he said, “I pray that your decisions will be guided by a concern for building a society marked by authentic justice and freedom, together with unfailing respect for the rights and dignity of every person, especially the poor, the vulnerable and those who have no voice.”

  Multiple Service Listing for Business Owners | Tools to Grow Your Local Business

www.MultipleServiceListing.com 

from Multiple Service Listing https://ift.tt/3qxULIu

[newstfionline]

Monday, December 21, 2020

This Solstice, Solace for the Darkness (NYT) We have now arrived at the longest, darkest night of the longest, darkest year. And yet rarely have the heavens so proclaimed their glory. In blithe disregard for the activities of the Electoral College and everything else that humans were engaged in, the sun and the moon last week lined up in a perfect cue-ball shot to produce a total solar eclipse. The moon’s shadow slid across Argentina and Chile, and the majestic but shy mandala known as the solar corona revealed itself to crowds who had braved rain and fog in anticipation of the sight. Meanwhile, the Geminid meteor shower graced the Northern Hemisphere with celestial brush strokes of fire. And as always there is the brilliance of the winter Milky Way, starring Orion. Now comes one of the grandest events of the sky: a planetary conjunction. For the past year, Jupiter and Saturn have been dancing ever closer in the night sky. On the evening of Dec. 21, the very nadir of winter, they will be so close—one-tenth of one angular degree—that if your eyes are as bad as mine, they will appear as one blurry, bright planet. With a little optical aid you should be able to discern them as separate orbs, almost kissing, although Jupiter will be 450 million miles in front of the ringed Saturn. Go out and look southwest in the hour after sunset. According to astronomers, the two planets have not appeared this close to each other in the sky since 1623—but the sun’s glare then would have rendered them invisible. To find a conjunction that humans could see, you must skip all the way back to 1226. Chani Nicholas, an astrologer who lives in Los Angeles, sees the moment more mystically. “This is the end of an era and the beginning of a new one,” she said. “To have these two be so beautifully placed to be so bright and enchanting in the night sky feels very cosmically poetic.” She added: “After this year of restriction and confinement and devastation, there is this feeling of there is some kind of renewal.”

Millions in US cope with financial misery during holiday season (The Guardian) There will be no presents under the Christmas tree this year for Sierra Schauvilegee and her children. Schauvilegee lost her job as a nurse when the residential care facility she worked for permanently closed down at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Finding new work has proved impossible. Heading into a holiday season overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic and its attendant recession, millions of Americans have been left with little money and little to celebrate. Across America the haunting lines for food banks in Texas, Pennsylvania and other states paint a bleak midwinter portrait as charities struggle to cope with the financial misery left in the wake of Covid-19. Meanwhile in Washington, Congress continues to struggle to pass a new emergency relief bill before adjourning for the holidays. And even if a bill is passed, a lag of several weeks is expected for state unemployment agencies to recommence benefits to Americans in need. Politicians have been deadlocked over a new relief bill for months. And for Schauvilegee, a new bill will already be too late. She has lost her car due to non-payment, and through the pandemic hasn’t received any unemployment assistance. Her claim is still being adjudicated without any timeframe for when she will receive a resolution. Without a car, finding a job in her rural area has been nearly impossible.

Britain insists EU should move in Brexit trade talks (Reuters) Britain insisted on Sunday that the European Union should shift position to open the way for a breakthrough in post-Brexit trade talks, with health minister Matt Hancock saying on Sunday the bloc should drop its “unreasonable demands”. With less than two weeks before Britain leaves the EU’s orbit, both sides are calling on the other to move to secure a deal and safeguard almost a trillion dollars worth of trade from tariffs and quotas. Talks to reach a trade deal have been largely hamstrung over two issues—the bloc’s fishing rights in British waters and creating a so-called level playing field providing fair competition rules for both sides. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the face of Britain’s 2016 campaign to leave the EU, has long said he cannot accept any deal that does not respect the country’s sovereignty, a goal that was at the heart of his election last year. But the EU is equally determined to protect its lucrative single market and wants to prevent London securing what it considers to be the best of both worlds—preferential market access with the advantage of setting its rules.

