Tag: religion

Trad Catholic Family Dragged Out of Home at Gunpoint, Locked in Van After FBI ‘Goaded’ Teen to Post Offensive Memes, Dad Says

Atraditional Catholic family was allegedly “dragged out of their home at gunpoint, handcuffed and locked in a van” earlier this year after the FBI “goaded” their 15-year-old son to post  “offensive memes” online. The teen, a volunteer firefighter and altar boy, was then hospitalized on mental health pretenses, according to his father, Jeremiah Rufini.

The FBI’s aggressive “investigation” only resulted in a misdemeanor conviction against the boy for breach of peace, but financially devastated the family with substantial legal expenses.

The FBI targeted the boy as part of a sting operation catfishing traditionalist Catholic teenagers with “extreme political content,” Rufini explained in the family’s GiveSendGo crowdfunding site. 

The family’s difficulties began early in 2023 when Rufini’s father became too ill from chemotherapy to work at the family business or care for his 93 year-old grandmother who lives in an in-law apartment at his home.

The home-schooled 15 year-old took on the responsibility of caring for his great grandmother until his father got home from work each day.

“It was a very stressful time, compounded by several unrelated deaths in the family that happened in the same time period,” Rufini explained. The long hours alone with his grandmother led the boy, equipped with a brand new cell phone, to become ensnared in an FBI scheme targeting trad Catholics.

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NY Governor’s Veto of Life-Saving Substance Treatment Bill is Shameful and Misguided

American Atheists rebuked New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s decision to again veto a life-saving bill that has twice passed in the New York Assembly and Senate with bipartisan support. The Recovery Options Bill (A.5074) would have required that New Yorkers ordered to enter a substance abuse treatment program be informed of their right to not be forced into religious programming against their will. For example, many atheists choose nonreligious, evidence-based recovery options, such as SMART Recovery or LifeRing.

Time and again, courts across the nation have found that 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous are pervasively and overtly religious and cannot, therefore, be imposed on people by the government. The “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous includes a chapter that tells atheists and agnostics they are “doomed to an alcohol death” unless they “seek Him.” The chapter goes on to deride the nonreligious as “handicapped by obstinacy, sensitiveness, and unreasoning prejudice.” According to the American Atheists-commissioned U.S. Secular Survey, 15.2% of respondents reported experiencing stigma and discrimination while undergoing religious substance recovery treatment.

Earlier this month, American Atheists officially announced the release of Andrew Miller, an atheist and Secular Humanist who was represented by the civil rights organization after he was repeatedly denied parole for his conscientious refusal to complete a religious substance treatment program that included the compulsory recitation of Christian prayers at meetings. In July of this year, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph R. Goodwin issued a sweeping 60-page decision, denying West Virginia’s motion to dismiss the case and finding Mr. Miller’s claims to be “likely—if not inevitable” to succeed. West Virginia has since agreed to remove religious requirements as a condition for parole and pay $80,000 in legal fees.

In New York, the legislation that Governor Hochul vetoed would have simply required courts to inform New Yorkers of their constitutional right to object to mandatory religious substance abuse programs. Subsequently, anyone who objected to these religious programs, including nonreligious people and religious minorities, could instead access evidence-based treatment programs free of religious coercion.

“Recovering from addiction is difficult enough without suffering through unwanted indoctrination and religious abuse,” said Alison Gill, Vice President for Legal and Policy at American Atheists.

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Preacher who sold £91 ‘divine plague protection kits’ he said could cure Covid after he was visited by God loses appeal against fraud conviction

A preacher who sold £91 ‘divine plague protection kits’ as a cure for Covid-19 has lost his appeal against his conviction for fraud today. 

Bishop Climate Wiseman, 47, offered a package, containing a small bottle of hyssop, cedarwood and olive oil along with a prayer card and piece of scarlet yarn. 

The head of the Kingdom Church in Camberwell, south London, said he had a visitation from God and told jurors he had performed miracles. 

Wiseman denied he was a conman and insisted he was a ‘man of God’, despite being convicted of fraud at Inner London Crown Court last December after telling members of his flock that the kits could ward off and cure infection.

Southwark Trading Standards officers were alerted to his scam on 24 March 2020 – the day after the country was plunged into lockdown. 

Wiseman was sentenced to 12 months jail suspended for two years and ordered to complete 130 hours unpaid work. 

He was also ordered to pay £60,072 in costs to Southwark Borough Council and given three months to pay.  

Wiseman appealed against his conviction on the grounds the trial judge directed the jury inadequately on essential questions of knowledge and dishonesty.

Hyssop is mentioned in the Bible as a means of warding off plague, specifically leprosy, and has a history of use in remedies for nose, throat, and lung afflictions. 

However, the only modern use for the aromatic garden herb is for the flavouring of foods and beverages due to its sweet scent and bitter taste. 

He also claimed an error in his defence counsel’s closing speech should have led the judge to discharge the jury.

Wiseman also renewed his application for leave to appeal against the costs order.

But Lady Chief Justice Carr, sitting with Mr Justice Goose and Mr Justice Foxton, threw out his appeal at the High Court.

