Tag Archives: child abuse

Baby boy dies after botched circumcision

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Ok, here’s the deal, folks; before you read this article, I have to warn you that you’re not going to like reading some of the details of this story. I’ve written a lot about male genital mutilation (colloquially known as ‘circumcision’) in the past, but for some reason, this one story sent visuals in my head that I can’t shake off. So, you’ve officially been warned.

The story begins in Manchester, where a young and naïve couple from Nigeria -having recently given birth to a baby boy – hired a nurse by the name of Grace Adeleye for the sum of 100 pounds to circumcise their infant son. Adeleye arrived with her own ‘medical instruments’: an ordinary pair of scissors and a bottle of olive oil. After asking for a bowl of hot water (an antiseptic in her eyes), she cut the foreskin without any anesthetic or disinfectant, and the resulting wound eventually led to enough blood loss that the baby died shortly after.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated event:

The court heard up to three children a month are admitted to the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital because of bleeding after home-based circumcisions – a danger the nurse should have been aware of.

Adeleye denies her negligence, but it’s obvious this idiot knew less than nothing about medicine. This kind of tragedy happens all the time to countless other children living in countries where their death is just another statistic, all in the name of religious traditions that have no place in the modern world.

Pedophile priest blames God for making him this way

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I’ve heard a lot of tortured explanations from the Catholic Church over the years as to why so many priests are sexually abusing children. Pope Benedict XVI claimed it was increased secularization that somehow made their theists behave so immorally. Homosexuality has also been blamed, despite the fact that as many female children are abused as males. Finally, though, one pedophile priest by the name of David Edwin Rapson in Australia has finally used a novel defense I think makes a bit more sense: He blamed God for making him that way:

A former Catholic priest accused of molesting boys at a Victorian school said, “God made us this way and it’s his fault” when a fellow priest urged him to resist

When he was finally confronted by a fellow priest, he responded to his accuser with “You’re one to talk. You’re the same as me….You know what we do here”, prompting me to think this must be yet another way these bastards get away with abuse for so long. Who’s going to report them? Their fellow molesters? Yeah, that fucking seems likely.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has recently OK’d a royal commission to look into the abuse after a police detective named Peter Fox wrote a letter to his premier begging him to open up an investigation. Fox felt both the police department and the Church had actively sabotaged any investigation into the matter, and an independent body needed to look into the matter. Surprisingly, it didn’t take long for the government to spring into action (yeah, I know how weird it is to even write that down). Now we only need to sit back and watch the horror unfold before our eyes. I hope you have a strong stomach, Aussies, because you’re about to be put to the test in the coming months.

The Catholic church really is full of pedophiles

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It’s difficult to actually assess just how corrupt the Catholic Church is, but judging by the testimony of Father Kevin Lee, the accusation often lobbied at the church – mainly that it provides an attractive employment opportunity for sexual abusers – seems legitimate. Lee, who was fired for marrying a woman (the nerve!), had been documenting allegations of abuse for years, and found himself frustrated by the inaction of both church officials and police. Even the press wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole.

In the course of my life as a priest I became aware that some of the other priests were actually pedophiles, and not necessarily becoming priests because they wanted to help people. They were pedophiles that were looking for opportunity… I saw a system of cover-up, a system of blind-eye turning and just ignorance of the fact is was happening.

You don’t need to be a cynic to understand the reasons for this. Since the very inception of the church – a creepy old boys club breathlessly anticipating the destruction of the world in a sea of blood – there’s been something fundamentally wrong with this organization. As early as 60 AD, reports of child abuse could already be found in a document entitled The Didache, which stipulates quite plainly that the priestly class is not to seduce young boys (guess it was a real problem after just a few years doing their shtick).

Even in the 11th century, when a priest wrote the Book of Gomorrah (a book largely condemning homosexuality), the author complained of a systematic cover-up of the rape of young boys. Evidently, this institution has a long and practiced history when it comes to providing shelter and attractive opportunities to offend (and get moved around for a fresh batch of innocents). If you wanted to offend and avoid going to jail, what career would you chose? How many other organizations provide this level of comfort and protection to people who sexually abuse children?

