Immorality

Below is Chapter 9 of my book on religion, “Disbelief”.

                                                          SHAME ON YOU

 Many good people, compassionate and care-giving by nature, have donned clerical robes.  If men are to believe in anything, they’ve got to trust their priest to be honest, selfless, and working on a divinely-inspired agenda.  And, one would think that God is very particular about who is speaking and acting in his name, and would mete out terrible punishment for those who misuse the clerical collar.

Apparently, this is not the case, at least in this world.

Creative Writing

A case against the validity and historicity of the New Testament has been made in previous chapters.  That important Christian leaders over the centuries developed myths and passed them off as factual events is obvious…when compared against actual facts, actual people, and actual events that have been recorded by historians at the same time in history.  It is telling that no one heard of Jesus and his apostles, their magnificent deeds, or wonderful speeches until hundreds of years afterward.  And, then, miraculously, non-eyewitness holy men were able to recount every word ever spoken by Jesus of Nazareth.  In a nutshell, the Gospels, Acts, etc. simply do not pass the smell test.

The dishonesty of high-ranking Christian clerics only became worse as they began to accumulate power as “Catholics”, the preferred (and, then, later official) religion of the Roman Empire.  At first, they set their sights on absolute dominion over all Christian sects.  Then, they came after non-Christians.  Later, they targeted competing Catholic claims.  And, finally, they attempted to stake a claim to all matters, religious and secular.  Forgery of official documents was a key instrument in their plan for world dominion.

Duping citizens and officials in the Dark Ages was a fairly easy matter.  Men were credulous and ignorant, thanks to an official religion of the State which required great belief and derided knowledge.  This had been a critical part of the Church’s master design: denigrate learning and emphasize absolute obedience to whatever drivel the Church was expounding.  If Church officials said that they’d found a lost document or “proof” critical to some issue, the faithful bought the story “hook, line, and sinker”.  This included, apparently, royalty and civic officials.  Of course, they had to, because they were Catholics, too.  It was the law of the land by that time.  And, as they had been taught, the Bishop spoke for God.

Following are listed a few monumental forgeries that evidence the Roman Catholic Church’s history of greed and lust for power:

The Apostolic Constitutions – These Constitutions, purported to be dictated by the Apostles, laid down all the intricacies of organization of several centuries later, including elaborate chapters “concerning bishops”, presbyters, deacons, all kinds of clergy, liturgies, and Church proceedings and services, undreamed of by “apostles” or in the “apostolic age”.

Included in the constitutions are quotes like “we, the twelve apostles of the Lord, who are now together…”, and, “I, Peter, say…”  The instructions were supposedly gathered from the apostles and handed down by Saint (later Pope) Clement of Rome.  The Constitutions were held generally in high regard and served as the basis for Church legislation…as late as 1563.

Modern historical criticism later determined them to be 4^th century forgeries.  However, for more than one thousand years they formed the groundwork and foundation of some of the most extravagant pretensions of the Church.

The Apostolic Canons – These are a collection of ancient ecclesiastical decrees concerning the government and discipline of the Church.  In a word, they are a handy summary of the statutory legislation of the primitive Church.  They claim to be the very work of the Apostles themselves, at least according to their disciple, Saint Clement.

In the 6^th century, Justinian   recognized the Apostolic Canons as the work of the Twelve, and confirmed them as ecclesiastical law.  Some of the material was included in the Decretum Gratiani, an 11^th century textbook on Church canon law, which was used in law schools during the Middle Ages.

The Apostolic Canons were later exposed as frauds, “from the same pious forging hand”, says the Catholic Encyclopedia.  Experts claim they were written at the end of the 4^th century.  This was the same time that all manner of theological mischief was being accomplished by Emperor Theodosius I and his court of Catholic advisors.

The Liber Pontificalis – This official Church document, “The Book of the Popes”, is notorious for its accounts of the early and mythical “successors of Saint Peter”.  It purports to be a “history of the popes, beginning with St. Peter and continued down to the fifteenth century, in the form of biographies” of their respective Holinesses of Rome.

Modern research has shown that the first series of biographies, from St. Peter to Felix III (died in 530) were compiled as late as the 6^th century.  The original compiler used information from a host of sources which have since been discredited by biblical scholars.  Included in the accomplishments of the early Popes are papal decrees which they never issued.  Or, in some cases, it is claimed that a pope issued a decree that has been lost or mislaid.  Later Catholic forgers developed pontifical letters suitable for the occasion, to fill in the gaps.

The Conversion of Constantine – According to Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, the “Father of Church History”, Emperor Constantine was converted to Christianity before his historic victory over rival Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge in 312.  In Eusebius’ laudatory, “Life of Constantine”, written after the Emperor’s death, the Bishop tells of a fiery cross that appeared in the heavens to herald God’s support of Constantine’s army.

Tellingly, this portentous event was omitted in Eusebius’ History of the Church, despite the fact that he devoted large parts of Books IX and X to Constantine.  No mention is made of the fiery cross in the sky.  Of course, the still-pagan Emperor was alive at the time of publication (in 326), and would have noticed the writer’s creative license.

Further fibbing in the” Life of Constantine” included purported chats between God and the Emperor, the Almighty’s newest bosom buddy.  Left out are the details of Constantine’s life, including the fact that he murdered his wife’s father, his sister Anastasia’s husband, his nephew, his wife, his former counselor, his sister Constantine’s husband, and the beheading of his own son Crispus.  The last one occurred in 326, after he was converted to Christianity (according to Eusebius).

Also omitted was the fact that Constantine cautiously denied himself the saving Christian rite of baptism until he was on his deathbed, in Nicomedia, in the year 337 A.D.  However, he was still a practicing pagan when he died.  Until death he remained Pontifex Maximus, or Sovereign Pontiff of the Pagan religion, a title which the Christian bishops could not arrogate until the Christian Emperors abandoned it many years later.  On his death, he was dually baptized with blood and by deathbed Christian rite.  He was, after a fashion, “covering his bets”, both Christian and pagan.

Constantine “The Great” died an Arian Christian, not a Catholic.  He did not ascribe to the Trinitarian concept (recall the Nicene compromise that he brokered), and carried the disbelief of the inspired dogma to his grave.  Arian theology was orthodox at the time of his death, but later was declared illegal under Theodosius I.  So, the Emperor who legitimized Christianity actually died an unrepentant heretic.

So, was he really a “converted” Catholic at all?

The Acts of Saint Sylvester – This is an account of the early piety of Emperor Constantine.  It alleges that Constantine had a vision of St. Peter and St. Paul, who directed the Emperor to go to Sylvester, then the Bishop of Rome, in order to be cured of leprosy.  He was cured, of course, and was immediately baptized by Sylvester.  In gratitude, Constantine had given a substantial amount of authority to the office of the bishop of Rome in addition to numerous allotments of land and property.

Like most other “actual events” invented by the Catholic Church, this pious falsehood was late arriving.  It began to be circulated in the 8^th century, roughly five hundred years after the events were supposed to have happened.

Pope Adrian I induced Charlemagne to found the Papal States based on “The Acts of Saint Sylvester” and another shameless forgery, “The Donation of Constantine”.

The Donation of Constantine – This brazen dishonesty was, perhaps, the ultimate deathbed legacy.  In it, the dying Emperor Constantine conferred on the Pope and his successors:  (a) primacy over all other bishops and eastern patriarchs;  (b) senatorial privileges and regalia to the clergy; and, (c)  Roman Catholic Church possession of imperial palaces, Rome itself, and the entire western Roman Empire.

The legacy was used by a number of Popes to legitimize independence over the Byzantine emperors and claim superiority over all rivals, ecclesiastic and secular.  Pope Leo IX, in 1054, used the “Donatio” to prove to the Patriarch of Constantinople that the Holy See of Rome was the rightful head of all the Church.  The Patriarch of the Eastern world rejected the claims of papal primacy, and subsequently the Catholic Church was split in two in the Great East-West Schism of 1054.

The “Donation of Constantine” was denounced as a forgery by two separate Church researchers in the 15^th century.

The Forged Letter of St. Peter – Pepin the Younger was the first King of the Franks from the Carolingian line that later produced Charlemagne.  Pepin obtained his throne with the help of Pope Zachary, who declared the Frank kingdom to be vacant.  Pope Stephen II later crowned Pepin King of the Franks in 751, using as authority an autographed letter from St. Peter himself.

Of course, St. Peter had died approximately seven hundred years previously, but such was the arrogance of the Church that it shamelessly invented the preposterous letter.  Pope Stephen’s forgery was described in the Historians’ History of the World as follows: “The pontiff dictated his letter in the name of the apostle Peter, closely imitating his epistles, and speaking in a language which implied that he was possessed of an authority to anoint or dethrone kings, and to perform the offices, not of a messenger, or a teacher sent from God, which is the highest characteristic of an apostle, but of a delegated minister of His power and justice”.

The letter also granted the Frankish king with the title of the former representative of the Byzantine Empire in Italy (i.e. Patricius), and was assigned the duty of protecting the privileges of the Holy See.  In other words, protecting the Vatican from the Lombards, who then controlled most of Italy, including Rome. 

The Symmachian Forgeries – These are a sheaf of documents forged by, or on behalf of, Pope St. Symmachus (498-514).  The purpose of the documents was to further papal pretensions of the independence of the Bishops of Rome from the just criticisms and judgment of ecclesiastical tribunals, and putting them above law, clerical and civil.

These forgeries were produced during a dispute between Pope St. Symmachus and the anti-pope Laurentius.  It was the position of Pope St. Symmachus that the Roman bishop could not be judged by any court composed of other bishops, and the forged letters provided (false) testimony supporting that position from alleged earlier Church decisions.

The False Decretals of Isadore – These are a famous collection of canon laws composed in the middle of the 9^th century, making use of documents written long after the times of the popes to whom they are attributed.

Upon these false decrees the Church built a great fabric of papal supremacy over the different national churches.  They provided the Church with a legal system suited to any emergency, and which gave it unlimited authority through the Christian world in causes spiritual and over persons ecclesiastical.  The forgeries produced an immense extension of papal power, transformed the Church into an absolute monarchy, and made the pontiff the supreme judge of the whole Christian world.  It also prepared the way for the great attempt to convert the states of Europe into a theocratic priest-kingdom, with the pope at its head.

The forged documents, which included “papal edicts” as far back as “Pope” Clement, were actually manufactured by the Church in the 9^th century.  The Eastern Catholic Church never accepted the Decretals, and this was part of the cause of the Great Schism, which divided the Christians into Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodoxt.

By the 10^th century, the Church had set the table for its dominion.  According to papal historian Joseph McCabe, “There was no need for further forgeries.  Now securely established on its basis of forged donations of temporal power and territory, forged decretals stating its spiritual powers, and forged lives of saints and martyrs, the papacy was so strong and prosperous that the popes actually dreamed of forming sort of a United States of Europe with themselves as virtual presidents.  Nearly every country was in some ingenious way made out to be a fief of the Papacy and bound to recognize the Pope as its feudal monarch.”

A review of the Catholic Encyclopedia, an official organ of the Roman Catholic Church, reveals that the Church acknowledges the dishonesty of popes, bishops, and other Church officials who participated in these forgeries.  But, one is hard-pressed to find a sincere apology for such behavior.  Once again, the “edification of the Church” seems to be paramount, the “end justifies the means”, and so forth.

It is not surprising.  What are we to expect from the folks who invented the Trinity?

The “True Cross”

The mythology that is the New Testament is filled with stories of amazing people, miracles, persecution, and the like.   None of the individuals named in the stories have ever been connected to a real person who walked the earth and was observed by credible individuals.  All of these heroes died without a trace, leaving no writings, no corpse, no estate, and no relatives.  Jesus of Nazareth is but one example.  The Apostles Peter and Paul are others.

According to the biblical tale, Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, arose from the dead, and (according to the Apostle Paul, who wasn’t there) he was then observed by at least 500 witnesses in Jerusalem.  Despite the fact that no human being had ever experienced this before while claiming to be the Son of God, there is, surprisingly, no historical record of anyone venerating the site of the Jesus’ crucifixion, or the site of his resurrection until the 4^th century.