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Mormon leaders ignored our family’s ‘rampant’ incest abuse: Devastating claims of two young sisters assaulted by the same family member – and accuse the church of a cover-up to PROTECT their abuser

A few months before her 18th birthday, Katie Wallace hatched a plan to overdose on heroin.

She and a male friend who had her hooked on the drug would do it together, ending years of misery to which the 17-year-old saw no way out.

It was not the path the Mormon church, in which Katie had been raised, had ordained for her.

But it was one that she holds the religion responsible for, after church leaders allegedly covered up years of rampant sexual abuse and incest within her family.

For Katie, now 39, it began when she was four. Unbeknown to her, her abuser, a close relative, had assaulted her older sister, Becky, years before.

The church knew but did nothing, allowing a ‘vicious circle’ of abuse to break out within the family, the sisters claim.

They have bravely shared their story with DailyMail.com to expose what they believe is an ‘epidemic’ of sexual abuse in Mormon homes, which they and countless other victims claim is buried by ecclesiastical leaders in a bid to protect the church’s reputation.

It comes after our investigation revealed last week that the church is facing legal action over allegations it has ‘maintained a pattern and practice’ of hiding abuse from authorities.

More than a dozen current and former members of the church have come forward with shocking claims of a culture of ‘cover ups’ – defying leaders who are alleged to have ‘silenced’ and ‘threatened’ those who speak out.

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Mormon leaders accused of ‘silencing and THREATENING’ families who tried to expose sex offenders in their communities – as victims claim church ‘covered up’ an ‘epidemic’ of abuse

Mormon families who tried to expose cases of sexual abuse within their communities have alleged they were ‘silenced’ and threatened with disciplinary action by church leaders, DailyMail.com can reveal.

In one instance, two Idaho members claim they were warned they could be punished after the pair alerted others in their congregation to the fact that their former bishop faced child sex abuse charges dating back 10 years.

In another case in Minnesota, a church member and social worker claims he was stripped of his positions within the church after he spoke out about a registered sex offender who had been placed in a leadership position.

On both occasions, the dissidents felt compelled to raise the alarm after church leaders allegedly kept the abuse under wraps.

It comes after DailyMail.com revealed that victims have accused Mormon leaders of hiding an ‘epidemic’ of sexual abuse that rivals scandals within the Catholic church.

Around a dozen victims have taken the brave decision to tell their stories of abuse within the church, exposing decades of alleged cover-ups.

Meanwhile, the Utah-based religion faces a bombshell lawsuit in which it is alleged to ‘maintain a pattern and practice’ of ‘concealing’ sexual abuse from the police in a bid to avoid costly legal action and protect its reputation.

Today, DailyMail.com can reveal police records suggest church leaders failed to report a bishop who had confessed to sexually abusing a minor.

The church allegedly allowed him to remain an ‘active member of the church’ months after they had been made aware of the allegations against him, the records show.

Members of the congregation – known as a ward – in Nampa, Idaho, who tried to speak out about the case claim they were threatened with disciplinary action.

Kolby Reddish, 35, told DailyMail.com that the church’s silence was motivated by its desire to protect its reputation ‘at all costs’.

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House Speaker Mike Johnson campaigned with disgraced reality TV Star Josh Duggar, one of several accused sex offenders connected to his ‘mentor’ Tony Perkins

Like many self-identified Christian conservatives, House Speaker Mike Johnson has long been preoccupied with sex — who’s having it, how they are having it, and why they are having it. In 2004, he proclaimed that “sex outside of the marriage of one man and one woman is ultimately destructive.” In 2022, he introduced the Stop the Sexualization of Children Act, a bill premised on the notion that Democrats were on a “crusade to immerse young children in sexual imagery.”

But a Business Insider review of Johnson’s social media postings and political affiliations found that while he was busy seeking to regulate private sexual behavior and castigating his opponents as “groomers” of children, the Louisiana Republican was associated with a coterie of right-wing activists with a history of overlooking, tolerating, or ignoring the sexual abuse of children and teens in their own midst.

Most notably, according to a photo posted to his Facebook account and unearthed by Business Insider, Johnson proudly campaigned in 2014 with a man who would become one of the most notorious sex offenders in recent history — disgraced reality TV star Josh Duggar.

Duggar, who was convicted of possessing child pornography in 2021, worked as a lobbyist for the Christian evangelical activist group Family Research Council from 2013 to 2015, when allegations surfaced that the former “19 Kids and Counting” star molested several minors, including his own sisters.

The man who recruited Duggar, FRC president Tony Perkins, is a long-time friend and political ally of Johnson. The new Speaker recently described Perkins as his “original mentor” on a recent episode of his “Truth Be Told” radio show. According to the Washington Post, “Perkins goes way back with the Duggar family.”

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Moms for Liberty leader turns out to be a convicted sex offender

A Republican pastor who coordinates the faith-based outreach for the Philadelphia chapter of Moms for Liberty was convicted a decade ago of sexually abusing a teenage boy.