New South Wales Premier OKs inquiry into clergy abuse

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Tell me if this doesn’t sound like a kick ass movie: a police detective -convinced the police force has been helping clergy cover up sexual abuse- sends a letter to the premier urging him to open an investigation into the whole affair. If it wasn’t actually happening in New South Wales, I’d think maybe it was a cheesy John Grisham novel.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox (sounds like a movie name, right?) sent a letter to Premier Barry O’Farrell challenging him to open a royal commission to look into multiple abuse cover-ups by the Catholic Church, along with the co-operation of certain corrupt police officers. It appears this Australian Serpico has been investigating these abuses for over a decade, and found so many cases of abuse that he’s lost count.

“I can testify from my own experience that the church covers up, silences victims, hinders police investigations, alerts offenders, destroys evidence and moves priests to protect the good name of the church,” he wrote in his letter.

As you can imagine, his failure to follow the proper chain of command has angered a lot of people in his department, and his police department is throwing him under the bus (claiming the church has been co-operative, like we fucking believe that for one second). Still, it seems as though he’s managed to create enough of a stir that the premier has agreed to the idea. Now we simply have to wait and see all the horrible stories emerge. Just one more reason for Aussies to abandon this poison called religion.

Mother kills infant by stuffing Bible verses in her mouth

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And the mother of the year award goes to…

Christian fundamentalist Julia Lovemore, 41, killed daughter Faith by stuffing her mouth with paper then dousing her in white spirit and jumping up and down on her body.

She also poured wine all over her young daughter as well, before her husband finally showed up at the hospital with her dead baby in hand.

So, were there any signs that she was going to do something terrifying? You bet your sweet ass there were.

Lovemore’s aunt had reported her to authorities after becoming concerned over her ‘religious fervor’, saying she had distanced herself from her family, branding them ‘heathens’.

What can you do in a society that gives religion a free pass? The British press wants to blame the National Health Service for having failed to anticipate this woman’s actions, especially in light of the fact that she had already tried to kill her first child three years prior with a pillow.

I argue that it must have been difficult for them to properly diagnose her obvious mental illness for fear of interfering with her religious beliefs. How can one differentiate mental illness from religious piety? You can’t, really. The two have almost the exact same symptoms. I wouldn’t be surprised, in fact, if a large percentage of fundies have some sort of untreated mental illness. So long as religion continues to mask serious mental health problems, these kinds of tragedies will continue to be fairly routine.

Rev. Benedict Groeschel apologizes for brief moment of honesty

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Every once in while, a church leader will say something he actually thinks, and we’re given a snapshot into the mental lives of priests. As most of you can guess, it isn’t usually a pretty picture: religions are an old boys’ club that places fraternity over morality. This has allowed an institution like the Catholic Church to continue to harbor and defend child rapists. Even if you’ve never forced yourself on innocent kids, being part of this club warps your mind to such an extent, you actually try and defend the actions of these scumbags and instead try to blame the kids, who must have been seducing those poor priests all along, as was the case with Rev. Benedict Groeschel:

“Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him. A lot of the cases, the youngster — 14, 16, 18 — is the seducer…Well, it’s not so hard to see — a kid looking for a father and didn’t have his own — and they won’t be planning to get into heavy-duty sex, but almost romantic, embracing, kissing, perhaps sleeping but not having intercourse or anything like that…”

It’s those damn sexy kids: they can’t stop flaunting their under-developed asses in everyone’s face. Just like a girl wearing a revealing outfit in public, she’s obviously just asking to be assaulted. Why else would she dress like that?

Needless to say, when word got out that this dude was also trying to defend people who rape innocent kids, Groeschel did his best to appear apologetic. It didn’t go so well:

“I did not intend to blame the victim,” the Rev. Benedict Groeschel, of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, said Thursday. “A priest (or anyone else) who abuses a minor is always wrong and is always responsible.”

Hard to trust a guy who comes to the defense of anyone who molests kids, isn’t it? Has anyone given any thought to the victims of this seduction? Who will defend the Sanduskys of the future? Groeschel sure has:

“Here’s this poor guy – Sandusky – it went on for years. Interesting: Why didn’t anyone say anything? Apparently, a number of kids knew about it and didn’t break the ice. Well, you know, until recent years, people did not register in their minds that it was a crime. It was a moral failure, scandalous; but they didn’t think of it in terms of legal things.”

See, the abuse didn’t get reported because all those sexy kids really just wanted it… but of course he’s not trying to blame the victim. No sir, not one bit. I totally buy your apology, asshole, and apparently so does the man who defends the indefensible, Bill Donohue. He blamed Groeschel’s age and a recent car accident. Not sure how any of these things make you a rape apologist, but what do I know?