It was left for ex-Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine, on a visit to the Holy Lands in 326, to find the site of the Holy Sepulchre.  This was an amazing discovery, particularly since the Romans had twice destroyed the city of Jerusalem.  In fact, after the Bar-Kochba rebellion, the Roman army razed the walled city so that “not one stone was left upon another” (a slight exaggeration, since the Western Wall still stands!), the site was allegedly plowed under as a mark of infamy, and the ground was said to have been sown with salt so that nothing might every grow there again.  Later, a pagan city was erected over the old Jerusalem, and a great Temple of Venus was erected on a suitable spot.

This was the very place that “Saint” Helena is supposed to have directed her Christian friends to dig.  Sure enough, under the Temple of Venus there was an ancient tomb…which, according to Church officials, turned out to be the actual sepulchre that Jesus arose from.  Of course, there was no one around to verify this, after three hundred years.

But, the good news was yet to follow.  In an adjacent underground room or cellar someone had stored the whole apparatus of the Crucifixion:  the three identical crosses whereon had hung Christ and the two thieves; the very nails wherewith they had been fastened; the precise spear which had pierced Jesus’ side; the cruel crown of thorns which tore his brow; the holy seamless coat which he had worn; and, the sacred shroud in which the dead God was buried.  Also in the room was “a separate piece of wood, on which were inscribed in white letters in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, the following words: Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews”.

It was an incredible find, easily surpassing the fabulous treasure trove of King Tut.  Its significance to the Christian world was inestimable, lending veracity to the Gospels, etc.  And, yet, the report on these wondrous discoveries by Bishop Macarius, who allegedly accompanied the ex-Empress, wasn’t mentioned until the mid-5^th century (over 100 years later!) by Church historians Socrates and Sozomen.  Now, how can that happen?  And, why?  Well, maybe it’s because the discoveries were never made as described, and the Church waited many generations after the fact so that they could lie about them with no one to challenge the falsehoods.

As the myth goes, there was a test of the three crosses found in the vault to determine which one was the True Cross, the one Jesus had been nailed to.  According to Sozamen, writing a century later, a sick woman was cured upon touching the True Cross after touching the other two in vain.  With the help of the holy relic “a dead person was also restored to life”.

Bishop Eusebius, who was a big-shot in the Church at that time, in his history entitled the Life of Constantine, gives a very circumstantial account of the visit of ex-Empress Helena to Jerusalem…and is silent as the grave about the discovery of any Cross of Christ or any of the other holy marvels.  The Bishop was well-known to ad-lib ficticious events into his “histories”, as long as they glorified the Church in any way.  Had Saint Helena’s discoveries been real, one can be assured that Eusebius would have featured them in his laudatory volumes about the reign of Constantine.  He didn’t mention a one, and he would have been in a position to know about any Church miracles of that time.

Within the Roman Catholic Church, Saint Helena’s miraculous discovery is known as “The Invention of the Cross”, which is exactly what it was.

By the way, if one can believe anything that the Church says, “very soon after the discovery of the True Cross, its wood was cut up into small relics and scattered throughout Christendom”.  This preposterous assertion is made by the Catholic Encyclopedia with a straight face.  That a one-of-a-kind relic, the most symbolic and important of the Faith, would not be safeguarded in the most secure vault in Christendom, is absurd on its face.  And, the idea that the Church fathers would desecrate such a relic, one that had Jesus’ own blood on it, is an outlandish idea.  Can you imagine the credibility that the Church would have gained by leaving the True Cross intact, exhibiting it in churches throughout Christendom, and using it to cure illness and bring back people from the dead?  It would have been the ultimate sales “closer”.  That is wasn’t used in that fashion is proof that the Church didn’t possess such a relic.

It was later determined that Saint Helena’s True Cross was a fake, despite the fact or fiction that bits and pieces of it had “filled the world with its miracles”, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia.

The supposed actual True Cross, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, was later reported to have been captured in 614 A.D. by Khosru II, King of Persia, when he took Jerusalem and massacred 90,000 good Christians.  Of course, the alleged possession of this treasure by blood-thirsty infidels was just another reason for future popes to sanction Crusades to regain Holy Land sacred sites and relics.

Nowadays there are so many supposed authentic pieces of the True Cross preserved in churches and private collections, and available for purchase on E-bay, that some wag recently commented, “If all of the relics of the True Cross were brought together, there would be enough wood to build Noah’s Ark.”

“A Sucker is Born Every Minute”

The amazing trove of Christian treasures allegedly found by Saint Helena kick-started an entire industry involved in the production, sale, and theft of supposed original Christian relics.  One has to wonder, though, if the “True Cross” allegedly found in Saint Helena’s hidden sepulchre vault was a fake, what did that make the other items allegedly found there?

Eventually, it became the norm for all Catholic churches to possess relics for adoration by the faithful.  In fact, the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 decreed that every altar in every Catholic church should contain a relic.  This leant a certain holiness to the church, where the dim-witted parishioners tip-toed around the shrines in awe…exactly as the Church intended.  And, it started a stampede in the “authentic” relic business.

Although the Church had “made its bones”, so to speak, on the disparagement of the pagans’ reverence of idols and symbolic religious regalia, once it gained power there was a Church-encouraged onslaught of idol-worshipping in the form of veneration of saints, their bones, and things that they’d touched.

Anything remotely associated with Jesus or his apostles was in high demand.  Supposedly, anything a saint had touched became “sacred” or “holy”, according to the esteemed Bishop Gregory of Tours, himself later named a “Saint”.  Accordingly, the faithful wanted to see and, if possible, own sacred relics, hoping that some of the “mystic potency” would brush off on them.

The Church actively encouraged such thoughts, even though the practice smacked of paganism and idol worship.  The Church, in fact, blamed the practice on the parishioner’s hard-to-break pagan habits.  As stated in the Catholic Encyclopedia, “Still, it would be presumptuous in such cases to blame the action of the ecclesiastical authority in permitting the continuance of a cult which extends back into remote antiquity.”  In other words, the Church was against paganism, but the cult-like veneration of Christian heroes was acceptable.

This fascination and obsession with presumed holy objects was reaffirmed by the Council of Trent in 1546, which forbade the consecration of any Church without a supply of relics.  Thus, the ancient superstition was sanctioned and its observance was made mandatory.

It is not surprising that many dubious relics, including duplicates of supposedly one-of-a-kind items, began to populate church altars and private collections throughout Christendom.  Among the more famous (and dubious) are the following:

The Crown of Thorns – Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, said in 409 A.D. that the “thorns with which our Saviour was crowned” resided in Jerusalem.  The crown was amazingly produced by Bishop Gregory of Tours (in what is now France) in the 6^th century.  At that time, the Bishop reported that “the thorns in the Crown still looked green, a freshness which was miraculously renewed every day”, to which the Catholic Encyclopedia has skeptically remarked “does not much strengthen testimony for the authenticity of the relic”.  The relic was passed around Europe for hundreds of years, which is another indication that it was probably inauthentic.

The Crown of Thorns that is preserved in the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris has been carbon dated to around 695 A.D., only about six hundred years “newer” than the one Jesus wore.

Individual thorns of the Crown are reputedly now owned by individuals and churches around the world…”at least 700 have been enumerated”, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia.

The Holy Lance – This is reputedly the lance with which one of the Roman centurions pierced Jesus’ side while he was on the cross.  It is also known as the Spear of Longinus, the supposed Roman Centurion.  This lance is supposedly the same one found in the tomb by Saint Helen.  It is alleged to have appeared in Jerusalem in the 6^th century, after apparently being lost for several hundred years.  Later, it supposedly fell into the hands of pagans.

In 1241, the point of the lance was supposedly presented by King Baldwin of Jerusalem to St. Louis during the Crusades.  It was then enshrined in the Sainte Chapelle cathedral in Paris along with…the Crown of Thorns, if that can be believed.

Other Holy Lances or parts thereof are claimed to be preserved under the dome of St. Peter’s in Rome, at a cathedral in Nuremberg, and two others are said to be preserved, one in Vienna and the other in Cracow.

One of the curiosities about the “Holy Lance” is that it was an important piece of armament of the Roman centurion.  That a military man would have given up his weapon (which in most armies is a crime) to someone at the Crucifixion event is quite preposterous.  How it supposedly ended up in a tomb along with all of the other named items involved in the Holy Event is a bigger mystery.  Especially since it was then misplaced for several hundred years.

The Holy Stairs — This is allegedly the very stairway “consisting of twenty-eight white marble steps…the stairway leading once to the Praetorium of Pilate, hence sanctified by the footsteps of Our Lord during his Passion”, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia.  Supposedly this 300 year-old relic was brought from Jerusalem to Rome by Saint Helena in 326, although the alleged eyewitness Bishop Macarius failed to note this enormous item at the time.  The “stairway” now leads to the Sancta Sanctorum (Holy of Holies) of the Lateran Palace in Rome.

The alleged discovery of this large intact relic by amateur archaeologist Saint Helen is truly a miracle, considering that all of the main buildings of Jerusalem were razed (completely destroyed) twice by the Romans in 70 and 135 A.D.  Normally, real archaeologists dig for years before they uncover bits and shards of historic material.  Yet, the amateur relic hunter, Saint Helen, on a brief pilgrimage to Jerusalem, was able to uncover some of the most unique treasures of Christendom, buried under hundreds of years of debris and subsequent building.  In addition, neither Helena, Bishop Macarius, or anyone else accompanying the ex-Empress could have possibly known what the real stairway looked like, since it had last been standing 200 years previously.

Despite all of that, Saint Helena was able to confidently declare, “Yes, those are the Holy Stairs!”

The Holy Nails — These spikes are allegedly the ones that secured Jesus to his cross.  Saint Helena discovered four of them in the infamous vault adjacent to the supposed Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in 326 A.D.  According to legend, she is said to have taken them to Constantinople.  Two were worked into her son’s helmet and bridle, and the others were (honest to God!)…cast into the Adriatic Sea to calm a storm.

Constantine’s helmet, the Iron Crown of Lombardy, is in the cathedral at Monza, Italy, while the bridle is in Carpentras, France or Milan, Italy, depending on who you believe.  Other Holy Nail repositories are located in Rome, Naples, and Venice.  And, the bottom of the ocean.

Two additional nails were found in 1990 in the supposed grave of Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest who supposedly organized the plot to kill Jesus.

The Catholic Encyclopedia says, “Little reliance can be placed upon the authenticity of the 30 or more holy nails which are still venerated.”  That is an understatement.

The Titulus Crucis – This is the title board (“This is the King of the Jews”) that Pilate allegedly ordered placed on the cross.  Saint Helena supposedly found this on her fateful trip to Jerusalem.  She supposedly divided it into three pieces, of which only one remains…at Rome’s Church of the Holy Cross.

Modern science has determined that the Titulus Crucis is a forgery.  Not only does it contain linguistic problems in the way it is written, but it has been radiocarbon-dated within the 980 to 1146 A.D. range.  This corresponds closely to the period in the 12^th century when the artifact was first acquired by the Church of the Holy Cross.

The Holy Robe – This is the seamless garment that Jesus wore on his way to Calvary.  It was allegedly in Saint Helena’s treasure trove, but disappeared for many hundreds of years.  One story has it that the Byzantine Empress Irene made a gift of the Holy Robe to Charlemagne in 800 A.D.  The remains of that robe are supposedly preserved in a Benedictine church in France.

On the other hand, on May 1, 1196 A.D., Archbishop Johann I of Trier (near Luxembourg) consecrated the altar of his church, which allegedly contained the Holy Robe.

But, wait a minute!  The Eastern Orthodox Church also has several authentic Holy Robes.  One of them is preserved to this day in a crypt in the Patriarchal Svetitskhoveli Cathedral.  Other portions of the robe (evidently this official copy was divided up) are venerated in Saint Petersburg, Russia in two cathedrals, one at the Winter Palace and the other at St. Peter and St. Paul’s Cathedral.  Still more are allegedly housed at the Cathedral of the Dormition, in Moscow, at Kiev’s Sophia Cathedral, and at the Ipatiev monastery near Kostroma.  One supposes that they need a lot of robes in Russia because it gets so cold there.

The bible only verifies one official Jesus Robe, and that one was won by the centurion who prevailed when the Roman security contingent “cast lots” to determine who would own it.  Why he would later throw it in the sepulchre with all of the other Crucifixion goodies is a mystery to us all.  And, there is no mention in the Bible of the carpenter’s son owning a wardrobe of…robes.