Boris Johnson Tightens U.K. Lockdown, Citing Fast-Spreading Version of Virus (NYT) Alarmed by a fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus, Prime Minister Boris Johnson abruptly reversed course on Saturday and imposed a wholesale lockdown on London and most of England’s southeast, banning Christmas-season gatherings beyond individual households. The decision, which Mr. Johnson announced after an emergency meeting of his cabinet, came after the government got new evidence of a variant first detected several weeks ago in southeast England, which the prime minister asserted was as much as 70 percent more transmissible than previous versions. The new measures, which take effect on Sunday, are designed, in effect, to cut off the capital and its surrounding counties from the rest of England. They are the most severe measures the British government has taken since it imposed a lockdown on the country back in March.

Pandemic exposes the vulnerability of Italy’s ‘new poor’ (AP) The coronavirus pandemic did not produce Elena Simone’s first budgetary rough patch. The 49-year-old single mother found herself out of the job market when the 2008 global financial crisis hit Italy and never fully got back in, but she created a patchwork of small jobs that provided for herself and the youngest of her three children. That all changed with Italy’s first COVID-19 lockdown in the spring. With schools closed, so went Simone’s cafeteria job. Her housecleaning gigs dried up, too. While others returned to work when the lockdown ended, Simone stayed frozen out. For the first time in her life, Simone needed help putting food on the table. At a friend’s urging, she enrolled for access to the food stores operated by Roman Catholic charity Caritas. Her eligibility covers her through January, and she hopes to be off the charity rolls by then “to make room for people who need it even more.” The charity serving more than 5 million people in the Milan archdiocese, Caritas Ambrosiana, says the pandemic is revealing for the first time the depths of economic insecurity in Italy’s northern Lombardy region, which generates 20% of the country’s gross domestic product. Between Italy’s near-total spring lockdown, the introduction of a partial lockdown when the virus surged again in the fall and the continued toll the pandemic is taking on Italy’s economy, the slim threads that allowed people to weave together employment have snapped.

Large car bomb kills 9 in Afghan capital (AP) A car bomb blast that rocked Afghanistan’s capital Sunday morning killed at least nine people, according to the Afghan Interior Ministry. Interior Minister Masoud Andarabi told reporters at the site of the attack that the attack wounded around 20 others, including a member of parliament, Khan Mohammad Wardak. Andarabi said the lawmaker was in “good condition.” The attack happened while the lawmaker’s convey was passing through an intersection in Kabul’s Khoshal Khan neighborhood. The blast set afire surrounding civilian vehicles, as well as damaging nearby buildings and shops. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks in the capital of Kabul in recent months, including on educational institutions that killed 50 people, most of them students.

Lebanese Officials Try to Limit Inquiry Into Deadly Beirut Blast (NYT) More than four months after the largest explosion in Lebanon’s history sent a shock wave of death and destruction through Beirut, not a single official has accepted responsibility for the blast or publicly explained how a stockpile of explosive material was left unsecured in the Beirut port for six years. In fact, powerful politicians are working to block the judge in charge of the investigation from questioning senior officials, much less holding them to account. On Thursday, the judge paused the inquiry to respond to an effort by two officials to have him removed from the case. The blast—which killed 200 people, wounded thousands and inflicted billions of dollars in damage—was the starkest example yet of the grave dangers posed by the chronic corruption and mismanagement that have left the Lebanese with a dysfunctional state, poor services and a collapsing economy. A broad coalition of angry citizens has cast the explosion as a watershed moment that could lead to real change in the way Lebanon is governed and break the culture of impunity that has long protected politicians from accountability. But they face fierce resistance from a political elite determined to preserve its prerogatives.