The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 265

This week, Ryan joins me as we tackle the problem of child torture in the Democratic Republic of Congo as we wrap up the last days of the Indigogo “Bible Stories” Campaign. We also feature a hilarious letter from a fan asking for their tithing monies to be spent on something useful instead of opulent.

The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 265
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Pastor apologizes for unintentionally getting caught

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A few days ago, pastor Sean Harris made headlines after he encouraged his parishioners to beat their children if they displayed any “gay” behavior. Needless to say, he found the attention less than desirable, and has since attempted to retract his statement. Unfortunately, like any homophobe caught in the act, his retraction is less than sincere:

“I apologize to anyone I have unintentionally offended,” Sean Harris, pastor of Berean Baptist Church wrote in a statement on his church’s website. “I did not say anything to intentionally offend anyone in the LGBT community.

He claims his speech was intended as a joke, but judging by all the “Amens” you hear during his speech, it’s clear the audience was rather receptive to his abusive message. His non-apology also rings hollow when statements like this are made:

Harris said in the sermon that same-sex couples are free to live together. He argued Tuesday that there was “not an ounce of hate being communicated in that,” but said in the sermon that such couples live together “in the most sick and ungodly way.”

It’s the whole: “I don’t hate you: God does” argument that gets old real fast. The fact Harris despises gay couples is undeniable, and any attempt not to look like a total asshole is impossible. What I find amusing in all of this is only a few days ago, Dan Savage delivered a speech to high school journalists condemning the Bible for promoting (among other things) homophobia. A few of the students walked out, and the religious right immediately screamed religious discrimination. Savage was essentially vindicated by the Harris’ sadistic and cruel comments, which demonstrated yet again the toxic effects of religious faith. Nice work, Danny-boy.

Cardinal refuses to step down despite abuse

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It doesn’t ever seem to stop, does it? As the Catholic Church slowly comes to terms with the fact their record of abuse, and failure to report said abuse, is slowly destroying their organization, Ireland, once a stronghold of Catholicism, is rapidly moving away from the faith in light of damning reports that show widespread sexual and physical abuse at the hands of priests.

The latest scandal involves Cardinal Sean Brady. According to an investigation by the BBC, in 1975 he was made aware of the abuse of several children at the hands of Fr Brendan Smyth, who would later turn out to be Ireland’s most prolific pedophile. When confronted with these powerful allegations, he did what any man of the cloth in his position would do: he swore the children to silence and covered it up.

While it is true that the abused boy’s father travelled with him to the interview, he was not allowed inside the room while his son was questioned…Nor did Brendan Boland [one of the abused boys] feel able to tell his father about what had taken place, as he was sworn to secrecy, upon the Bible, before leaving.

The Church’s stand on this is about as shockingly ignorant as one can get:

The Catholic Church has said that the “sole purpose of the oath” signed by Brendan Boland in Cardinal Brady’s presence was “To give greater force and integrity to the evidence given by Mr. Boland against any counter claim by Fr Brendan Smyth”.
The Church also points out that in 1975 “no State or Church guidelines for responding to allegations of child abuse existed in Ireland.”

Because without the law telling you specifically to report child abuse, you would just stand by and continue to let children get raped by these predators, am I right? You would if you’re the Cardinal Brady and the Catholic Church! Did I mention new laws forcing the Church to report abuse is being framed as an affront to their religious liberty by Bill Donohue and his Catholic League?

Father wants to protect child from reality

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When you stop placating people and call them out on their bullshit, you’re bound to hurt their feelings. While some of us are comfortable with the idea of letting dumb or dangerous ideas thrive under the banner of “tolerance”, there are those brave few who cannot stay silent in the face of the injustices brought on by antiquated religious belief. When Dan Savage recently spoke to students at a High School Journalism Conference, he condemned the Bible for being used to justify not only bigotry, but slavery. This prompted a few of the students to walk out in protest, and one of them yelled “that’s bull!” (obviously, this young person, like most Christians, have never read this book). Enter this man, who echoes the sentiment of so many of his fellow believers who were shocked someone would be so incensed as to dare call these guys on their shit.

How does he justify this behavior? He makes a claim leveled by many by saying “there are people using the Bible as an excuse for gay bullying, because it says in Leviticus and Romans that being gay is wrong.” This is wrong on two counts. First, there are not “many people” doing anything even remotely like “gay bullying” and there is not one single account I have heard of where someone specifically used the Bible as their justification for bullying gays.