Phillip Fisher Jr., who leads the Center of Universal Divinity in Olney, helps connect the right-wing group with local faith leaders to boost membership, and other leaders say they’re shocked to learn he pleaded guilty in 2012 to a felony count of aggravated sexual abuse of a 14-year-old boy when he was 25, reported The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Fisher blames his conviction on a political action committee for perennial presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche, which he had worked for but was trying to break free of what he now calls a “cult.”

“It was a political situation that happened between me and Lyndon LaRouche,” Fisher said. “It was a member of his camp, his party, that made the accusation. They pushed it through. It was really a railroad job.”

His criminal history stunned Vince Fenerty, chair of Philadelphia’s Republican City Committee, who demanded and received Fisher’s resignation as leader of the GOP’s 42nd Ward.

A national spokesperson for Moms for Liberty did not respond to a request for comment, but Sheila Armstrong, another GOP ward leader who chairs the local Moms for Liberty chapter, expressed surprise, saying that she had just received from the state Department of Human Services a “child abuse history certification” in Fisher’s name so he could volunteer for an upcoming Christmas party for an autism nonprofit that she leads.

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Catholic Elites Wage War on the Freemasons

In 1738, Pope Clement XII banned Catholics from becoming Freemasons, and in 1983 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger reminded Catholics that being a Freemason placed them “in a state of grave sin.” Now Rome is having another go at one of the world’s most famous brotherhoods. This comes as more Catholics are flocking to what is known as “the craft,” a term encompassing the ritual, principles, and teachings of the Freemasons.

While nobody is saying it, this story is about a modern act of “anti-Freemasonry,” a movement so old that it has its own Wikipedia page. Anti-Masonry is not a globally organised movement, and it consists of differing criticisms from political institutions and organized religions, that have elite members who despise Freemasonry.

In this recent display of persecution of Freemasons, the Vatican has published a new document, signed by Pope Francis and DDF Prefect Cardinal Victor Fernández, in response to concerns raised by a bishop in the Philippines. The paranoid holy man warned Rome about increasing numbers of Catholics in his diocese enrolling in Freemasonry, and he asked for advice from the top of the Catholic hierarchy.

An article on the Catholic News Agency website explains that the dicastery responded to the Philippines bishop on Nov. 13, suggesting “a coordinated strategy” to address the masonic menace. So dramatic was Rome’s response that they called for “all of the bishops” in the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines to “promote catechesis in all parishes regarding the reasons for the irreconcilability between the Catholic faith and Freemasonry.”

Read that last line again. It’s a modern witch hunt. Right? Rome is not asking its bishops for reports on the numbers of its members who are also Freemasons, but for reasons to support the predetermined notion that Catholicism is incompatible with it’s old rival, Freemasonry.

The traditional claim that Catholicism and Freemasonry are incompatible is a demonstrable farce. For if this was the case, why then are so many Catholics joining Freemasonry? The problem in this instance negates the problem!

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Former Scientologist Mitch Brisker lifts lid on church leader David Miscavige’s relationship with Tom Cruise, luxurious lifestyle and the woman who took wife Shelly’s place

David Miscavige, leader of the Church of Scientology, is a reclusive man with a penchant for designer clothes, a hunger for gifts, fast cars, and superbikes and a fondness for thumping music.

And, according to one of his closest lieutenants, he ‘exiled’ his wife Shelly seemingly without a second thought because he was ‘done with her.’

This is the picture of the enigmatic man painted by Mitch Brisker, 74, former Senior Director and Creative Executive of Scientology’s Golden Era Studios.

For 30 years Brisker was, by his own admission, Chief Architect of Scientology’s Propaganda and a trusted right-hand man to its leader, Miscavige, 63.

Once a member of the church’s upper echelons, he left the church just over a year ago after clashing with Miscavige and losing faith in what it stood for.

Now, he is speaking out for the first time in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com giving his unique insight into Miscavige, his personality, his ‘missing’ wife, his infamous friendship with Tom Cruise and the luxurious lifestyle of the man whom, he says, conducts himself like a ‘super celebrity.’

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GOP legislator blocks bill requiring clergy to report child sex abuse

An Arizona Republican is refusing to require clergy to report confessions of child abuse despite a horrific case involving the Mormon Church.

A Bisbee father of six admitted to his bishop during a counseling session that he was raping his then-5-year-old daughter, but court records show that Bishop John Herrod, and then his replacement Bishop Robert “Kim” Mauzy, were advised by attorney Merrill Nelson not to alert anyone outside the church — and the man then started raping his 6-week-old daughter, reported the Arizona Republic.

Arizona law requires teachers and doctors to report suspected abuse, there is no requirement for churches to do the same. In fact, many argue that confidentiality is essential.

“The seal of confession is a sacred, sacred part of the Catholic church,” said state Rep. Quang Nguyen, who is Catholic.

A Cochise County judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by three of the children of the man, stating that the church is not responsible for the ongoing abuse. The man was finally arrested in 2017 and later killed himself while awaiting trial in jail.

State Rep. Stacey Travers (D-Phoenix) introduced a bill earlier this year requiring clergy members to report abuse discovered during confessions or confidential communications “if there is a reasonable suspicion to believe that the abuse is ongoing, will continue or may be a threat to other minors.”

But Nguyen refuses to allow it to receive a hearing because he said it is “an attack on the church.”

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