More students abducted in Nigeria but are quickly rescued (AP) Gunmen in Nigeria abducted more than 80 Islamic school students in northwestern Katsina state Saturday night, but the pupils were quickly rescued by security forces after a fierce gun battle, police announced Sunday. The foiled abduction comes less than two days after the release of 344 schoolboys who were kidnapped in the same area on Dec. 11. The incidents have highlighted the insecurity in northern Nigeria.

Police killed at least 20 Kenyans while enforcing coronavirus rules. Hopes for justice are fading. (Washington Post) NAIROBI — On the evening of March 27, when the pandemic was new and full of terrifying unknowns, Francis Otieno switched on the news. What he saw is now seared into his mind. Live video showed police officers beating women who were waiting for a ferry ahead of the first night of a nationwide curfew—imposed out of concern for public health—that hasn’t been lifted since. Otieno has spent all of his 23 years in Nairobi’s ghettos and said he understood the message behind the officers’ blows: We will not hesitate to kill you if you don’t comply. The night after that, 20 minutes past the 7 p.m. curfew, police caught his 18-year-old brother, Ibrahim Onyango, and beat his face into an unrecognizable pulp. He crawled home and bled to death by morning. Onyango’s killing was the first of at least 20 by Kenyan police while they enforced curfew and other coronavirus-related rules such as mandatory mask-wearing. The government’s police oversight authority said 20 had been killed. It also documented 73 severe assaults, some sexual in nature. That count doesn’t include Onyango, whose death was never formally registered because his family sees such little hope in Kenya’s justice system for it to be worth the effort and because of the potential for further retribution. It’s indicative of what human rights groups say is likely a much higher, but hidden, toll.

Lockdowns have stopped people moving. And fugitives are running out of hiding places (CNN) Fugitives are encountering new challenges when it comes to hiding out during a global pandemic, with movement restricted in many countries. Some have been forced to hand themselves in, while others have been caught as they traveled. During the UK’s spring lockdown, the country’s National Crime Agency (NCA) arrested nearly 300 fugitives “which is substantially more than we’d usually see,” Arthur Whitehead, operations manager of the NCA’s International Crime Bureau, told CNN. The work was part of “concerted efforts” under Operation Suricate, launched during lockdown to locate fugitives and help make arrests. “Lockdown was unique for us because it produced an opportunity for limited travel for those serious organized criminals that look to evade us on a regular basis and gave us an opportunity to exploit intelligence, and we were able to act quickly,” Whitehead said. While some aspects of lockdown make it harder to hide, others provide opportunity for creative fugitives to exploit—such as police distraction, widespread mask-wearing and increased use of digital environments.

[security-cameras-installation-la]

Private schools push L.A. County to let them open, saying they’re ready A coalition of private schools, including the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, called Monday for the County Board of Supervisors and public health officials to begin accepting waiver applications to allow elementary schools to open — an issue that Board Chair Kathryn Barger said would be discussed at their Tuesday meeting. Calling itself the “Students First Coalition,” the group also includes Village Christian School and several other religious organizations. The Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District on Monday penned its own letter, backed by several South Bay mayors, also urging the county to accept waiver applications. The letters included at least one prominent signatory from the American Academy of Pediatrics. “We have been waiting and working within the state and county guidelines toward preparing our school for the possibility of reopening,” said Tom Konjoyan, head of school at Village Christian School, a nondenominational Sun Valley campus for preschool through 12th grade.

