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No, it's not weird.. it's pathetic. It is also the single biggest reason that the church is struggling in this country and other countries, because too many Christians cannot articulate what their faith means to them and why they choose to follow Jesus...

Instead they represent the faith by spending their time arguing over stupid details and telling others what's wrong with them and why THEY are the ones ruining the world....

To the contrary, I'm saying Christians should be better informed about their own faith.. and at least get the big points right.. and live into those big points daily.

I have no problem with you defending the faith in the manner in which you are doing it. Carry on.

That or take the payola. 30 pieces of silver jingles nicely in the hands.

I agree. I think that he is doing a spectacular job!

Amemtep- Are you talking about amemhotep?

That wasn't all Judas did. Judas also stole from the money the Apostles collected for the poor. His presence as an Apostle was prophesied, as the one who would betray the Messiah, and for a price.

The rest of the Apostles (except for John, and he was poisoned, but survived) were martyred. (hung, beheaded, etc)

As far as money ..... Paul gave up a rather rich lifestyle, and respected position as a Pharisee, to become a prophet of an illegal faith. He was on the run much of the rest of his life, and he knew how his life would wind up ending, because Jesus showed him just how he would suffer for Jesus' name's sake.

Grand jury: 2 bishops hid sex abuse of hundreds of children

http://news.yahoo.com/grand-jury-2-bishops-hid-sex-abuse-hundreds-152900987.html

God told them to do it. Mission from God. something like that

ALTOONA, Pa. (AP) — Two Catholic bishops who led a small Pennsylvania diocese helped cover up the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by more than 50 priests and other religious leaders over a 40-year period, according to a grand jury report that portrays the church as holding such sway over law enforcement that it helped select a police chief.

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The 147-page report issued Tuesday on sexual abuse in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, home to nearly 100,000 Roman Catholics, was based partly on evidence from a secret diocesan archive opened through a search warrant over the summer.

In announcing the findings, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane said the diocese's two previous bishops "placed their desire to avoid public scandal over the well-being of children."

No criminal charges are being filed in the case because some abusers have died, the statute of limitations has expired, or victims are too traumatized to testify, she said.

Of the victims, Kane said: "Their souls were killed as children. They weren't out playing baseball; they were trying to avoid priests."

The report was especially critical of Bishops James Hogan and Joseph Adamec. Hogan, who headed the diocese from 1966 to 1986, died in 2005. Adamec, who succeeded him, retired in 2011.

Adamec cited possible self-incrimination in refusing to testify before the grand jury. But in a court filing, his attorney said the accusations against the 80-year-old Adamec are unfounded. He required 14 priests accused under his watch to undergo psychiatric evaluation, the filing said. Nine of them were suspended or removed from ministry, and the five who were reinstated never re-offended, his attorney wrote.

"Bishop Adamec's handling of abuse allegations has no similarity to other clergy abuse scandals," his attorney wrote.

The current bishop, Mark Bartchak, is not accused of any wrongdoing. He recently suspended a few priests named as alleged abusers in the report, though the grand jury said it remains "concerned the purge of predators is taking too long."

In a statement, Bartchak said: "I deeply regret any harm that has come to children."

View galleryPennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane speaks …
Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane speaks about the 147-page report on sexual abuse in the …
The clergy sex abuse crisis erupted in 2002, when The Boston Globe reported that the Boston Archdiocese had transferred child-molesting priests from parish to parish to protect them. Similar scandals involving hundreds of offenders and victims have since erupted across the U.S. and beyond.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops estimates that American dioceses have paid nearly $4 billion since 1950 to settle claims with victims.

The Altoona-Johnstown report said that the abuse was committed in such places as campsites, confessionals, an orphanage and the cathedral, and that Hogan covered up allegations by transferring offending priests, including one who was sent to a school for boys.

One diocesan official under Hogan, Monsignor Philip Saylor, told the grand jury that church officials held such clout in the eight-county diocese that "the police and civil authorities would often defer to the diocese" when priests were accused of abuse, the report said. Saylor told the grand jury that the mayors of Altoona and Johnstown even consulted him on their choices for police chief in the 1980s.

"Politicians of Blair County were afraid of Monsignor Saylor, and he apparently persuaded the mayor to appoint me as the chief of police," former Altoona Police Chief Peter Starr testified.

The Rev. Thomas Doyle, a Catholic canon lawyer turned advocate for victims, said it was common for law enforcement in heavily Catholic areas to defer to the church in handling accusations against priests.

He said the number of victims and accused priests in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, which ranks in the bottom half of the list of the nearly 200 U.S. dioceses by Catholic population, did not surprise him: "I've seen dioceses the same size or smaller where you have significant numbers of perpetrators and victims."

The report said Adamec or his staff threatened some alleged victims with excommunication and generally worked harder to hide or settle allegations of abuse than to discipline the priests accused.

"The diocese will not apologize or take responsibility for its dark history," the report said.