If you bury your head in the sand deep enough, that would explain why you’re totally unaware your fellow Christians bring up the Bible as a way of justifying their homophobia on a daily fucking basis. How can you even talk to someone who is that willfully ignorant? Does he not watch TV? Has he not heard one speech by the Pope, or that moron Bradlee Dean, or the countless other preachers continually quoting Leviticus?

It is a lesson about intolerant people claiming Christians are intolerant, bullying by those who claim to help the bullied, and hypocrisy from the same people who point the finger at others claiming they are hypocrites.

The irony here is a few days ago, another beautiful young man committed suicide because of the bullying he suffered at the hands of religious homophobes. His death coincided with a recent Southern Baptist Conference decrying the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act because it included provisions for LGBT victims of domestic abuse. Dan Savage’s response to these kinds of tragedies cuts through the bullshit: the majority of perpetrators of homophobia are unmistakably religious.

In the light of criticism, Christians have declared their religious freedoms are violated by any pro-gay legislation. This sort of tactic has been used before: Southern Baptists argued during the civil rights movement that laws designed to prevent discrimination against blacks violated their religious freedom (the Bible is pro-slavery, after all). In the face of constant pressure to conform, they eventually abandoned this strategy, although there are a few remnants of it here and there (bigotry does not disappear easily).

Dan Savage, as is the case with those who hate and do not understand Christianity, is simply ignorant. My task in educating my children will be to teach them how to deal with that ignorance, intolerance and oppression, simply because they are Christians.

What most Christians fail to understand is many non-believers and critics of the religion were themselves entangled in it at one time. Survey after survey proves our understanding of religious materials is superior to believers. That’s not very surprising. The more you uncover about faith, the more you realize it’s a smoke and mirror show. Ignorance, as it turns out, is the only way to remain a believer. They have a fancy word for it: they call it faith.

Parents acquitted of torturing daughter thanks to “religious freedom”

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In our brave new world, multicultural and diverse as it is, our moral sensibilities can often be rattled by the brutishness and ignorance of many cultural traditions that make their way to our shores. As some of you reading this blog may remember, my heart bleeds for the way African children are tortured due to a dangerous mix of new and ancient religious superstitions. The Christian crusade to possess Africa has re-ignited the belief in witchcraft, and the victims tend to be unwanted children. The sheer amount of suffering happening in places like Uganda and Nigeria is enough to make one ill, but it gets worse when this type of violence is excused as merely a matter of “religious freedom”.

When Swedish prosecutors attempted to bring two Congolese parents to justice after they systematically tortured their daughter, the defense was able to argue that exorcisms were part of their religious freedom. Combined with too little physical evidence (those horrible scars could have been anything, they say), the prosecution was unable to get a conviction.

I find myself in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with my right wing counterparts who despair multiculturalism, albeit for entirely different reasons. I don’t believe that all cultural achievements are equal. I believe many traditions are barbaric, dehumanizing, misogynistic and unworthy of being maintained. Religious freedom is simply a new way of framing dangerous or hateful practices in such a way that masks their true nature. Why are we so fucking gutless in the face of religion? The torture of any child is indefensible, and we have laws to protect them. Why do we chose instead to protect ideas whose time has long since passed?

Church stages kidnapping, facing charges

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When your main weapon in the war of ideas is fairy-tale nonsense, I can see how some religionists might feel a little intimidated with reality. Unlike those ‘heady’ days in the past when any old idea passed muster so long as a man of the cloth gave it a thumbs up (like the 17th century edict that declared the beaver a fish), our modern understanding of the natural world has only served to further marginalize faith. As church attendance continues to fall throughout the Western World (32% of us are faithless, according to this recent Gallop poll), desperation is beginning to set in. How else can you explain this story: a Church in Pennsylvania, called ‘Glad Tidings Assembly of God Church’, is facing charges after members staged an elaborate kidnapping hoax in an effort to ‘inform’ kids of the dangers of ‘religious persecution’.

Adults, including an off-duty cop, brandished weapons and put bags over the heads of the children, ages 13 through 18, and forced them into a church van. The group was driven to the home of an assistant pastor, who was presented before the group with a seemingly bloodied and bruised face, according to Dauphin County District Attorney Fran Chardo.

One of the adults used a real AK-47, though the gun was unloaded, Chardo said.