[districofcolumbiaprelawland-blog]

The Dark Side Of The Catholic Church

By Linh McCool, George Washington University Class of 2021

July 29, 2020

Theodore McCarrick was a respected and prominent cardinal and bishop of the Catholic Church. He served as the bishop of Archdiocese New York, bishop of the Diocese of Metuchen, New Jersey, Archbishop of Newark, and Archbishop of Washington, D.C. He was one of the most recognized American cardinals in the Catholic Church. McCarrick was a power broker in Washington, D.C., and had connections with various politicians. He was a very moderate and progressive man who was active in many social justice causes. [1]

Sexual Misconduct Allegations

But in the last few decades, McCarrick is being accused of participating in inappropriate sexual conduct with adult male seminarians. Evidence shows that McCarrick's allegations of sexual assault with male seminarians were made aware to American bishops and the Vatican between 1993 and 2016 but were never officially known until 2018. McCarrick engaged in sexual misconduct with at least seven minors, and his sexual abuse lasted for 50 years until being defrocked. [2]

McCarrick was accused of sexual abuse by James Grein, the first child he baptized. Grein said that McCarrick began molesting him at only 11 years old. John Bellocchio, a former Catholic school teacher, and principal claimed that McCarrick assaulted him when he was Newark's archbishop. [3]

Restrictions and Blame

In 2008, McCarrick had Vatican restrictions for sleeping with seminarians. However, he often ignored travel bans with Vatican officials like Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis were aware. There were prior Vatican restrictions on McCarrick and debated since a retired diplomat accused Pope Francis of rehabilitation McCarrick from the 2013 limits.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano accused Francis of disregarding information that McCarrick assaulted seminarians. Vigano tried to place the cover-up blame on Pope Francis and demanded that he resign. No one knows what information Pope Francis had or whether he lifted the restrictions, but emails show that McCarrick ignored them regularly during Pope Benedict's rule. McCarrick's secretary, Msgr Anthony Figueiredo, currently a priest in Newark's diocese, N.J. exposed these email excerpts.

The emails showed restrictions in writing in August 2008 that mandated McCarrick to move out of his seminary residence, and request permission from the Holy See for any future appearances or talks. McCarrick got travel permission for a trip to Rome. Then in 2012, he resumed his spontaneous traveling without the consent under Benedict. And under Francis, McCarrick traveled to China, Morocco, and Iraq. There is also evidence of McCarrick writing to Francis and the Vatican secretariat of state with updates on his meetings, potentially showing that he was an unofficial worker in the Vatican.

In an interview released on Tuesday, Pope Francis denied knowing anything about McCarrick. In the interview with Valentina Alazraki for Mexico's Televisa, he said, "I didn't know anything about McCarrick, nothing naturally, nothing." 2

Consequences

In July of 2018, McCarrick resigned from the College of Cardinals. Pope Francis investigated on McCarrick in October of 2018, which found that McCarrick sexually abused minors and adult seminarians. He was later dismissed from the clergy and defrocked by Pope Francis in February 2019 after an investigation confirmed that McCarrick sexually abused children and adults. 2McCarrick's resignation and dismissal are so pivotal because he is the most senior church official in present times to be laicized and is the first cardinal ever to be laicized for sexual abuse. 1

Present Day

On Tuesday, July 21, 2020, a lawsuit was filed against the Diocese of Metuchen and St. Francis Xavier School in Newark, NJ, and Essex Catholic in East Orange. The man went to the New Jersey Superior Court in Middlesex County and alleged he was abused by McCarrick and five other Catholic clerics in New Jersey in 1982 when he was 14 years old. The suit alleges that four of them assaulted the victim at the beach house when McCarrick was Metuchen's bishop, N.J. The boy claimed he needed money to pay for his Catholic education, and one cleric, who had sexually abused the boy before, told him to "talk to the boss," or McCarrick. McCarrick proceeded to harm the boy.[4] The victim also describes being abused at St. Francis Xavier school when he was 11 years old by Father Anthony Nardino and Essex Catholic by Brother Andrew Thomas Hewitt.