The Holy Burial Shroud – Jesus’ body was supposedly wrapped in a linen shroud before he was placed in the sepulchre.  Saint Helena allegedly discovered the authentic shroud in 326.  However, like all of the other invaluable treasures she supposedly found, the shroud disappeared from sight for many centuries.

A large quantity of alleged Holy Burial Shrouds were trafficked within Europe during the Middle Ages.  It was the time of the “holy relic” craze, and between 26 and 40 “authentic” burial shrouds were preserved throughout the abbeys of Europe at that time.

In 1355, one of them was exhibited at the Church of St. Mary in Lirey, France.  Supposedly it had been given to the church by a French knight, Geoffroy de Charny.  This is the supposed authentic item that has become known as the “Shroud of Turin”.  It is a yellowed, 14-foot long linen that appears to contain the image of a crucified man.  The Shroud of Turin has gone on to become probably the most famous Christian relic of all time.

However, the earliest written record of this particular holy shroud is a Catholic bishop’s report to Pope Clement VII, dated 1389, stating that it originated as part of a faith-healing scheme.  The Bishop of Troyes, Henri of Poitiers, alleged “pretended miracles” being staged to defraud credulous pilgrims, and stated that his predecessor bishop had “discovered the fraud and how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it”.  Yes, the forger had copped to the crime in 1389.

As a result of these revelations, in 1390, Pope Clement VII declared that it (the Shroud of Turin) was not the true shroud but could be used as a representation of the real thing, provided the faithful be told that it was not genuine.  This has since been done, but with a wink.

Because of that, millions of faithful have continued to venerate the phony relic in the seven hundred years since.

Radiocarbon dating of the Shroud in 1988 showed that the linen material was made between 1260 and 1390, which indicates that the shroud was a relatively recent forgery when the Pope correctly declared it one in 1390.

Yet, millions of Christian faithful continue to believe that the Shroud of Turin actually touched Jesus.

The previously-discussed items are those vouched-for relics that were supposedly uncovered by Saint Helena in 326.  However, many other items have surfaced over the years to populate church altars and monastic shrines throughout the world.

For example, twenty-one different churches in Europe at one time claimed to possess the Holy Foreskin of Jesus.  The first one (there can only be one, right?) surfaced in 800 A.D., when Charlemagne presented it as a gift to Pope Leo III.  That someone attending Jesus’ bris in Bethlehem had the foresight to pick up this useless piece of flesh demonstrates amazing foresight.

The Shroud of Ovieto is a bloodstained cloth said to have covered Jesus’ head after he died.  Supposedly, it was found in Jerusalem in the 6^th century.  That’s right, almost six hundred years after the Crucifixion, in a city that was totally demolished twice, someone just happened to see the precious relic lying in the road!

The Holy Sponge is that which was dipped in vinegar and given to Christ to drink during the crucifixion.  Some other lucky treasure hunter found this item by chance in Jerusalem…about one hundred years after that other charlatan “discovered” the Shroud of Ovieto.  This fake sponge, presumably still reeking of vinegar, resides in the Santa Croce Church in Rome, with several fake fragments of the True Cross, one of the fake Holy Nails, and several of the fake thorns from Jesus’ crown.

The Cradle of Bethlehem is another dubious item that turned up hundreds of years after the holy birth.  It is reverently displayed under the altar in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.  Planks from this alleged original manger of Jesus were examined and found to have been manufactured from an 8^th century packing crate.

The Throne of St. Peter is also displayed in Rome, at the Vatican.  Supposedly, it was the chair that the first pope sat in.  However, there is no historical evidence (even in the Bible) that St. Peter ever made it to Rome, and, if he did, he was not a pope at the time and certainly didn’t sit on this pretentious chair.

Other well-known relics, of which there are many “duplicates”, include:

A Drop of the Breast Milk of the Virgin Mary

A Vial of Christ’s Blood

One of Jesus’ Baby Teeth

Swaddling Clothes of the Baby Jesus

The Umbilical Cord of Jesus

The Rod used by Moses to part the Red Sea

The Cloak of the Blessed Virgin

The Loin Cloth worn by Jesus on the Cross

The Remains of the Three Wise Men

Wing and Tail Feathers of the Holy Ghost (pulled out when in the disguise of a dove)

Manna that Fell from Heaven in 371 A.D.

The Sweat of St. Michael (from his tussle with Satan)

All of the above fake relics were purchased and proudly venerated by naïve Christians and Catholic churches during the Middle Ages.  The supposed sacred items were the crowd-pullers of the Medieval age.  Any church of monastery that could lay claim to a relic would be assured a steady stream of fee-paying pilgrims.  P.T. Barnum would have been proud.

What was the Catholic Church’s attitude about relics that were most likely fakes?  As the Catholic Encyclopedia puts it, “Supposing the relic to be spurious, NO DISHONOR IS DONE TO GOD by the continuance of an error handed down in perfect good faith for many centuries”!  In other words, if a church enticed parishioners and pilgrims for centuries on the basis of particular “sacred” relic, the Church presumption is that no one could have possibly known that the relic was fake…even if it was a preposterous forgery on its face.  A good example would be the many churches in Europe that venerate supposed samples of the breast milk of the Virgin Mary.

The bottom line, as quoted by the Catholic Encyclopedia, is this: “…the Church is tolerant of ‘pious beliefs’ which have helped to further Christianity”.  No kidding!

 

“Saints Preserve Us!”

Much was made in the early years of Christianity about the preposterous veneration of a variety of gods by pagan believers.  That the pagans believed that some spiritual force or power emanated from their favorite gods or likenesses of them didn’t matter.  Anything other than the worship of the one true god, the Abrahamic one, was foolishness and a sacrilege, according to the Christian clergy.

It wasn’t long after Christians began to rule the roost that the veneration of idols (like the cross) and “sainted” individuals and their body parts became a staple of the new Catholic religion.  What’s more, the Catholics took this type of veneration to heights of absurdity unimagined by pagans.

Many people in the Middle Ages were encouraged by the Church to believe that relics were invested with heavenly powers and that to be close to a relic, or even better, to touch one, would provide a person with spiritual blessings, divine protection and even a cure from illness.  Many “holy” sites that held sacred relics charged an entrance fee, which pilgrims had to pay to gain access to view the holy item.  Such a practice meant that religious communities came to rely on relics as an important form of income.

Throughout the Middle Ages, there was intense competition between various European religious houses about who had the most impressive relics.  Some churches and monasteries were accused by others of holding fake relics.  For example, during the 14^th century, both towns of Amiens and Constantinople claimed to own the head of St. John the Baptist.

That brings to mind a story about a small church in the Middle Ages that was desperately seeking a famous relic to help steer visitors (and income) to their parish.  Finally, the parish priest located a relic hunter with an important relic for sale.  “Father, this is your lucky day!”, said the salesman.  “It just so happens that I have recently acquired the head of St. John the Baptist and for a moderate sum, to cover my expenses, the head is yours.”  “But, my good man, isn’t the head of St. John the Baptist held at the church of San Silvestro here in Rome?”, inquired the priest.  “Ah, yes, Father”, replied the salesman, “but the head in San Silvestro is the head of St. John as an adult.  I happen to have the head of St. John as a child.”

As preposterous as this tale seems, various Catholic churches have seen fit to claim possession of some very unlikely relics.  St. Paul’s Outside the Walls in Rome boasts of several infant bodies, alleged victims of the biblical (and phony) Herod’s “Massacre of the Innocents”.  The Cathedral of Cologne has preserved the skulls of The Three Wise Men who followed the Star of Bethlehem.  Now, how exactly did they acquire those items?  The church in Tarascon (France) contains, if you can believe it, the bodies of the three Mary’s of the Gospels.  Not to be outdone, a monastery in Jerusalem claims to possess one of the fingers of the Holy Ghost!

As the Catholic Encyclopedia observes, “Naturally, it was impossible for popular enthusiasm to be roused to so high a pitch (by the Catholic Church) in a manner which easily lent itself to error, fraud, and greed for gain, without at least the occasional occurrence of many grave abuses…”  As if…the Church wasn’t encouraging, if not facilitating, such deception!

From an early time, the Church began an assembly-line process of manufacturing “saints” to be venerated.  Supposedly, the canonization of some individual required a life of sacrifice and service to the Lord, in addition to the performance of a miracle or two.  Alternatively, a “saintship” could be acquired by throwing some money in the direction of the Mother Church.  Other individuals became “saints” simply because the Vatican felt it the right thing to do.  An example would be St. Abel, the younger son and second heir of the mythical Adam (of Eden).  The Bible fails to recount any miracles accomplished by this individual, nor was he a card-carrying Christian.  (Actually, Cain slew his brother Abel, so perhaps Abel was the first Jewish martyr?)

At last count, there are over 25,000 officially authenticated Saints of the Roman Catholic Church.  This is a testimony to the feverish activity that was occurring in the Middle Ages when each Christian community desired their own patron saint.

Another admission by the Catholic Encyclopedia:  “At the beginning of the 9^th century the exportation of the bodies of martyrs from Rome had assumed the proportions of a regular commerce…in an age not only utterly uncritical…”  This is so true.  The Church itself had systematically dumbed-down the Christian populace, had invented thousands of Saints, had required possession of relics by each and every church, and then was…surprised?…when “unscrupulous rogues” pawned-off goat carcasses as the bones of revered Christian saints.

Actually, the manufacture and exportation of supposed martyrs’ bones was a highly profitable industry by the Mother Church for many years.  Conveniently, the catacombs of the ancient city of Rome provided a vast treasure trove of decayed humanity – centuries of decayed pagans, Jews, and even a few Christians.  Retrospectively, they all became Holy Martyrs and the “ancient Christians of Rome”.  As late as the 7^th century, Pope Boniface IV was extracting cartloads of bones from the catacombs for sale to visiting pilgrims and onward shipment to his distant agents.  The supposed holy relics were stored temporarily in the Pantheon, one of the few serviceable buildings left in Rome at the time.  The ex-pagan shrine had by then been appropriately renamed the “Church of St. Mary and the Martyrs”.

Rarely, if ever, did a whole skeleton go anywhere.  The various parts of a “martyr” might be distributed across the length and breadth of Christendom.

The parade and adulation of sacred bones brought joy to European cities.  The plethora of heavenly saints assiduously manufactured by the Church marked out the Christian calendar and signaled the procession of the seasons.  Scarcely a day passed without a martyr to thank, praise or implore for mercy.  For centuries the Cult of the Martyrs did most to fill the coffers of the Church and propagate the faith among an ignorant and superstitious population.

When the supply of corpses from the catacombs of Rome ran short (the subterranean necropolis was completely rifled by the 10^th century), the Church continued to make money from the catacombs by charging pilgrims a fee to marvel at the former resting places of revered saints.

 

God’s Representative

According to the Church, the Pope is God’s right hand man here on earth, the successor to Saint Peter himself.   Although Roman Catholic dogma teaches that the Pope is “infallible” when it comes to his leadership and moral teachings, this does not apply to the personal behavior of His Holiness.  Many of the hundreds of popes have contended with moral weakness, at least as it is defined for Church parishioners.  Some of the pontiffs who have “talked the talk” but failed to “walk the walk” are the following:

Boniface VI – was defrocked twice by Pope John VIII for immorality

John X – had romantic affairs with a married woman and then her 14 year-old daughter

John XII – “liked to have a collection of women”; fornicated with a widow, his father’s concubine, another widow, and his niece; contemporary reports indicate that he “made the sacred palace into a brothel”

Leo VII – died of a paralytic stroke during intercourse with a married woman in 965

Pius II – had a dozen illegitimate children before becoming Pope

Paul II – alleged to have died of a heart attack while in a sexual act with a male page

Julius II – had at least one illegitimate daughter, and possibly two others; the Council of Pisa in 1511 called him a “sodomite covered with shameful ulcers”

Clement VII – had an illegitimate son

Pius IV – had three illegitimate children before being elected Pope

Gregory XIII – had an illegitimate son

Back in the old days (before the “New Covenant” with Christians), the God of Abraham used to deal with such transgressions by throwing lightning bolts, making the earth open up to swallow sinners, turning  those who disobeyed him into pillars of salt, afflicting evildoers with hemorrhoids, and so forth.

