Church leader arrested on sex charges in northeast N.M.


By DEBORAH BAKER, Associated Press Writer

The leader of an apocalyptic sect in northeastern New Mexico was arrested Tuesday and charged with felony sex crimes against children.

State police arrested Wayne Bent, 66, on three counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor and three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, said Department of Public Safety spokesman Peter Olson.

Bent was being held on $500,000 bond at the Union County Detention Center in Clayton and was scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday.

According to the affidavit for the arrest warrant, Bent is alleged to have touched three girls in 2006 and 2007. All of them were under 18 at the time, and one of them was 12.

Bent, who goes by the name of Michael Travesser and claims to be the Messiah, is the leader of The Lord Our Righteousness Church, whose members moved in 2000 to a remote, former ranch near the Colorado line.

The state Children, Youth and Families Department recently had removed two girls and one boy from the site, and said it was interviewing a third girl who had left the compound earlier.

Those three girls are the same girls cited in the affidavit, according to Olson.

A posting on the church's Web site attributed to Bent's grown son, Jeff Bent, said his father was arrested on "false charges."

Bent has acknowledged having sex with followers — including his daughter-in-law — and lying naked with virgins. He said the virgins asked for sex, but he refused.

In a posting on the church's Web site, he denied that there was any molestation of children or adults at the community, which Bent's followers call Strong City. A former member of the sect has estimated there are about 50 people on the compound. The three children removed last month are believed to have been the only minors there.

Bent accused the state of kidnapping the children.

A posting attributed to Bent on the church's Web site Monday said:

"Jesus had not committed any crimes, so the authorities had to invent some crimes to crucify him over. It is the same for me also. I have committed no crimes, but many crimes are being imagined and concocted in the minds of men to try and kill me again."

Bent had predicted the end of the world last Oct. 31.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080506/...ldren_seized_5 <http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080506/ap_on_re_us/church_children_seized_5>

L.A. parishes help pay archdiocese's $720 million in abuse settlements



[COLOR=#333333 ! important]With gifts large and small, they're heeding Mahony's appeal for help in paying victims.[/color]
[COLOR=#999999 ! important]By Rebecca Trounson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 25, 2008 [/color]
Blessed with a nest egg of nearly $1.5 million, a Woodland Hills parish donated almost all of it, leaving just $1,000 in its savings account. An Encino church offered a $100,000 interest-free loan. And a Boyle Heights parish decided it could spare $500 after ruling out the idea of raising money with tamale sales.

With gifts large and small, parishes across the sprawling Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles are answering an appeal from Cardinal Roger M. Mahony to help the archdiocese dig out of the financial hole resulting from its multimillion-dollar legal settlements with victims of clergy sexual abuse.

"It's important that we the church take care of this," said Father Scott Santarosa of Dolores Mission Catholic Church in Boyle Heights, which gave the $500 from its limited unrestricted funds. "It's like a family trying to take care of itself. Every family has parts that break down or need help. That's part of the church too, and we can't turn our backs."

Some parishes have told the archdiocese they cannot contribute because they are too poor or in debt from construction projects or real estate purchases. Others have yet to decide, their pastors said in interviews. But whatever the circumstance, the choice is not easy, several said.

"Either way, it's controversial," said Msgr. David A. Sork, pastor of St. John Fisher Church in Rancho Palos Verdes, who said he is praying about the issue and consulting parish leaders but has not yet decided. "It's a tough one."

On the one hand, Sork said, his congregants are asking why they should pay for mistakes that occurred in other parishes, not theirs. "Or they say, 'Why do we have to pay for something that happened 30 years ago?' That's hard for many to understand," he said. "But not helping means the archdiocese's services to all parishes, including this one, will be hampered."

Mahony made his request in a series of meetings around the archdiocese between January and March. Speaking to clergy and lay leaders, Mahony offered details of his financial recovery plan for the archdiocese, which has been staggered by abuse settlements totaling $720 million, including last summer's record $660-million agreement, in hundreds of civil cases.

More @ http://www.latimes.com/news/local/va...,0,72597.story

I am glad people are coming forth and the authorities are actually going after these evil people.

General knowledge of the current events! that is what is the point!

It's news..

It's a piece of current news posted in the World Affairs forum; what's wrong with that?

All I can say is may Allah guide you...

I don't need to become a mod to cite you forum rules.. I have actually turned the mod job down on LI.

it is against forum rules to derange a topic to another simply because you don't like the subject matter.. as you can clearely see in the thread title.. 'church leader arrested on sex charges' you need to either comment on the topic or post in relation to it but not tangentially as it suits your fancy

this is what a related topic looks like

Vatican told bishops to cover up sex abuseExpulsion threat in secret documents

Read the 1962 Vatican document (PDF file)
Antony Barnett, public affairs editor The Observer, Sunday August 17 2003 Article historyThe Vatican instructed Catholic bishops around the world to cover up cases of sexual abuse or risk being thrown out of the Church.
The Observer has obtained a 40-year-old confidential document from the secret Vatican archive which lawyers are calling a 'blueprint for deception and concealment'. One British lawyer acting for Church child abuse victims has described it as 'explosive'.

The 69-page Latin document bearing the seal of Pope John XXIII was sent to every bishop in the world. The instructions outline a policy of 'strictest' secrecy in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse and threatens those who speak out with excommunication.