Jeff Anderson said the victims' attorney said at a virtual press conference on July 22 that "In the night, with the assistance of others, McCarrick would creep into this kid's bed and engage in criminal sexual assault of him, whispering, 'It is OK.'" McCarrick assigned sleeping arrangements to choose his victims, as well as pairing young boys with adult clerics. Anderson states that priests and others under McCarrick engaged in criminal sexual behavior, but the church kept it a secret. 3

Other accused clerics are Rev. Anthony Nardino, Brother Andrew Thomas Hewitt, Rev. Gerald Ruane, Rev. Michael Walters, and Rev. John Laferrera. The lawsuit accuses the dioceses of Metuchen and Newark and other parishes and schools within the dioceses of failing to protect children in their youth programs and other religious affairs. It claims that dioceses "should have known that it had numerous agents who had sexually molested children."

The man coming forward is leaving his name excluded from the suit. And McCarrick's attorney, Barry Coburn, declined to comment. McCarrick claims that he did nothing wrong. Metuchen and Newark's dioceses refused to comment on this lawsuit, however, claimed that they are "committed to victims, prevention, resolution, and closure." 4

Impact

The McCarrick scandal has had severe adverse effects. The scandal created a credibility crisis in the U.S., as well as the Vatican and the church. Specifically, trust issues regarding the Vatican hierarchy since it was an open secret in many church circles that McCarrick sexually assaulted young people and adults as he pressured them to sleep with him at his beach house in New Jersey. 2

There has been a surge in sexual abuse cases in the Roman Catholic church in the last few decades. With the rules enacted in 15 states that extend or suspend the statute of limitations to allow claims to stretch back decades, more sexual abuse cases have come out. These states allow sex abuse cases no matter how old include New Jersey, New York, and California. The Associated Press found that the sexual abuse crisis might obtain more than 5,000 new cases against the church in New York, New Jersey, and California alone. Thus, they are resulting in payouts surpassing $4 billion since the first clergy sex abuse case came to light in the 1980s. Many Catholic dioceses are worrying about defending old claims and considering bankruptcy. [5]

For survivors like Nancy Holling-Lonnecker of San Diego, this new rule is very motivating. Her claims were from the 1950s when she was raped by a priest in a confession booth when she was seven years old. She says, "The survivors coming forward now have been holding on to this horrific experience. They bottled up those emotions all of these years because there was no place to take it." 5

 _______________________________________________________________

Linh McCool is a rising third-year student at the George Washington University. Majoring in International Affairs with a dual concentration in International Development and Contemporary Cultures & Societies. Linh is interested in the legal profession, as well as communications, marketing, and non-profit work.

 _______________________________________________________________

[1]"Theodore McCarrick." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 23 July 2020.

[2]Associated Press. "Ex-Cardinal McCarrick and Others Ignored Sex Abuse Restrictions." Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 29 May 2019. 

[3]Bernstein, Brittany. "Lawsuit Claims Ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick Ran Beach House Sex Ring." National Review, National Review, 24 July 2020.

[4]Boorstein, Michelle. "New Accuser of Theodore McCarrick Alleges the Ex-Cardinal Orchestrated Abuse Involving Other Clerics." The Washington Post, WP Company, 22 July 2020.

[5]Condon, Bernard. "Surge of New Abuse Claims Threatens Church like Never Before." AP NEWS, Associated Press, 1 Dec. 2019.

Photo Credit:World Economic Forum

[xtruss]

Sad News

Fire Destroys Much of 249-Year-Old Church in California

— By Marcio Sanchez and Daisy Nguyen | AP | July 11, 2020

SAN GABRIEL, California (AP) — A fire early Saturday destroyed the rooftop and most of the interior of a Catholic church in California that was undergoing renovation to mark its upcoming 250th anniversary celebration.

Fire alarms at the San Gabriel Mission rang around 4 a.m., and when firefighters arrived they saw smoke rising from the wooden rooftop in one corner of the historic structure, San Gabriel Fire Capt. Paul Negrete said.

He said firefighters entered the church and tried to beat back the flames, but they had to retreat when roofing and other structural materials began to fall, Negrete said.

“We were trying to fight it from the inside, we weren’t able to because it became unsafe,” he said.

After evacuating the church, the crew was joined by up to 50 firefighters who tried to douse water on the 50-foot-high structure from ladder trucks, he said.