Under the new program called Catholicism, all that was required was for the Pope to confess (to himself) his sins, be contrite, and promise not to do it again.  And, then, made pure again, the Pope was free to continue his evil ways.

Peculiar Justice

Sometimes it became necessary for the Pope, acting on God’s behalf, to punish sinners…even popes.

In January, 897, in the Church of St. John Lateran, the Pope’s official church in his capacity of Bishop of Rome, a strange trial unfolded.  The defendant in the case was the former Pope Formosus who, after a reign of five years, had died nine months earlier in April, 896, and had been buried with honors in St. Peter’s Basilica.  The trial of the former prelate was ordered by the reigning Vicar of Christ, Pope Steven VII, who evidently had a near-hysterical hatred of Formosus.

Sitting on a throne, Pope Steven VII personally presided over the trial.  Also present as co-judges were a number of Roman clergy who were there under compulsion and out of fear.  The trial began when the disinterred corpse of Formosus was carried into the courtroom.  On the Holy Father’s orders, the putrescent cadaver, which had been lying in its tomb for seven months, had been dressed in full pontifical vestments.  The dead body was then propped up in a chair, behind which stood a teenage deacon who was there to “defend” Formosus by speaking in his behalf.  Steven VII read the three charges against Formosus: (1) perjury; (2) coveting the papacy; and, (3) violating church canons when he was Pope.

The trial was completely dominated by the Supreme Pontiff, who overawed the audience with his frenzied tirades.  While the frightened clergy silently watched in horror, Pope Steven VII screamed and raved, hurling insults at and mocking the rotting corpse.  Then the grotesque spectacle was finally over, Formosus was convicted on all counts by the kangaroo court.  The sentence imposed by Steven VII was that all of Formosus’ acts and ordinations as Pope be invalidated, that the three fingers of Formosus’ right hand used to give papal blessings be hacked off, and that the body be stripped of its papal vestments, clad in the cheap garments of a lay person, and buried in a common grave.  The sentence was rigorously executed.  The Pope then apparently changed his mind, had the corpse exhumed, and then had it thrown into the Tiber River.  Mercifully, a monk secretly retrieved the body from the river.

This so-called “Cadaver Synod”, with its appalling trial and savage mistreatment of Formosus’ corpse, provoked so much anger and outrage in Rome that, within a few months, Pope Steven VII was deposed, stripped of his vestments, imprisoned, and later strangled.  Three months later another Pope, Theodore II, annulled the Cadaver Synod, fully rehabilitated Formosus, and reverentially reburied his battered remains in St. Peter’s Basilica.  The following Pope, John IX, also nullified the Cadaver Synod, and any future trial of a dead person was forever prohibited.  Thank God!

Incredibly, however, this was not the end of the story.

Sergius III, who was Pope from 904-911, reversed the decisions of Theodore II and John IX, and placed an epitaph on the tomb of Steven VII which lauded that evident madman and heaped scorn on Formosus.  Historical accounts differ whether Sergius III literally dug Formosus out of his grave yet again (possibly beheading the corpse in the process), but he did void all of the Formosus appointments, in defiance of the previous papal edicts banning posthumous persecution.

Pope Sergius III went on to further distinguish himself by murdering his predecessor, Pope Leo V, whom he had imprisoned.  This esteemed Pontiff also fathered an illegitimate son who in 931 became Pope John XI.

Rule of the Harlots

Much to the chagrin of the Mother Church, there was a couple hundred-year period of time in the Middle Ages when the papacy was a tool and plaything of a few ruling political clans in Italy.  One of the most prolific of these clans was the lineage of Theophylact I, Count of Tusculum, which produced a staggering seven Pontiffs during the period 904 through 1085.

Theophylact served as Holy Roman Emperor Louis III’s main agent in Rome.  Together with his wife, Theodora, they controlled the city and the papacy in the early 10^th century.  Theodora used her feminine wiles to gain and use power.  Years after the fact, Cardinal Baronius wrote: “A certain shameless strumpet called Theodora at one time was sole monarch of Rome and, shame though it is to write it, exercised power like a man.  She had two daughters, Marozia and Theodora, who were not only her equals but could surpass her in the exercises that Venus loves.”   Translation:  they liked to sleep around.

According to some accounts, Theodora and her daughter, Marozia (who was a ripe 14 years-old at the time) were both having an affair with Sergius III when he was appointed Pope in 904.  The new Pontiff set about consolidating his power with ruthless abandon.  Two of his predecessors – Pope Leo V and Pope Christopher, who had taken the papacy by military force and were only semi-legitimate – were in prison when Sergius became Pope.  Both were soon deceased, allegedly at the order of the Holy Father himself.  Sergius later fathered a child with the young Marozia, who later rose to political power like her mother.

After the demise of Sergius III, Theodora engineered the “elections” of the next two Popes, Anastasius III and Lando, and then promoted her current bedmate, the Archbishop of Ravenna, to the papal chair, as Pope John X.  After fourteen years in office, John X was imprisoned and eventually murdered at the direction of Marozia to secure the elevation of her then-lover, who became Pope Leo VI.  Following that pontiff’s short reign, Marozia hand-picked Pope Steven VII as a stop-gap measure, to control the Church until her own son John was ready to assume the throne of St. Peter.  In 931, Marozia installed her son (the illegitimate son of Pope Sergius III) as Pope John XI.  However, another of her sons, Alberic II, seized military and political control of Rome and reduced John XI to a figurehead.

Alberic II, the grandson of Theophylact I and Theodora (the couple who started the puppet show in 904) administered an oath to the Roman nobles in St. Peter’s that, on the next vacancy of the papal chair, his only son, Octavianus, should be elected Pope.  On December 16, 955, his son, only eighteen years of age, assumed the papacy as Pope John XII.  This new Vicar of Christ went on to set new performance lows for pontiffs, such that the writings that remain about him note that his home church, St. John Lateran, was spoken of as a brothel, and the moral corruption of his administration became the subject of general disgrace.  Some of the highlights included:  ordaining a deacon in a horse stable; being paid for ordaining bishops, including a ten year-old boy; adulterous affairs; fornication with his father’s concubine; as well as murdering two Vatican officials.  He was eventually deposed with the help of Otto I, King of the Germans.

Alberic II had another son, Gregory I, Count of Tusculum, who fathered a son, Theophylactus, who himself became Pope Benedict VIII in 1012.  That Pope’s brother, Romanus, took the reins in 1024, as His Emminence Pope John XIX.  When this pontiff died in 1032, his nephew, who may have been 12 years old at the time, took his place on the throne of St. Peter.

The new Pontiff, Pope Benedict IX, was entirely unsuited to be the head of the Church.  He reportedly led an extremely dissolute life, to put it mildly.  He was, in fact, the great grandson of Morazia, who helped kick-start the process in the 10^th century, so it might be said that scandalous behavior was part of his DNA.  Among his excesses were:  orgies that he sponsored, including homosexual sodomy and bestiality; womanizing;  gluttony; and, murder.  According to St. Peter Damian, a cloistered monk of that period, Benedict “feasted on immorality” and was “a demon from hell in the disguise of a priest”.  Desiderius of Monte Cassino, who was a contemporary of Benedict IX and later reigned as Pope Victor III, wrote that Benedict committed “rapes, murders, and other unspeakable acts” and his reign was “so vile, so foul, so execrable that I shudder to think of it”.

After five years of these shenanigans, Benedict was ousted from the pontificate by an angry mob of Romans who were tired of sleazy popes.  Benedict’s political backing was strong enough, however, that he retook the papal throne without a fight within three weeks.  In 1045, the Holy Father was ousted by a more serious group of enemies, who replaced the hedonist with Pope Sylvester III.  Benedict invaded Rome with force this time and regained his title within a matter of months.  Sylvester III was retroactively declared an antipope, and Benedict resumed his playboy lifestyle.  It took His Holiness less than a year to determine that he was bored with being head of the Catholic Church.  He wanted out and, to do so, he needed lots of money to fund his extravagant lifestyle.  So, he sold the papacy to his godfather, Archpriest John Gratian, for an estimated 1,500 pounds of gold.  Unfortunately, the bribe paid by the new Pope Gregory VI so completely bankrupted the papal treasury that for months afterward the Church was unable to pay its bills.

Within a year, Benedict reneged on the sale (he kept the money, however) and, with his political support in Rome, once again became the Holy Father.  Finally, King Henry III of Germany was implored to step in and settle the matter.  He invaded Rome in 1046, deposed Benedict IX and all other claimants to the papacy, and installed a German bishop as Pope Clement II.  Within 11 months, the new Pope mysteriously died from poisoning, and Benedict was once again the reigning Vicar of Christ.  King Henry eventually found out what had happened, and sent a new Pope (Damasus II) along with an army to back him up.  Strangely enough, this pope died 23 days later, and King Henry had to send yet another replacement, Pope Leo IX, to put down one last power grab by our hero.

The now-deposed Benedict IX, who was by that time only 35 years old, allegedly then retired to a monastery where he is said to have miraculously repented his evil ways and died shortly thereafter.  Probably only God, King Henry, and St. Leo IX know if that’s what really happened.  At any rate, Benedict’s passing marked the end of the Saeculum Obscurum, the Church’s official nomenclature for “the dark age of the Papacy”.  Among historians and non-Catholics it is better known (with a snicker) as the “Pornocracy” or the “Rule of the Harlots” (after the mother/daughter tag team, Theodora and Morazia).

 

Agent Provocateur

The Roman Catholic Church by the mid-15^th century was all-powerful and its leaders were arrogant and decadent.  It was in dire need of a “reality check” when a German Catholic priest named Martin Luther published his Ninety-Five Theses, openly calling-out the Church authority for the scoundrels they had become.  Luther was particularly incensed about the idea that freedom from God’s punishment of sin could be purchased with money (indulgences), and he thought that a lot of the Church doctrine at the time was without merit.

For his efforts, Father Luther was excommunicated by the Church, condemned as an outlaw by the Emperor, and spent many years under house arrest in a castle.  There he had the audacity to translate the Catholic (Latin) Bible into German, so that it could be read by the common man, something that the Church was dead-set against.  All of this set in motion the so-called Protestant Reformation, the second great schism of Christianity.  Everything considered, this was probably a good thing.

But, then, the Reverend Luther spoiled his legacy by becoming perhaps the greatest anti-Semite in history.

Ironically, Luther rarely encountered Jews during his life, as he lived in a German community that had expelled all its Jews some ninety years earlier.  He considered Jews blasphemers and liars because they had rejected the divinity of Jesus, whereas good Christians like himself believed Jesus to be the Messiah.  He argued that Jews were no longer God’s chosen people but “the devil’s people”, and referred to them with violent, vile language.  Luther advocated setting synagogues on fire, destroying Jewish prayer books, forbidding rabbis from preaching, seizing Jew’s property and money, and smashing up their homes so that “these poisonous envenomed worms” would be forced into labor or expelled “for all time”.  Luther went so far as to proclaim, “We are not at fault for slaying them”, and said that “whoever would help the Jews was doomed to perdition”.

The Reverend Martin Luther became the most widely-read author of his generation, and he acquired the status of prophet within Germany.  The prevailing view among historians is that his anti-Jewish rhetoric contributed significantly to the development of anti-Semitism in Germany, and in the 1930’s and 1940’s provided an ideal underpinning for the National Socialists’ (Nazi) attacks on Jews.

According to historian Robert Michael, just about every anti-Jewish book printed during the Third Reich contained references to and quotations from Martin Luther.  Bishop Martin Sasse, a leading Protestant churchman, published a compendium of Luther’s writings shortly after Kristallnacht (“The Night of Broken Glass”) in November, 1938.  This event was an anti-Jewish pogrom, carried out by the Hitler Youth, the Gestapo, and the SS, wherein ninety-one Jews were murdered, 25,000 to 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps, 267 synagogues were destroyed, and thousands of Jewish homes and businesses were ransacked.   Bishop Sasse applauded the Kristallnacht mayhem, noted with pleasure that the attacks were timed precisely to coincide with Martin Luther’s birthday, and urged the German people to heed the words of “the greatest anti-Semite of his time, the warner of his people against the Jews.”