They also call for the victim to take an oath of secrecy at the time of making a complaint to Church officials. It states that the instructions are to 'be diligently stored in the secret archives of the Curia [Vatican] as strictly confidential. Nor is it to be published nor added to with any commentaries.'

The document, which has been confirmed as genuine by the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, is called 'Crimine solicitationies', which translates as 'instruction on proceeding in cases of solicitation'.

It focuses on sexual abuse initiated as part of the confessional relationship between a priest and a member of his congregation. But the instructions also cover what it calls the 'worst crime', described as an obscene act perpetrated by a cleric with 'youths of either sex or with brute animals (bestiality)'.

Bishops are instructed to pursue these cases 'in the most secretive way... restrained by a perpetual silence... and everyone... is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office... under the penalty of excommunication'.

Texan lawyer Daniel Shea uncovered the document as part of his work for victims of abuse from Catholic priests in the US. He has handed it over to US authorities, urging them to launch a federal investigation into the clergy's alleged cover-up of sexual abuse.

He said: 'These instructions went out to every bishop around the globe and would certainly have applied in Britain. It proves there was an international conspiracy by the Church to hush up sexual abuse issues. It is a devious attempt to conceal criminal conduct and is a blueprint for deception and concealment.'

British lawyer Richard Scorer, who acts for children abused by Catholic priests in the UK, echoes this view and has described the document as 'explosive'.

He said: 'We always suspected that the Catholic Church systematically covered up abuse and tried to silence victims. This document appears to prove it. Threatening excommunication to anybody who speaks out shows the lengths the most senior figures in the Vatican were prepared to go to prevent the information getting out to the public domain.'

Scorer pointed out that as the documents dates back to 1962 it rides roughshod over the Catholic Church's claim that the issue of sexual abuse was a modern phenomenon.

He claims the discovery of the document will raise fresh questions about the actions of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales.

Murphy-O'Connor has been accused of covering up allegations of child abuse when he was Bishop of Arundel and Brighton. Instead of reporting to the police allegations of abuse against Michael Hill, a priest in his charge, he moved him to another position where he was later convicted for abusing nine children.

Although Murphy-O'Connor has apologised publicly for his mistake, Scorer claims the secret Vatican document raises the question about whether his failure to report Hill was due to him following this instruction from Rome.

Scorer, who acts for some of Hill's victims, said: 'I want to know whether Murphy-O'Connor knew of these Vatican instructions and, if so, did he apply it. If not, can he tell us why not?'

A spokesman for the Catholic Church denied that the secret Vatican orders were part of any organised cover-up and claims lawyers are taking the document 'out of context' and 'distorting it'.

He said: 'This document is about the Church's internal disciplinary procedures should a priest be accused of using confession to solicit sex. It does not forbid victims to report civil crimes. The confidentiality talked about is aimed to protect the accused as applies in court procedures today. It also takes into consideration the special nature of the secrecy involved in the act of confession.' He also said that in 1983 the Catholic Church in England and Wales introduced its own code dealing with sexual abuse, which would have superseded the 1962 instructions. Asked whether Murphy-O'Connor was aware of the Vatican edict, he replied: 'He's never mentioned it to me.'

Lawyers point to a letter the Vatican sent to bishops in May 2001 clearly stating the 1962 instruction was in force until then. The letter is signed by Cardinal Ratzinger, the most powerful man in Rome beside the Pope and who heads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - the office which ran the Inquisition in the Middle Ages.

Rev Thomas Doyle, a US Air Force chaplain in Germany and a specialist in Church law, has studied the document. He told The Observer: 'It is certainly an indication of the pathological obsession with secrecy in the Catholic Church, but in itself it is not a smoking gun.

'If, however, this document actually has been the foundation of a continuous policy to cover clergy crimes at all costs, then we have quite another issue. There are too many authenticated reports of victims having been seriously intimidated into silence by Church authorities to assert that such intimidation is the exception and not the norm.

'If this document has been used as a justification for this intimidation then we possibly have what some commentators have alleged, namely, a blueprint for a cover-up. This is obviously a big "if" which requires concrete proof.'

Additional research by Jason Rodrigues

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003...hildprotection



Now, are we clear?

I think we can all go out and look for articles which present other religions and worldviews in a negative light.
The question is, why would we want to? What does it achieve??

It's good thing to have a world affairs section and to share news with other people, but perhaps we need to search our own hearts as to what our intentions really are?
Is it truly to share news? Or to spread hatred and cause division?

May God guide us all and give us his peace. Salaam

Good question Glo..

I was indeed wondering the same after your last few posts in the mixed female section!
When does inquiry border upon malice in your book?

cheers

I never heard about this church before but what he is doing its not moral at all.

And that ladies and gentleman is a healthy intelligent reply to the topic!

peace Tania

Why is this turd still here?

Iraqi violence has nothing to do with Islam, I am Iraqi (well at least my parents are). I am not afraid for my religion.

yes but Iraqi's are muslims, well...at least most of them are.
And the fight that is going on between them is between SHIA AND SUNNAH, which are both muslims! So you are basically showing how muslims turn against each other. Nothing wrong with that, your showing us news, and we are showing you news, now what is wrong with that???
Oh and if your parents are iraqi then you are iraqi, lemme gues...ur not proud to be what u are?