After deceiving his parishioners for five years, and the rest of the world for one day, the Rev. Jim Moats’ recently revealed that he was never a Navy SEAL.

Immediately after the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden on May 1, the Navy SEALs rose to celebrity status. They had successfully raided bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan and killed the world’s most wanted terrorist. On the quest to reach out to a former Navy SEAL and find out more about their life, The Patriot-News, known for their interviews with veterans, wrote a story on Saturday on Rev. Jim Moats after hearing he had been a former SEAL.

The next day, Moats shamefully confessed his story was 100 percent fake.

In fact, he said he never had SEALs training, nor was he accepted in the program.

He told The Patriot-News, “I never was in a class; I never served as an actual SEAL. It was my dream. … I don’t even know if I would have met the qualifications. I never knew what the qualifications were.”

The Patriot-News reporter, Dan Miller, heard about Moats because he had been telling his congregants at Christian Bible Fellowship Church in Newville, Pa., for five years that he had been a Navy SEAL and proved it with a gold Trident medal, only given to those who have completed the training. The medal can be bought at any military store.

But it’s okay, because he’s sorry and Jesus will forgive him:

“I bring a shame and a reproach upon the name of Christ, I bring a shame and a reproach upon my church, and I bring a shame and a reproach upon my family,” Moats confessed.

He wasn’t sorry enough to resign, though.

Investigators, working with the support of the Belgian Catholic Church received 475 complaints of child abuse committed in the 1950s through to the late 1980s by Catholic clergy.

“We can say that no congregation escapes sexual abuse of minors by one or several of its members,” the commission concluded.
The 200-page report, published on Friday, contains testimonies from some 124 anonymous victims, revealing that abuse for most began at the age of 12.

It noted a “high number of suicides” with 13 deaths and six attempts attributed to “sexual abuse by a cleric”.

“We are talking here about anal and oral abuse, forced and mutual masturbation,” said Peter Adriaenssens, the psychiatric specialist in paedophilia who chaired the commission. [...]

A woman, quoted in the report, testified that she was abused at age 17 by a priest and tried to seek help from a bishop in 1983.
“I told him ‘I have a problem with one of your priests’. He told me: ‘Ignore him and he will leave you alone’,” she said.

Mohammed Hanif Khan - Child Rapist

Meet Mohammed Hanif Khan. Mister Khan has taken it upon himself to prove that Imams can be child rapists too. By raping children. You can read the full story on the BBC news site, but I want to comment on one aspect of it, specifically this quote from the judge, Justice Dobbs:

“Your actions have had a significant effect on the community. The boys have been reviled by the community for bringing shame on the community.”

Um. Just. But. Wow. The boys are the ones who’ve brought shame on the community?! In similar fashion to Catholics who fell over themselves to ostracise children who had been raped for the terrible crime of being raped and daring to object to being raped, the Muslim “community” of Stoke-On-Trent have, it seems, reacted to a well-respected rapist by blaming the victims. Religious folk really do have fantastic moral compasses, don’t they? I can’t decide whether the judge has been very clever or particularly obtuse by phrasing it that way: “You’ve harmed the community, but the community are being a bunch of assholes about it anyway”. Either way, I find it deeply disturbing that a Judge could imply (if imply is the right word, I actually think it’s a pretty unambiguous wording) that the victims of a rapist have brought shame on their community by being raped. Nobody who thinks that way (or who is too stupid to realise that what they’re saying makes it sound like they think that way) has got any business being a judge.

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“Dr Albert Odulele, who runs Glory House International, admitted indecently assaulting a boy aged 14 and sexually assaulting a 21-year-old man – both former members of his congregation.” [Channel 4 News]

I was going to make some glib comments about this, but I just can’t bring myself to joke about a manipulative priest sexually assaulting a fourteen year old boy.

“[Odulele] admitted to police that he had been ‘battling’ with his sexuality for years. He denied the offences were pre-planned.”

Almost as if his sexuality was… Part of him… Like… It isn’t a choice to be attracted to males… Hmmmmm. I think I’ll just end with this last little snippet:

“Glory House International has been a registered charity for 18 years and has a turnover of £2 million a year.”

Just in case anybody was worried that evangelical Christianity hadn’t crossed the pond in its entirety…

The Rev. Grant Storms, the Christian fundamentalist known for his bullhorn protests of the Southern Decadence festival in the French Quarter, was arrested on a charge of masturbating at a Metairie park Friday afternoon.

Storms, 53, of 2304 Green Acres Road in Metairie, was taken into custody at Lafreniere Park after two women reported seeing him masturbating in the driver’s seat of his van, which was parked near the carousel and playground, a Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office report said.

The first woman told deputies she was taking her children to the playground and parked next to the van at about noon. As she was walking around her own vehicle, she noticed the van windows were down and the occupant was “looking at the playground area that contained children playing, with his zipper down…,” the report said. The woman noted that he was masturbating and quickly ushered her children out of her car.

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A televangelist admitted in front of a television audience that he cheated on his wife, an announcement he made to thwart people he said were trying to extort millions of dollars from him.

The Rev. Marcus Lamb made the confession Tuesday night on his show “Celebration” with his wife Joni Lamb by his side.

The couple also displayed a special message about the incident on the website of Daystar Television Network, the couple’s television network.

“At the top of the program, the Lambs shared a compelling, transparent account of a personal challenge in their marriage that occurred several years ago, involving an inappropriate relationship between Marcus and another woman,” the message said.

The couple explained that there were three people who said they would expose the affair if the couple’s ministry did not pay them $7.5 million.

Rev Cedric Miller, of Neptune, New Jersey, last week told 50 married church officials to delete their accounts with the social networking site or resign.

In the case, which was eventually dismissed, he testified that his wife, Kim, had an affair with the assistant, and that he and the man’s wife were often present at their meetings.

“I mean between the four of us,” Rev Miller said. “It was just, I mean there was touching … it was crazy, it was as wrong as wrong could get.”
Asked by a lawyer whether he was talking about “sex”, Rev Miller replied: “Yes”. He described their behaviour as “beyond what was appropriate”.

Rev Miller told the court that the meetings between the couples often took place after Thursday Bible study sessions and after church services on Sundays.

He said in a statement: “This was resolved at that time and accordingly we will not allow it to detract from our mission at hand to save as many marriages as we can.”

Ah, the irony. I’m always amazed people are dumb enough to follow people like him.