Sleazy Evangelists

Back in the 2^nd century, Lucian of Samosata was quoted about shaking down the sheep: “So any adroit, unscrupulous fellow, who knows the world, has only to get among these simple souls and his fortune is easily made; he plays with them.”  Pope Leo X, although one of the most corrupt and depraved pontiffs, was equally straightforward and candid, saying of the Church, “the fable of Christ has been quite  profitable to us.”  Unfortunately, His Holiness wasn’t the only man of the cloth who felt that way.

Although the two thousand year-old Roman Catholic Church is probably without peer in fleecing its obedient flock, Protestant evangelists in the 20^th century unleashed the power of technology to “bring in the sheaves” in prodigious amounts.  Beginning with tent revivals, then moving to radio services, then to televised sermons, then to blatant infomercials, these clerical-collared hucksters found a virtual gold mine of gullible believers just waiting to be asked to empty their wallets for Jesus.

Among the more productive pitches were: good old fashioned Faith Healing, where seeming miracles abound to the shouts of “Hallelujah!” and the sounds of coins kerplunking into the collection plate; Prosperity Theology, which means that the more money you give to the preacher, the more financial success that God will send your way; and, the simple but effective approach, Give Me Your Money and I’ll Pray for You.

These and other sleazy pitches are used to sell “the power of God” to the gullible, the elderly, and the desperate.  Ordained purveyors of false hope and empty dreams repackage Christianity as a “cargo cult”, in which they solicit “seed” donations and preach a “gospel of gain”.

Televangelist Paul Crouch of the Trinity Broadcasting Network espouses this theology of fleecing the sheep on behalf of a needy God: “So what did God do?  He GAVE the very thing He needed – His only begotten Son, the best gift heaven could give!  What did God receive?  Yes, we know – billions of sons and daughters!  God lives by His own law – you GIVE if you expect to RECEIVE!”  According to Reverend Crouch, God needs a lot of folding money.

In Southern Baptist minister Kenneth Hagin’s words: “Take out the largest bill or check you have.  That $100, $50, or $20 bill, hold it in your clean hands and say, ‘In Jesus name I dedicate this gift to God’s work and expect a miracle return of money”.

A towering ego, an insatiable appetite for adoration and applause, a rampant libido, and, above all, an eye on the big money…all of these are the marks of the “charismatic” personality well-suited to the business of televangelism.  Too many have trod the path, and the roll-call of dishonor speaks volumes.  Hiding behind their Bibles, crucifixes, and robes are crooks and hucksters, living in high fashion off the hard-earned dollars of gullible, desperate people.  Among the worst of this rabble of flim-flam men have been the following:

Oral Roberts — a 1940’s pioneer in the business of extracting Jesus loot.  According to Time magazine, Roberts originally started his ministry with a large mobile tent “that sat 3,000 on folding metal chairs” where “he shouted at petitioners who did not respond to his healing”.  He eventually mastered the technique, laying his hands on more than 2 million people and their money, although on several occasions people died at his healing prayer sessions.

Roberts also ran direct mail campaigns, reaching out to poor Americans with his novel scam, “Seed Faith” (i.e. the sucker gives Minister Roberts his cash and then waits for God to return it to him “100-fold”).  The good Reverend also opened a donation-based 24/7 prayer-by-proxy hotline for believers too busy to pray.

Roberts and his family made so much money so fast (an estimated $120 million per year by 1980) that he branched into television, built his own university to school other Jesus shysters, and bought $500 million worth of real estate near Tulsa.  He and his family lived the high life, with fancy second-homes in Palm Springs and Beverly Hills, country club memberships, and the like.  Roberts loved fine clothes and jewelry, and one obituary claimed that even when times became hard, “he continued to wear his Italian silk suits, diamond rings and gold bracelets – (which were) airbrushed out by his staff on publicity pictures”.

In 1987, during a televised fundraising drive, with an impassioned plea and tears in his eyes, Reverend Roberts announced that unless he raised $8 million by that March, God would “call him home”.  That Oscar-worthy performance raised $9.1 million from his terrified viewership.

Eventually, his ministry, like many others, was rocked by financial and credibility scandals.  Mercifully putting an end to the shameless huckster, God (or, was it Lucifer?) called Oral Roberts home in 2009.

Robert Tilton — a 1980’s hotshot fraudster who cut himself a fat slice of the Jesus pie with a “Success-N-Life” scam.  At one point, Pastor Tilton was purchasing 5,000 hours of air time per month, and his half-hour “infomercial” could be seen in all two hundred and fifty-three U.S. television markets.  Tilton’s Word of Faith Church was raking-in an estimated $80 million per year by 1991.

Once a gullible Christian found himself on the Tilton mailing list, he would be barraged with free gifts, i.e. mailings chock full of testimonials to his good works, accompanied by “magic pennies”, cheap metal crosses, anointed rubber bands, blessed lengths of yarn, holy swatches of carpet, etc.  Each was a part and parcel of an intimate religious ceremony that the gullible recipient could conduct in the privacy of his own home.

One of Tilton’s most famous scams was the Miracle Cloth that he sent to his mentally-challenged constituency.  “Right now, this cloth is plain fabric”, the accompanying literature read, “But after you send it back with a $1,000 vow, it will be a Miracle Cloth saturated with the presence of God.  Open the enclosed package of special oil and anoint the point of your need.  Let the Holy Spirit lead you in applying this Miracle Anointing Oil and Miracle Cloth in faith to pictures of your loved ones, to your billfold, to the doorposts of your home, and to your body…for special miracles.”

Diane Sawyer and ABC television ran an expose in 1992 on Pastor Tilton’s money machine, including an interview with a woman who spent two days opening mail for Tilton.  She told reporters that she and other workers were instructed to remove any cash, checks, or jewelry from the returned mailers, and throw the prayer requests written to Tilton into the trash can.  The lady said, “You cannot help but read them.  All these letters were like, ‘Pray for me”, because they were terminal or their son is terminal or there was no money for food.  Desperate situations.  There would be like $17, and the letter would say, ‘I realize I have to give $2 more than I usually give’.  You open enough envelopes to generate $1,000 an hour.  It was unbelievable, literally unbelievable.”

Tilton’s ministry suffered measurably from the fallout of videotaped evidence depicting thousands of torn-up prayer requests in Hefty-brand garbage sacks slogged away in dumpsters.  His televised ministry went off the air in 1993, he was sued successfully for $1.5 million (for fraud) in 1994, and his Word of Faith Church property was sold in 1999.

Reverend Tilton is still working the con, however.  He’s resumed his mailings and TV ministry (he’s now on BET).  His most recent book, sure to snare some more fools for his mailing list, is called, How to Pay Your Bills Supernaturally.   Still living the high life off the backs of the faithful, Pastor Tilton recently bought a 50-foot yacht and nabbed a piece of oceanfront property in Miami Beach valued at $1.3 million.  P.T. Barnum would have loved this guy.

Peter Popoff — a Pentacostal faith healer whose ministry is funded by donations.  In a message entitled 10,000 Miles of Miracles, Popoff claimed that he had been born “in the bomb shelters of Berlin at the end of World War II”.  Actually, he was born in Hamburg in 1946 after the war.

Popoff is famous for performing revival meetings on national television which include the laying on of hands and seemingly instantaneous miracle cures.  During his appearances at church conventions in the 1970’s, Minister Popoff routinely and accurately stated the home addresses and specific illnesses of his audience members, a feat he allowed them to believe was due to divine revelation and “God-given ability”.  Actually, he had a radio receiver in his ear and was repeating information transmitted from his wife backstage that had been gathered from earlier conversations with members of the audience.

More dishonesty in Popoff’s televised shows featured audience members who were brought on stage in wheelchairs, healed by the magic hands of Popoff, and then rose dramatically to walk without support.  These were some of Reverend Popoff’s most incredible “healings”, but what the believing audience members and the suckers watching television didn’t know was that wheelchairs were used by Popoff to seat people who were actually already able to walk.

After the huckster’s dishonesty was exposed on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Popoff’s popularity and viewing audience declined sharply.  His ministry, which had been earning over $4 million per month, declared bankruptcy later that year.  In 1998, Popoff made a comeback with dozens of other preachers like the disgraced Robert Tilton to become fixtures on BET.

Pastor Popoff continues to peddle faith healing and his specialty product, “Miracle Spring Water”.  He also touts free “Miracle Manna” that can allegedly provide health and financial miracles.  If viewers ask for the free manna, they are sent a letter asking for a donation.

In 2009, Popoff advertisements appeared in the UK press offering a free cross which contained “blessed water” and “holy sand”.  The blessed water was supposedly from a source near Chernobyl, and animals drinking from this source were reportedly free from any radiation sickness.  The cross also bore the inscription “Jerusalem”.  Once again, gullible believers asking for their free cross were asked for a donation.  Every little bit helps.  According to IRS records, the disgraced Peter Popoff Ministries raised over $16 million in revenue in 2004, and the Lord only knows how much in the UK and the rest of the Christian world.

Benny Hinn — a televangelist best known for his regular “Miracle Crusades”, revival meeting/faith-healing summits held in large stadiums and broadcast worldwide on his television program.  Minister Hinn claims that God uses him as a conduit for divine healing powers.  His teachings are evangelical and charismatic, accepting the validity of spiritual gifts, and Word of Faith in origin, with a focus on financial prosperity.  In other words, Hinn’s practiced grift works all the angles.

At his Miracle Crusades, Hinn claims to have healed attendees of blindness, deafness, cancer, and AIDS, although the proof of such claims has never been produced by Reverend Hinn.  In 2006, the CBC television show The Fifth Estate did a special entitled “Do You Believe in Miracles?” on the apparent transgressions committed by Benny Hinn’s ministry.  According to the show, the seriously disabled who attend his healings are interviewed and then weeded out from ever getting the chance to come on stage.  There is a wheelchair section situated at the back of the audience, away from the stage.  Instead, those who have minor injuries, or injuries not immediately visible are brought up in their place.  “Healed” audience members that the show was able to track down and talk to were not healed and had never heard from the Ministry again.  Pastor Benny promised on stage to set up a fund for the college education of a blind child, who Hinn said was now healed.  When contacted, the child was still blind and had not heard back from the Ministry after two years.

It appears that God’s divine conduit can’t really heal sick people, nor is he very good at prophecies, either.  In the 1990’s, Hinn made a number of unfulfilled prophecies, such as God destroying America’s homosexual community, the death of Fidel Castro, the election of the first female president of the United States, and the east coast of the U.S. being devastated by an earthquake…all to happen before year 2000.

Despite all of his obvious lies and the phony faith-healing theology that he purveys, Benny Hinn takes in about $200 million worth of donations yearly.  In December, 2006, Benny Hinn Ministries sent out a mailing to his gullible Christian audience asking for donations toward a plush, new Gulfstream G4SP jet valued at $36 million and costing $600,000 per year to maintain.

Dr. Gene Scott — during his heyday Scott was probably the most watched and most entertaining minister and religious instructor in the history of television.  He may be one of the richest television stars of all time.  His suite of programs was broadcast in eight languages, in 180 countries, over radio and television stations twenty-four hours a day throughout the world.

A typical Dr. Gene Scott televised pitch went something like this: “I want you to stop what you are doing and get on the telephone and hand over ten percent of your weekly income”.  The average sucker’s contribution was reportedly $350 per month.  “I want 300 people to give $1,500 by June 30 to humiliate Satan’s effort to destroy us “, Dr. Scott commanded in a Web site missive.  “I also want 700 to commit to $10,000 by Christmas”.

Dr. Scott’s version of “seed faith” had a high price tag, measured in what he called “first fruits”; i.e. returns on any form of income (an investment, a pay raise, a second job, a tax refund, Lotto winnings).  If you’re out of work, you give him the first week’s unemployment check.  Amazingly, people listened and obeyed, to the tune of uncounted millions of dollars per year.  Why not?  According to Scott, “A skinflint may get to Heaven, but what awaits him are a rusty old halo, a skinny old cloud, and a robe so worn it scratches.  First-class salvation requires money.”

In the role of minister and religious educator, Dr. Scott seemed to be a genuine and even vulnerable person, and was fun to watch, with his goofy outfits, bizarre sunglasses and hats, cigars, and colored marking pens scribbling doodles on a chalkboard.  But, when it came time to shear the sheep, Scott became Dr. Hyde, coaxing, cajoling, exhorting, pleading, and haranguing his viewers to send in money…even daring them not to!  When the evening’s take was less than hoped for, Scott might punish his faithful audience by refusing to say another word, sitting in silence for ten minutes while the TV cameras kept running and his phone volunteers sat on their hands.