“The roof is completely gone,” the captain said. “The fire traversed the wood rapidly, the interior is pretty much destroyed up into the altar area.”

The cause of the fire was under investigation, Negrete said. He said the recent toppling of monuments to Junipero Serra, the founder of the California mission system who has long been a symbol of oppression among Indigenous activists, will be a factor in the investigation.

“This will be another box that they’re going to check off,” he said.

Robert Barron, the auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, tweeted that he was “deeply troubled” by the fire as he awaits further information about its cause.

The church was the fourth of a string of missions established across California by Serra during the era of Spanish colonization. The Franciscan priest has long been praised by the church for bringing Roman Catholicism to what is now the western United States, but critics highlight a darker side to his legacy. In converting Native Americans to Catholicism, they said he forced them to abandon their culture or face brutal punishment.

Depictions of Serra have been protested and vandalized over the years, and Pope Francis’s decision in 2015 to elevate him to sainthood reopened old wounds. More recently, protests focusing on the rights and historical struggle of Black and Indigenous people led activists to topple statues of Serra in San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles.

In response, the San Gabriel Mission recently moved a bronze statue of Serra from the church entrance to “a more appropriate location, out of public view” without specifying where.

“Whereas the California Catholic Conference of Bishops reminds us that the historical truth is that St. Serra repeatedly pressed the Spanish authorities for better treatment of the Native American community, we recognize and understand that for some he has become a symbol of the dehumanization of the Native American community,” said the church’s pastor, Father John Molyneux, said in a statement.

The interior wall of the church was redone a week ago and crews had just finished installing the pews as part of a larger renovation of the property to mark the anniversary of the founding of the mission in 1771, said Terri Huerta, a spokeswoman for San Gabriel Mission.

She said the firefighters’ aggressive stance and “a little bit of a miracle” kept the flames from reaching the altar.

The church had been preparing to reopen next weekend following a four-month closure to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Selena Quezada, 26, was in tears when she drove to the mission after she heard about the fire. She said she grew up in the parish and attended the elementary school on the church’s grounds.

“I was baptized here, I had my first communion here ... I was getting ready to get married here next year so this hurts,” Quezada said. “It’s just really sad to see such a historic place burned down because this place means a lot to us.”

The church, built of stone, brick and mortar, originally had a vaulted ceiling that was damaged by two earthquakes in the early 1800s, she said. Franciscan fathers replaced the ceiling with a wood-paneled ceiling and the roof was last repaired following some damage caused by the 1994 Northridge earthquake, Huerta said.

This version corrects the spelling of the church member’s name to Selena Quezada, not Casada.

Nguyen reported from San Francisco.

[hindinewshub]

U.S. Roman Catholic Church used special exemption from federal rules to gain at least $1.4 billion in taxpayer-backed coronavirus aid, AP analysis shows In addition, federal records show the Los Angeles archdiocese, whose leader heads the bishops’ conference, paid $20,000 to lobby the U.S.

[casorasi]

LA allows shopping, worship sooner than expected in pandemic

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Retail shops and offices were allowed to open Wednesday and the largest Roman Catholic archdiocese in the U.S. announced a plan to resume services as Los Angeles County took another step toward a reopening that seemed… LA allows shopping, worship sooner than expected in pandemic

[masterofd1saster]

CJ current events 5 Feb 20

Pamela Carr, 69, was arrested Sunday at her Clearwater mobile home and charged with aggravated domestic battery, a Pinellas County Sheriff's Office report said.

Carr and her husband got into an argument Sunday morning after he told her he wanted to end their marriage of nine years, the report said. At some point, Carr pulled out a Taser and stunned her husband several times at close range, rather than shooting him with barbed darts, investigators said.

Deputies said Carr admitted to stunning her husband but claimed she acted in self-defense.