In a practice seen in other dioceses, the bishop created a "payout chart" to help guide how much victims would receive from the church, the report said. Victims fondled over their clothes were to be paid $10,000 to $25,000; fondled under their clothes or subjected to masturbation, $15,000 to $40,000; subjected to forced oral sex, $25,000 to $75,000; subjected to forced sodomy or intercourse, $50,000 to $175,000.

Clergy abuse scandals are not new to the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese.

The latest investigation began when Kane's office was asked to review the handling of abuse allegations at Bishop McCort Catholic High School against an athletic trainer, Franciscan Brother Stephen Baker, who worked there from 1992 to 2001. Baker killed himself in 2013 after abuse settlements with an Ohio diocese where he formerly worked were publicized.

Eighty-eight former McCort students settled claims against the diocese for $8 million in 2014, said Richard Serbin, an Altoona attorney whose been battling the diocese for decades.

A molestation lawsuit against since-defrocked priest Francis Luddy that went to trial in 1994 also exposed many of the problems outlined in the grand jury report. The case led to a verdict of more than $2 million in damages and an appeals court finding that Hogan's oversight of pedophile priests had been "outrageous."

"Hundreds of children probably could have been saved from a life of misery had they done something back then and, more importantly, a lot of these child predators could have been criminally prosecuted," Serbin said.

___

Associated Press writer Rachel Zoll in New York contributed to this story.

i'm not about to start disrespecting your religion too much, but you or somebody needs to explain to me why is it that religion is the perfect hiding place for some of the most disgusting people on the planet.

Your people ? Seems like your defending your faith has gone to your head . Who are your people ?

Your people ? Seems like your defending your faith has gone to your head . Who are your people ?

Most likely Protestants. Anytime I've heard of something like this happening in a Protestant church the perv is immediately handed over to the authorities.

Your people ? Seems like your defending your faith has gone to your head . Who are your people ?

It's not uncommon for Christian sects to distance themselves from one another. My baptist church leaders claimed in plain language that catholics were going to hell. I thought it odd, but baptists tend to love fire and brimstone



I've also seen this occur with some methodist friends of mine and non-baptist evangelicals, and yes roman catholics. I suppose it's a convenient persuasion technique. If you believe your sect to be the only true version of christianity, then it's not hard to be coaxed into believing that you are being persecuted. This comes off as a bit out of touch with non-believers because christianity is the largest religion in the world.

Yes, Evangelical Protestants, and yes, my church (the church I attend) would IMMEDIETELY hand a person like that to the authorities.

I hate to tell you, but it happens everywhere.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/29/protestants-abuse-catholics-methodist-church

This has gone on in the Catholic church, many protestant churches, Jewish congregations, and others. The problem is not the religion, but the need to protect the religion when someone goes off the rails.

I get what happened in the catholic church, as they tried to handle things internally and let the offender repent and change his ways. That has also happened in other christian organizations. Personally, I think all child molesters should be tracked by tombstone, no matter what religion they follow.

It's not uncommon for Christian sects to distance themselves from one another. My baptist church leaders claimed in plain language that catholics were going to hell. I thought it odd, but baptists tend to love fire and brimstone

I've also seen this occur with some methodist friends of mine and non-baptist evangelicals, and yes roman catholics. I suppose it's a convenient persuasion technique. If you believe your sect to be the only true version of christianity, then it's not hard to be coaxed into believing that you are being persecuted. This comes off as a bit out of touch with non-believers because christianity is the largest religion in the world.

Y'all have sects and beef like gangs over turf wars.

We certainly could, as these problems arent limited to Christianity.

I can go down the list, and you'll be hard pressed to not find any war, massacre, civil injustice, etc, that hadn't been "in gods name" or caused by religion in general.

Y'all have beefs like its 1980's dance battles. For all the religions who preach about peace, y'all sure have a lot of bloodshed within your ranks.

For family values, you sure do have a ton of creeps hiding behind the mask of religion.

For being about the word of Jesus, I don't see any of the mega million pastors letting homeless people stay in their multi million dollar mansions.

Hell, the Christians on this board can barely agree on anything.

So as far as I'm concerned, it's not my problem to be balanced in my arguments. You're not gonna convert me anyway.

Unfortunately, predators always find ways to hide effectively.

There are teachers who have molested kids ..... priests ..... babysitters ...... and just plain adults.

It's absolutely wrong, no matter what the people are, or pretend to be.

sports coaches... (weve had at least 2 last year)

anyone that can have access to children has the opportunity to manipulate them

I love all the stereotypes and hasty generalizations atheists make. When the facts don't support their argument, just use stereotypes and hasty generalizations.

So that because your sect is holier than thou, that means what in the grand scheme of things?

You're still Christian. And Christianity as a whole, along with all the other crap religions, have a history of violence that can't even be debated.

You trying to separate yourself as a Protestant is like people who go "black people do this...oh but not you, you're cool".

If you're gonna minimize it to all humans, then don't act like a follower of Jesus. You clearly aren't.