He once told the faithful, “I’m not selling forty-pound Bibles, or water from Jordan, or plastic crosses made by the Japanese.  I don’t send out ‘healing cloths’ or tear up my shirt.  I say: what’s what I’ve done worth?  Whatever the meal I’ve fed you is worth, pay up”.  If they didn’t tithe ‘til it hurt, Dr. Scott told them they could look forward to “sliding down the slimy chute straight to Hell.”  Millions of dimwits got the message.

What did the good Reverend Scott do with those donations for Jesus?  No one knows because he refused to open his books to scrutiny.  Officially, his contract called for an annual salary of $1, “plus unlimited expenses”.  Some of the visible perks paid-for by the gullible TV congregation included chauffeured limousines, Lear jet travel, a mansion in Pasadena, California, a number of racing-horse ranches, and round-the-clock bodyguard protection.  Reverend Scott defeated repeated attempts by the Federal government to examine his church’s operations simply by directing contributors to sign pledge slips which specifically stated that Dr. Scott could spend the money however he liked.  And, he did, perhaps a hundred million of it, with gusto, before dying of a stroke in 2005.

In Luke 18:25, Jesus is quoted, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven”.  Apparently, Pastors Roberts, Tilton, Popoff, Hinn, and Scott, to name a few of the money-grubbing televangelists, never read that part of the Holy Book.  Like all true scam artists, they wanted their reward in cash without delay.

Windbags for Jesus

A popular Christian religious song for the little tykes starts off with, “Jesus loves the little children…red, brown, yellow, black, and white…”  It’s a song about tolerance and Jesus’ love and compassion for everyone.  Unfortunately, a number of famous Christian evangelists must have been napping in Sunday school and shooting spitballs with their friends in seminary when that lesson was taught.

Accordingly, there is a class of ordained bigots who use their pulpit, websites, schools, and television programs to tirelessly broadcast hate and political propaganda in the name of the Prince of Peace.  Not surprisingly, they have found a perfect constituency:  millions of dimwitted Anglo-Saxon Protestants who lap up the nonsense and fill-in the pledge slips.  This, in turn, has given these ministerial blowhards access to, and influence on, the regional and national political stage.  Some of the most notorious examples of this phenomenon are:

The Reverend Fred Phelps – he’s an ordained Southern Baptist minister famous for his obsession with homosexuals.  When in college, this busy-body initiated a campaign to stamp out necking and petting on campus.

In 1955, Phelps became Pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas.  At about the same time, he became an attorney, but was not very good at it.  In 1969, Attorney Phelps was suspended from practicing law for two years.  In a fit of pique, on the first anniversary of his suspension, Phelps gave his wife a harsh crewcut.  He was eventually disbarred by the Kansas Supreme Court, which declared in part that attorney Phelps “has little regard for the ethics of his profession”.  After subsequent harassment of nine Federal judges, Phelps was required to surrender his license to practice law.

During all of this, Phelps retained his position as head of the Westboro Baptist Church, where he concentrated his ministry on some of the more controversial messages of the Old Testament.  In his sermons, in his church fliers, and on his infamous website, GodHatesFags.com, the good Reverend focused his energies on anti-tolerance.  Some of the more notable Phelpsisms on the website include the following:  “You can’t preach the Bible without preaching hatred”, and, “God doesn’t hate them because they’re fags; they’re fags because God hates them”.

In a 1996 Westboro Baptist Church flier, Phelps demonstrated the level of his historical scholarship when he claimed that “Jews stirred up the Romans to butcher 6 million Christians in the catacombs in the 1^st century”.  (Actually, Reverend Phelps, there were only a handful of “Christians” in existence by the end of the 1^st century, and only a few of them made the trip to Rome, location of the catacombs.)

The bigot Pastor was on a roll in 1996.  Another flier sounded the alarm about an upcoming speech by a black man in the public park:  “Anybody babbling about ‘multicultural affairs’ and ‘celebrating diversity’ is a propagandist for the militant sodomite agenda.  Westboro Baptists will picket this black obfuscator, in religious protest and warning.  Being black won’t get you into Heaven.  But, promoting fags will take you to Hell.”  In 1998, the Westboro church faithful were treated to this gem:  “Filthy sodomites crave legitimacy as dogs eating their own vomit and sows wallowing in their own feces crave unconditional love.”

By 2005, the Westboro Baptist Church had a total of 71 parishioners, mostly members of Reverend Phelps’ large family.  The church’s focus up to that time had been picketing the funerals of gay victims of murder, gay-bashing or people who have died from complications relating to AIDS.  Phelps and followers also began to loudly picket military funerals with the rationale that “the Lord is punishing this evil nation for abandoning all moral imperatives that are worth a dime”.  Banners including the gem, “Thank God for dead soldiers”, were prominently displayed.  The Westboro Baptist Church also protested a memorial for twelve victims of the 2006 Sago, West Virginia mine disaster, declaring that the accident was God’s revenge against America for its tolerance of homosexuality.

As the popular bumper sticker says, “Jesus is Love”.

Pastor Jerry Falwell – a fundamentalist Christian evangelical Baptist pastor, televangelist, and conservative political windbag who left the earth in 2007.  Son of a bootlegger, Falwell was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia.

The good Reverend was also a product of the South, and as such was resistant to civil rights reform.  In 1958, he spoke about the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling: “If Chief Justice Warren and his associates had known God’s word and had desired to do the Lord’s will, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision would never have been made.   The (school) facilities should be separate.  When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line”.  (In other words, when God made some people black, he meant for them to have an inferior education.  That is an interesting theory… especially since the subject of education is not once mentioned in the Bible.)  On his evangelist program Old Time Gospel Hour in the mid-1960’s, Reverend Falwell regularly featured segregationist politicians Lester Maddox and George Wallace, both infamous for using brutal violence against civil rights protesters.

In 1977, Pastor Falwell supported orange juice spokesperson Anita Bryant’s campaign, “Save Our Children”, to overturn a Dade County, Florida ordinance prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.  Mrs. Bryant blamed homosexuals for a variety of society’s ills, as did Falwell.  He also wanted the public education system overhauled.  In his book, America Can Be Saved, he wrote:  “I hope to live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools.  The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them”.   (Yes, those were the good old days, back when “sinners” were put in the stocks for public ridicule, women wore scarlet letters, and Christian-led mobs burned witches in Salem.)   Minister Falwell later supported George W. Bush’s Faith-Based Initiative, which proposed public funding of such church schools, but he publicly worried about “other denominations”, not just his fundamentalist Christian Baptists, getting their filthy fingers into the Federal pork barrel.

As noted previously, the Reverend Falwell was not high on his black brothers, even Christian men of the cloth.  The racist Falwell waded into international politics in the 1980’s when he publicly called-out Nobel Peace Prize winner Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu as a “phony” for his support of civil rights in South Africa.

Falwell wasn’t just picking on Tutu; he hated political liberals of any color.  In 1989, between sermons at the Thomas Road Baptist Church, Falwell found time to create the so-called Moral Majority.  The mission?  “We must, from the highest office in the land right down to the shoeshine boy in the airport, have a return to Biblical basics.”  The Moral Majority was a powerful political lobby group of evangelical Christians that helped elect Republican candidates and conservatives who were “pro-family”, “pro-life”, pro-defense”, and “pro-Israel”.  The strategy was to create a solid voting bloc, whose members would vote the way Jerry told them.  “Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions,” he explained.  The first successful target of the Moral Majority was the Equal Rights Amendment.  The group was later credited with delivering two-thirds of the white, evangelical Christian vote to Ronald Reagan during the 1980 presidential election.

By 1994, Reverend Falwell was pretty much a full-blown political operative of the Republican Party, funding his own Dirty Tricks Division.  In that year, he paid $200,000 for, promoted, and distributed the video documentary The Clinton Chronicles, a political hatchet-job designed to undermine a sitting President of the United States.  The video, which sold 150,000 copies, purportedly connected President Clinton and Mrs. Clinton to a murder conspiracy and a cocaine-smuggling operation.  The theory was discredited, and when the news broke about the complete dishonesty of the video, in true form Minister Falwell tried to disclaim having any editorial control over the project.

When Falwell’s Liberty University was staggering under a tremendous debt load, he quietly accepted $3.5 million from the infamous Korean cult messiah, Reverend Sun Myung Moon.  In exchange, Falwell publicly urged a presidential  pardon of Moon’s conviction for tax evasion.

The good Reverend later went on to dishonor himself with his continuing campaign against homosexuals, following in the footsteps of fellow Baptist preacher, Reverend Fred Phelps.  Some of Falwell’s most notable quotes on the sodomite menace include:  “Gay folks would just as soon kill you as look at you”; “AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals, it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals”; calling Ellen DeGeneris, when she came out as a lesbian, “Ellen Degenerate”; and, regarding homosexuals, “We’ve said go somewhere else, we don’t need you here at our churches”.  Minister Falwell further soiled himself when he opined that one of the characters on the children’s television show Teletubbies is a “homosexual role model for homosexual recruitment”, and that LBGT (lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender) organizations angered God, thereby in part causing God to let the September 11 attacks devastate New York City.

These bogeymen weren’t the only degenerates to blame, however.  Pastor Falwell also noted that:  “The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this (i.e. the 9/11 disaster) because God will not be mocked!”  Capping off his career of “hate speech” in 1999, this agent of intolerance left his faithful with a prediction:  the Antichrist will arrive within a decade and, “Of course, he’ll be Jewish”.

Pat Robertson – a prominent self-appointed political spokesman for conservative Christians in American politics and a highly visible spokesman for Fundamentalist religion, this guy has shared his stupid opinions with Americans on just about every subject for the past four decades.

A son of a former conservative U.S. Senator, Robertson attended Washington and Lee University, where he later claimed (but it was proven to be a lie) to have been elected to Phi Beta Kappa.  He was later in the Marine Corps, where he claimed to have won three battle stars for action against the enemy.  This, too, was proven to be a lie.  One of his Marine acquaintances, Pete McCloskey, who later became a Republican Congressman, claimed that Pat was spared combat duty when his father, then a Senator, intervened in his son’s behalf.  According to McCloskey, Robertson spent his time in the military as the “liquor officer” responsible for keeping the officers’ clubs supplied with hootch.  There he was known to personally consume large quantities of said booze and frequent local prostitutes.

After his less-than-distinguished military career, the Korean War “veteran” went on to get a Bachelor of Laws degree from Yale in 1955.  However, he failed his bar exam, had a religious epiphany, and decided against pursuing a career in law.  Instead, he put his dishonesty to use by becoming an ordained minister.

In 1960, the new “man of God” purchased a struggling UHF station in Portsmouth, Virginia for $37,000 and gave it an evangelistic format.  It would be the beginnings of CBN, the Christian Broadcasting Network.  He launched a religious talk show in 1963 and called it the 700 Club.  It showcased a lot of weird religious stuff, including glossalalia –speaking in tongues.

In addition to being a media mogul, Robertson became a well-known faith healer.  In one of his televised sermons in 1981, Reverend Pat told his congregation, “Satan has gone!  God has just healed somebody!  A hernia has been healed!  Several people are being healed of hemorrhoids and varicose veins!  People with flat feet!  God is doing great things for you!”  Yes, somewhere out there in the world, as a result of Robertson’s miraculous faith-healing powers, someone finally shook-off the flu.  Praise the Lord!

Gerard Straub, a former 700 Club producer, published Salvation for Sale in 1986.  It was a nasty tell-all describing what it was like working with Pat at CBN.  It portrayed Robertson as something of an overbearing asshole with delusions of grandeur.  In 1979, the network started making detailed preparations to televise the Second Coming of Christ, which Robertson figured was due at any moment.  This was known internally as GSP, or God’s Secret Plan.  Much to Robertson’s chagrin, Jesus failed to materialize that year, or in any year thereafter.