One of the teens, who can’t be identified, seems to be genuinely messed up from the experience (that’s religion for you). If you’re wondering exactly what these morons hoped to accomplish by brandishing weapons and threatening physical harm to children, the explanation from the pastor Pastor John Lanza won’t do much to enlighten you. He tries to justify it by claiming this staged kidnapping would…

secure the shock value of it and to make it much more real because those who are threatened don’t have a warning. It was a youth event to illustrate what others have encountered on a regular basis.”

Well, considering that holding a minor without their consent is a crime punishable by 10 years in jail, perhaps these adults should be given a taste of things to come by staging an elaborate ‘prison’ scenario so they can benefit from illustrating what they can expect on a regular basis in the big house.

Mother gets probation for imprisoning and torturing daugter

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What do you do when your uppity, independent minded 19 year old daughter has the gall to refuse an arranged marriage with a stranger twice her age? Why, you burn her with a hot spoon, that’s what! What better way to preserve your cultural heritage than by torturing your loved ones into submission. Hey, isn’t that what Islam means?

Yusra Farhan won’t be winning any “Mother of the Year” awards, especially considering this isn’t the first time she’s been caught abusing her daughter. In Feb 8th, the whole troop was arrested after they tied the poor girl (who has not been named) to a bed and beat her mercilessly after she was caught talking to a boy. Since this violates their “Iraqi culture”, they decided that the best way to solve the problem was through ritualistic abuse. You know what they say: families that commit felonies together, stay together.

Catholic priest in charge of sex scandal caught with kiddy porn

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It’s beginning to look like any effort to “clean up” the Catholic church of pedophiles is an impossible task. Consider this: Pope Benedict XVI’s right hand man in charge of helping him track down pedo priests, Father Riccardo Seppia, was arrested last May when he was caught trying to arrange sexual encounters with his drug dealer. Now, it seems as though another priest in charge of investigating pederasts has been arrested of actually being one. Married Jarvis [Not a name but a title for some reason] was recently commissioned by the Diocese of Plymouth, England to ensure that pedophiles would not have access to children. He’s been fired from his job after police found over 4000 sexually explicit pictures of minors. Way to clean house, guys.

It’s become almost normal for this kind of thing to happen. We should be utterly shocked and dismayed at the carelessness displayed by the Catholic Church. It’s the equivalent of putting Ted Bundy on a FBI serial killer task force and being surprised when all the women on your team keep disappearing.

Why should we trust this institution to do the right thing? It’s been covering up sexual scandals for the past 20 centuries, and I doubt they’ll stop anytime soon. If you want them to stop fucking little children, we’re going to have to convince a billion of their followers to stop giving them billions of dollars every year. We’d also need to take the huge sums of money they have in the bank and give it to the countless kids who have been scarred for life by these bastards. Sure, it won’t give them their life back, but I think a life of material comfort courtesy of the very institution that covered that shit up sounds like a bit of justice to me.

Check out this cool video below exposing how long the church has known about sexual abuse in its own organization. Educational, to say the least.

Cult leader shoots 4 year old because he “might be gay”

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What do you get when you take a violent, homophobic young man and combine it with the power of religion? You get two deaths, a slam dunk for the prosecution, and the feeling that all of this could have been prevented if people stopped being such gigantic suckers. The murderer in question, Peter Lucas Moses, had his followers call him Lord, and used fear and isolation to control them.

Prosecutors said the case came to police’s attention in February when a young woman escaped from a house at 2109 Pear Tree Lane house, where she had lived with McKoy, Jadon, eight other children and three women charged in connection with the two slayings – Jadon’s mother, Vania Rae Sisk, 25, Lavada Quinzetta Harris, 40, and Larhonda Renee Smith, 40.

One of the two deaths was a 4 year old child, killed because Moses was convinced he was gay. An incident where young Jadon “slapped” another child in the buttocks was all the gusto Moses needed. He made his “wives” set up sound equipment in the garage, and with the music blasting in the background, he shot poor Jadon in the head.

He snuffed the life out of Antoinetta Yvonne McKoy a few months later for an equally arbitrary and stupid reason: she apparently lacked the ability to conceive, and expressed a desire to leave. At first, he tried to strangle her to death with an extension cord, but once that failed, he used the same gun he shot Jadon with to finish the job.

What’s even more messed up about this story is Antoinetta had managed to escape to a neighbor at first, who didn’t call the police because she thought the woman may have been mentally deranged. How I pity the false hope McKoy must have had as she was dragged (literally) back into the house. I bet she was really hoping the police would show up. They did, but months later after an escaped cult member told them about the murders. It kind of makes you wonder how many cults out there have similar skeletons in their closet, eh?