Carr was released from jail Monday on $1,000 and ordered to stay away from her husband. She'll be allowed one visit with a law enforcement escort to retrieve her belongings from the Serendipity mobile home community.***

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/florida/fl-ne-domestic-battery-separation-request-20200205-blhzju24b5bjlclbhq32iwz2fa-story.html   Her husband is 73.  

****************

Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office FL

February 3 at 4:12 PM

Santa Rosa K-9 Deputies recently assisted FHP on a traffic stop on I-10 where a large amount of narcotics were discovered. Note to self- do not traffic your illegal narcotics in bags labeled “Bag Full Of Drugs”. Our K-9’s can read.

******

Father Jamie Forsythe has always felt his purpose was to be a priest. He pursued that calling even after he pleaded guilty in 1989 to a charge of attempting to take indecent liberties with a 15-year-old boy in Kansas, serving time in prison, and being laicized — officially removed from the priesthood — by the Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City.

Forsythe, then in his 30s, was released from prison after less than four months of his one-to-five-year sentence, and eventually found work at Metropolitan Community Church of the Black Hills, a progressive Christian church in South Dakota that primarily serves LGBTQ worshippers.  [When they found out he was a pedo, who didn’t register, they fired him.  He found employment with a]

church system called The National Catholic Church of North America, but it is not affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church. Forsythe was hired as a priest there in 2005, according to the church. The alternative diocese is home to about 200 parishioners in seven parishes in Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Washington, D.C.***

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/priests-on-sex-offender-registry-florida-alternative-catholic-churches/

************

****The current LAPD scandal around gang identification began early last year when a Van Nuys mother complained that her teenage son had erroneously been added to CalGang after a field interview with officers. Police supervisors reviewed the body camera footage from the involved officers and found it did not match their accounts, leading to an expanded internal investigation and a recent move by LAPD Chief Michel Moore to fire one of the involved officers.

The LAPD uses CalGang more than any other law enforcement agency in the state. From Nov. 1, 2017, to Oct. 31, 2018, the period covered by a 2018 report by the attorney general’s office, it was responsible for 20,583 records – more than 20% of the records in the database. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department had the second highest count with 17% of total records.

Melanie Ochoa, a staff attorney with the ACLU, said the problem with allowing subjective criteria like clothing or the place where police see a person is that they can be discriminatory and are open to abuse. More than 90% of people in the database in 2018 were men of color, predominantly Latino and black, according to data from the California Department of Justice.***

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/lapd-scandal-opens-window-into-californias-secret-gang-database-as-reforms-debated/ar-BBZDnOD

**************

https://twitter.com/i/status/1225062446865534976 is a video of a police chase along the route of the KC Chiefs’ victory parade route.

*********

***Over the objections of the Oscar-winner’s defense, five photos of a naked Harvey Weinstein were passed around Tuesday to the Manhattan jurors considering the sexual abuse case against the disgraced Hollywood honcho.

The jurors were instructed to review each photo while holding them in a fashion where the crowd inside the courtroom couldn’t get a peek. Jurors No. 11 and 12 appearing to wince as they peered upon the images of a naked Weinstein, who showed no signs of owning a gym membership.****

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-harvey-weinstein-trial-20200204-voz53d3oxvfwrhw3vjydczl2q4-story.html

**************

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer announced today that his office plans to drop all charges in a high-profile case in which a Newport Beach doctor and his girlfriend were accused of drugging and sexually assault multiple women.

Spitzer said at a press conference that a review of the case by his office found “There’s insufficient evidence to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Dr. Grant Robicheaux, 39, and Cerissa Riley, 32, were charged in 2018 with charged with rape by drugs, oral copulation by anesthesia, and assault with intent to commit sexual offenses, among other crimes.****

Since the charges against the pair went public, as many as 18 women have accused the couple of  drugging and sexually assaulting them; seven of those are charged as victims in the case, while the remainder are not being pursued in court because they were outside the statute of limitations or the incidents occurred out of state.****

https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/grant-robicheaux-charges-dropped/