At about this time, when Pat was preparing the ticker-tape parade for the Son of God, he decided to get into politics.  Ingratiating himself with the Republicans, the good Reverend joined in an effort (along with later-disgraced Colonel Oliver North and the drug cartels) to support the Contra rebels in Nicaragua behind the back of Congress, which had prohibited aid to the rebels.  That didn’t work out so well in the long-run, as it jeopardized CBN’s tax-exempt status.

But, the excitement of being involved in national and international politics was a narcotic that Robertson couldn’t resist.  In the year that Salvation for Sale was published, the egotist fundamental Christian televangelist decided that he should run for President of the United States.  When ex-700 Club producer Straub heard about Robertson’s political aspirations, he opined, “I’d be very concerned about a man sitting next to a button who believes Jesus is telling him to press that button”.  As a matter of fact, the candidate’s first newsworthy statement to the New York Times indicated that he (Robertson) had a divine endorsement.  This is because he had prayed that Hurricane Gloria would spare Virginia Beach, and it did.  (But, then, it ravaged Long island and Boston to the tune of $320 million in damage.)  Robertson told the Times that the event was “extremely important because I felt, interestingly enough, that if I couldn’t move a hurricane, I could hardly move a nation”.  Yes, that is interesting.  Thanks to Robertson’s influence with God, the storm passed-by a sparsely-populated area so that it could kick some real ass in two densely-populated ones!  According to Pat Robertson, this was exactly the kind of judgment that the nation needed in the White House.  During the campaign, Robertson also made it clear that he was an advocate of Christian Dominionism, the idea that Christians had a right to rule.

Not surprisingly, the American people didn’t buy the religio-political nonsense that huckster Robertson was peddling and didn’t appreciate his lies about valorous combat as a Marine in Korea.  Denied the Presidency, the egotist then created his own version of Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, calling his lobbying group the “Christian Coalition”.  Millions of right-wing fundamentalist Christian idiots signed up, almost overnight.  In 1997, at one of its meetings, Robertson spoke admirably about the Tammany Hall political organization (that once controlled politics and patronage in New York City) and declared his desire to select the next President.  He had to wait awhile longer than he hoped.  The Christian Coalition endorsed George Bush, Sr., grudgingly, but campaigned enthusiastically for victorious George W. Bush.

Eventually, the Coalition got caught improperly using funds to promote specific candidates, and the FCC slapped it with fines.  The membership dwindled and Robertson abandoned the organization in 2001.

Having been defeated in his run for President, exposed as a liar, and defanged by the FCC, Robertson retreated to his couch on the 700 Club and proceeded to opine stupid ideas on virtually every subject for the next decade or so.  One of his favorite targets was/is the Supreme Court and the imbeciles sitting on it.  Interestingly, Robertson once publicly admitted that while gaining his Law Degree at Yale, he had never read the U.S. Constitution.  Yes, the very body of law that the Supreme Court is charged to uphold.  Maybe that’s why he failed his bar exam?

When the Supreme Court struck down the Texas anti-sodomy statute, Robertson publicly urged his Christian followers to pray for God to “remove” the three most liberal jurists.  Remove, as in extinguish their lives?  The prayers weren’t answered, at least quick enough for the good Reverend.

Of course, the flap about knocking-off those liberal Justices was only one of the many times that Robertson misspoke himself.  It came to light in 2002 that Robertson owned a race horse named “Mr. Pat”.  The Pastor told the New York Times that his interest in the horse was purely aesthetic.  “I don’t bet and I don’t gamble.  I just enjoy watching horses running and performing”, he said.  Harder to explain was why he spent $520,000 on the horse, training it to compete at the track.  The resulting furor over the clergyman’s involvement in a gambling racket caused Robertson to sell Mr. Pat a month after the story broke.

Some of Pat Robertson’s other business ventures were harder to explain.  For example, the diamond mining rights he purchased from Mobutu Sese Seko, the brutal tyrant of Zaire.  Diamond mining is an expensive proposition, but not if you’re a televangelist huckster.  In order to lower overhead and increase profits, Robertson ferried his mining cargo aboard planes owned by “Operation Blessing”.  The mission of this tax-exempt charity of Robertson’s was, ostensibly, to deliver medical supplies to the needy in Africa.  In fact, according to two pilots who worked for Robertson, nearly all the flights they made on Operation Blessing planes were delivery trips to and from the mining areas.  One said, “We were just supplying the miners and flying the dredges from Kinshasha out to Tshikapa.”

In 1999, Robertson struck up a relationship with another African dictator, Liberian strongman Charles Taylor.  For $8 million, Pastor Pat could pursue gold mining in Liberia.  Unfortunately, God’s tip to Robertson, that there was plenty of gold for the taking, turned out to be bogus.  Eventually, Taylor was chased out of the country for perpetrating crimes against humanity on a massive scale.

Another interesting case was the time that Robertson appeared on CNN defending China’s forced-abortion policy.  This was a head-scratcher for several reasons:  Robertson’s conservative Christian political constituency is hard-line anti-Communist and the Reverend had a three-decade long public record of opposing abortion of any kind.  The explanation of Robertson’s hypocritical position on CNN was because he had business interests in China, where its leaders don’t appreciate criticism of public policy.  Apparently, sticking to his theological and political guns was less important to the phony Pastor than toadying up to his Communist business partners.

None of this matters, of course, as The End is Near, at least according to Robertson, who personally talks with God.  In 1980, God told Pastor Pat that the Tribulation would begin in “the fall of 1982”.  It didn’t.  In his 1990 book, The New Millenium, Robertson prophesied that the Tribulation would begin on April 29, 2000.  Again, he misheard the Almighty.

In February, 2003, Pat announced that he was afflicted with potentially fatal prostate cancer.  This should not have been much of a problem for Robertson, as he claims to be one of the world’s most famous faith-healers.  He could just pray the tumor away like he did those flat feet, right?  Wrong.  Instead of laying hands upon himself, Robertson hired a surgical team to do God’s work for Him

Ordained Sex Addicts

All kinds of personalities find their way into clerical robes.  Many are undoubtedly decent, caring individuals, who want to give back to the community, rather than shake it down.  At least the faithful would like to believe that.

Some jokers, however, have found clerical vestments to be the perfect cover for their real passion:  carnal pleasures.  Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with sex.  It’s perfectly natural and humanity wouldn’t be here without it.  And, every male has probably done some stupid sexual thing that he’s not proud of.  However, once you’re on God’s payroll, you’ve got an obligation to toe the line, to live the Ten Commandments, and… to keep your pants zippered in front of the paying customers.  That’s true for Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant priests alike.

As was noted in the discussion of the confessional box, and the liberties taken by priests and popes in the early years, the clergy might or might have not been celibate, but they sure as Hell were not abstaining from carnal pleasures.

Regretably, in recent years (from the 20^th century), there has been a veritable orgasmic explosion of high-profile sex scandals that have rocked the clergy.    Some of the more lurid tales to hit the newsstands include the following:

Joseph Smith – back in the 19^th century this fellow created a new religion, Mormonism, so he could have sex with scores of women with God’s blessing.

At age 14, the teenager was supposedly approached in the woods by God who told the youth that every church on earth was offensive to Him.  God gave Smith some golden tablets with new rules to help establish the new, correct religion.  Like other famous prophets, the teenager never told anyone about this and, of course, the golden tablets disappeared like divine evidence always does.

Smith eventually completed the Book of Mormon, his new bible .  Luckily for Smith and the rest of his male followers, God’s new rules allowed Smith and his buddies to have sexual relations with as many women as they pleased.  Actually, this is not surprising , since a teenage boy was writing Scripture.

Prophet Smith ended up with twenty-eight concubines.  Unfortunately, before he could shack-up with any more, he ticked off a bunch of creditors, was jailed, tried to escape, and was killed by an angry mob.

David Koresh – born Vernon Wayne Howell, this guy was pretty much an average teenage loser.  He was a dyslexic high school dropout, born to an unwed mother, who went to Hollywood to make it as a rock guitarist but failed at that and moved back to Waco, Texas after two years.  There he became a member of, and later leader of, the Branch Davidian Seventh-Day Adventist religious cult.  It is not clear exactly what the tenets of the religious cult were, but the main attraction, especially for the leader, was that he could enjoy unlimited sex with the female members.

In 1990, Vernon legally changed his name to David Koresh.  He believed and taught to the cult that he was the reincarnation of King David and King Cyrus of Persia, and that he had been appointed by God to rebuilt the Temple and destroy Babylon.  In other words, Koresh claimed to be the Messiah.  He also claimed that he was owed at a minimum 140 wives and he was entitled to claim any females who were attracted into the cult compound.  Koresh fathered at least a dozen babies by his harem, which included girls as young as 12 and 13 when they got impregnated by the Messiah.

The Prophet’s orgy of love hit the skids in 1993 when Federal ATF agents, coordinated with the FBI, mounted a raid against the compound to search for illegal machine guns.  They definitely found them, as 131 Branch Davidians were waiting for the G-men with guns drawn.  A firefight ensued, as well as a conflagration of the complex, and when the smoke cleared four ATF agents and six cultists were dead, including playboy Pastor Koresh.

Tony Alamo – a low-life wannabe musician like the Prophet Koresh, this reprobate changed his name several times in the pursuit of filthy lucre and just ahead of the posse.

In 1969, he and his wife, Susan, hit upon the perfect scam, which they established as the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries.  The self-ordained Pentacostal evangelists had a syndicated TV show during the 1970’s.  They also sold a line of “Tony Alamo” sequined denim jackets, a business that eventually landed the Reverend Alamo in prison for tax evasion.

Like madman Koresh, Alamo’s congregation hunkered down in cult-like fashion at his compound in Texarkana, Arkansas.  His conscripts publicly distributed tracts of Minister Alamo’s writings, which featured a “Repent, the End is Near” theme.  The Alamo literature regularly condemned Catholicism, the Pope, and the American government as a joint Satanic conspiracy behind events such as 9/11, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the JFK assassination.

When he wasn’t preaching or practicing creative writing, Reverend Alamo was screwing around, quite literally.  He particularly liked young girls.  On September 20, 2008, Federal and state agents raided Alamo’s 15-acre compound as part of a child pornography investigation.  The case involved allegations of sexual abuse, polygamy, and underage marriage.  Alamo was arrested on charges that he transported minors (as early as 1994) over state lines for sexual activity in violation of the Mann Act.  During his trial, testimony was received that 74 year-old Minister Alamo had practiced polygamy and had taken a nine year-old as one of his wives.  He was eventually found guilty of ten Federal counts, sentenced to 175 years in prison, and had to pay each of his five victims of sexual abuse $500,000 each.

After his conviction, sex pervert Alamo made headlines by calling himself, “just another one of the prophets that went to jail for the Gospel

Warren Jeffs – a modern day Joseph Smith who used his ministerial position mainly to further the “missionary position”.  Warren is the son of Rulon Jeffs, once the head pervert of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  The senior Jeffs was survived by 19 wives and about 60 children.

When his father died, Warren assumed the titles of “President and Prophet, Seer and Revelator” of the FLDS Church.  He also inherited all of his father’s wives except his mother, because Mormons don’t tolerate incest…at least with mothers.  The young Jeffs eventually added fifty more sexy spouses to his personal harem.

One of the ways that the Prophet and his fellow FLDS horndogs were able to win over the affections of the FLDS girls was the practice of expelling teenage boys from the Church to decrease competition for wives.  The Church owned essentially all of the homes and real estate in the Colorado City area where the Prophet and his followers resided.  As the FLDS head honcho, Jeffs was the sole individual in the Church with the authority to perform its marriages.  He also was responsible for assigning wives to husbands, and also held the power to discipline wayward male believers by “reassigning” their wives, children, and homes to more obedient male followers.

In 2004, Minister Jeff’s power trip shorted-out.  He was accused by his nephew Brent Jeffs of sodomy when the victim was five or six years old.  Two of the Prophet’s other nephews stepped forward and made similar claims.  In June, 2005, Jeffs was charged with sexual assault on a minor for arranging a marriage between a non-consenting 14 year-old girl and her 19 year-old first cousin.  The young girl alleged that her new husband raped her repeatedly.

The Prophet fled the state to avoid prosecution and was placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List.  During his time on the lam from the Feds, website images showed photos of Jeffs with two of his own underage wives, one of whom was 12 years old, celebrating one-year anniversaries in 2005 and 2006.  Eventually, the cops apprehended the FLDS Seer and Revelator and his trial was held.  In 2007, Jeffs was found guilty of two counts of accomplice to rape and was sentenced to ten years to life in the Utah State Prison.  Charges in other states are pending.

Once convicted, Jeffs resigned the presidency of the Church, thereby allowing the FLDS orgy to continue unabated under the watchful eye of his horny brother.  In 2008, child welfare authorities conducted a raid of the FLDS Yearning for Zion property in Eldorado, Texas in which 530 women and children were temporarily removed from the cult compound.  Many of the children had broken bones and thirty-one girls aged 14 to 17 years-old were found to be pregnant or already mothers.

While in prison, the ex-Prophet has engaged in lengthy fasts, which his doctors report have been for spiritual purposes.

The HBO miniseries Big Love contains a scene where Roman Grant, the leader of a fictional fundamentalist and polygamist sect, observes Jeffs being arrested on TV.  Grant refers to him as a pervert and worries that Jeffs will “ruin things” for other polygamist sects.  Yes, it would be a shame if that happened.

Ted Haggard – one-time high-flying poster boy and do-gooder in the Christian evangelical movement who went over to the dark side.  Pastor Haggard was a handsome, charismatic guy, a confidante of President George W. Bush, and was one of the most influential Christian leaders in America during the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.

Founder of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, which he grew into a 14,000 member strong congregation, Haggard was also President of the National Association of Evangelicals in 2006.  Like his fellow conservative Christian brethren, Haggard was an outspoken opponent of gay marriage, supported anti-gay legislation, and flat-out publicly despised “those sodomites”.  In the documentary Jesus Camp, a scene shows Minister Haggard saying, “We don’t have to debate about what we should think about homosexual activity.  It’s written in the Bible.”

Apparently the Bible that Haggard was teaching from said that men having sex with other men was okay.  In November, 2006, prostitute and male masseur Mike Jones alleged that Haggard had paid Jones to engage in sex with him for three years and to supply Haggard with crystal methamphetamine.  “It made me angry that here’s someone preaching against gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex”, said Jones.  Jones made the allegations public in response to Haggard’s political support for Colorado Constitutional Amendment #43 on the November 7, 2006 ballot that would ban same-sex marriage in that state.  Jones further commented, “I had to expose the hypocrisy”.  Eventually other salacious testimony emerged from the gay community.  It was reported that Haggard “craved sex, he was a sexaholic”.  The Reverend tried to sidestep the charges but eventually confessed to “sexual immorality”.  He resigned his NAE presidency and his senior pastor position at New Life Church.  “I am a deceiver and a liar”, he wrote in his resignation letter.

As the shame unfolded on the national stage, Haggard’s famous evangelical buddies, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and James Dobson sought to distance themselves from the leprous fornicator and downplay his influence on religious conservatives.  His White House buddy, President George W. Bush, took shelter as well, acting as if he’d never met Haggard.  After the scandal was publicized, Pastor Ted entered three weeks of intensive counseling overseen by four ministers.  In February, 2007, one of those Men of God, Tim Ralph, announced that Haggard “is completely heterosexual”.  Well, Thank God for that!

In 2009, the Reverend Haggard and his wife appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and other “repentance broadcasts” to offer a public apology and confession for the sexual deviance that spurred his demise in 2006.  It appeared that Pastor Ted had been healed by the hand of God, and that he was solidly on his way toward redemption in the minds of his adoring Christian public.

But, gosh darn, in 2009, officials from Haggard’s former church announced that a young male church member had come forward.  There was “an overwhelming pool of evidence of an inappropriate consensual sexual relationship that went on for a long time with Haggard… it wasn’t a one-time act”.  The church eventually reached a six-figure settlement with the young man, who was in his 20’s at that time.  According to the man, the relationship was “not consensual”, and it later was reported that Haggard got his kicks by masturbating in front of the young man.

In the aftermath of the news that the New Life Church had paid “hush money” to hide his perversion, Haggard was asked by reporters if he had additional gay relationships that had not been reported.  Pastor Pat did not provide a direct answer.

On June 5, 2010, the now-rehabilitated (?) Pastor Ted Haggard welcomed a new crop of parishioners to the first meeting of his new St. James Church in his home in Colorado Springs.  As the famous quote goes, “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.”

Jim Bakker – a televangelist and one-time prince of the Prosperity Gospel gang of thieves who let his libido ruin one of the richest scams of all time.  Bakker and his wife, Tammy Faye, helped Pat Robertson’s 700 Club become a money machine, and later teamed with youth pastors Paul and Jan Crouch to create the Praise The Lord show for the then-new Trinity Broadcasting Network.  Their later creation, The PTL Club, grew quickly until it was carried by close to a hundred stations and had twelve million regular viewers.

The Bakkers started earning Jesus cash at a prodigious rate, thanks to their decisions early on to accept all denominations in their ministry and to refuse no contributions regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation, or criminal record.  Any donation green and foldable was gratefully received on behalf of the Precious Savior.  By the 1980’s contributions were coming in at the rate of $1 million per week (Praise the Lord!) and the Bakkers pretty much exhausted holy purposes to fund.

Accordingly, the couple adopted a lifestyle of conspicuous consumption unknown even to most filthy-rich televangelist hucksters.  A New Yorker article noted, “They epitomized the excesses of the 1980’s:  the greed, the love of glitz, and the shamelessness, which in their case was so pure as to almost amount to a kind of innocence.”  The Bakkers built a theme park and a satellite system to distribute their TBN cash-cow program 24 hours a day across the country.  By 1987, the Bakker’s PTL ministry had a burn rate of $500,000 per day, the couple was living in extravagance, and they were the darlings of the televangelism industry.  Jim and Tammy Faye had a fleet of luxury cars and six mansions, a dog house equipped with air conditioning, and one of their palaces had $60,000 in gold-plated bathroom fixtures.  God had blessed them.

And, then, the proverbial poop hit the fan.  Pretty boy Pastor Jim was caught-up in a sex scandal.  Bakker had boinked his supposedly-virginal church secretary, Jessica Hahn, using the creative pick-up line, “When you help the shepherd, you’re helping the sheep.”  But… the adulterous Lothario got snagged funneling $265,000 in Jesus money to hush up Ms. Hahn about their desktop frolic.

Suddenly, Jim Bakker and poor Tammy Faye became pariahs.  All of their friends deserted them.  Even fellow Assemblies of God televangelist big-shot Jimmy Swaggart took some unnecessary potshots, just for fun and just to be cruel.  Swaggart went on CNN and told Larry King that Jim Bakker was “a cancer on the body of Christ”.

The Reverend Bakker regretfully resigned from the PTL, the ministry that he founded, claiming that he was set-up by manipulative, greedy people.  The feeding frenzy got real nasty when televangelist John Ankerberg accused Jim of having engaged in sex with prostitutes and homosexuals, encouraging wife-swapping among PTL employees, and embezzling millions from the business.  Fellow televangelist and bigot-bashing gasbag Jerry Falwell also lit into Bakker during a 90-minute press conference:  “I have sat across the table from men who have told me of your homosexual advances”.

Within the year, sullied church secretary/strumpet Jessica Hahn appeared in a Playboy pictorial, and an article, The Devil in Jim Bakker: His Homosexual Lover and Pimp Tells All, appeared in Penthouse magazine.

Delivering Jim an ill-timed kick in the testicles, The Charlotte Observer began to scrutinize PTL’s fundraising activities.  This eventually led to criminal charges being filed.  Following a 16-month investigation into the PTL, a Federal grand jury indicted Bakker in 1988 on eight counts of mail fraud, fifteen counts of wire fraud, and one count of conspiracy.  The ticked-off jury of good Christian folk found him guilty on all twenty-four counts, and he was sentenced to 45 years in Federal prison and a $500,000 fine.  An appeals court later reduced the sentence to eight years.

Bakker served his time and was released from prison in 1994, but still owed the IRS $6 million in income tax.  The fallen evangelist is paying off his IRS tab with money he is now earning from his new ministry operating out of a television studio near Branson, Missouri.  His daily Jim Bakker Show is carried on satellite networks and the CTN network.

Jimmy Swaggart – still another wildly-successful, hypocritical Christian preacher who was brought down by sex scandals.  One of the pioneers of televangelism, Jimmy was originally a gospel singer and a cousin of Jerry Lee Lewis.  Swaggart began his ministry from a flatbed trailer in 1955, developing a revival meeting following throughout the South.  He was ordained by the Assemblies of God in1961 and began his radio ministry in 1962, broadcasting to the faithful in the Bible Belt.  He also started a church in Baton Rouge which eventually grew to 1,000 parishioners.

By 1975 Swaggart’s television ministry had become his primary preaching venue, and in 1978 his weekly telecast was expanded to one-hour.  By 1983, he had become the most popular television preacher in the United States with more than 250 stations broadcasting his program, reaching an estimated 80 million Jesus freaks weekly, and generating $150 million annually to the Jimmy Swaggart Ministries.  He was immensely popular, immensely rich, and, evidently, immensely bored with it all.

He was an insufferably pious big shot in1986 when he gleefully helped to defrock fellow Assemblies of God minister and competitor Marvin Gorman, who had conducted an extramarital affair with one of his parishioners.  And then the next year, when the PTL Ministry collapsed around Jim Bakker, another rival for Jesus dollars, Swaggart was ecstatic.  It was almost too good to be true.

But, if watching other people in misery was the Reverend’s favorite thing, then his next favorite was probably looking at pornography and having sex with $35 per-hour prostitutes in cheap motels.  When the rumors started flying, Jimmy was doomed.  Ironically, it was Marvin Gorman who nailed him.  In 1987, one year after Swaggart had publicly pole-axed Minister Gorman, revengeful Marvin paid a private detective to take photos of Jimmy with his regular Louisiana hooker.  Once he had the photos, ex-Minister Gorman tried blackmailing Reverend Swaggart, but Jimmy didn’t follow through on the payments.  So, Marvin turned to the same church elders who had disgraced him two years earlier.  When confronted by the Assemblies of God leadership, cocksman Swaggart had no choice but to confess.

The good Reverend told his peers that he had suffered a lifelong addiction to pornography.  It was probably no surprise to them.  All the signs were there.  Swaggart had written an article in 1987 asserting that “pornography is now considered as addictive as drugs”.  And, over the years, he had campaigned hard for tougher anti-porn legislation.  It was similar to Ted Haggard pontificating about bestial gays and sexual perversion at the same time he was having sex with a male prostitute and masturbating in front of teenagers.

The Assemblies of God had no recourse but to reprimand their shining star, so they decided to defrock him for one year.  It was like a misdemeanor slap on the wrist.  The next week, humbled Jimmy wound up crying on television.  In front of cameras and congregation, Swaggart seemed contrite:  “I have sinned against you, my Lord, and I would ask that your precious blood would wash and cleanse every stain until it is in the seas of God’s forgetfulness, never to be remembered against me.”  It was an Emmy-worthy performance.

But, the sinner never made any mention of the nature of his transgressions, referring only to some vague “moral failure”, and never promised to give up his sinful habits, either.  His normally-gullible followers weren’t fooled this time; his empire foundered and never recovered.  Within three years, his viewership had declined by more than 80 percent.

Nevertheless, Jimmy Swaggart soldiered on for Jesus, preaching the Gospel, knowing that God had his back.  But, in 1990, Penthouse magazine published an article featuring a woman who claimed to have had an extramarital affair with Preacher Swaggart.  Between 1987 and 1988, according to the lady, they had met up on ten separate occasions.  She mentioned beating him with a riding crop, but only after Jimmy convinced her to do it.  A few months later, Penthouse ran an exclusive interview with the Minister’s favorite Baton Rouge prostitute, Debra Murphree.  She claimed that Swaggart once asked her if he could screw her nine year-old daughter.  Even a prostitute knows better than that; she said, “No!”

The horny Pastor then took his “Lookin’ for Love” road show to California.  During a preaching tour, Swaggart drove his white Jaguar into the desert town of Indio.  There he propositioned 31 year-old Rosemary Garcia, who promptly got in the car.  Later, the lovers were pulled over by cops for driving on the wrong side of the road.  Garcia told a Palm Springs TV news crew that Swaggart had picked her up, then inquired where they could find a motel with in-room porn video.  When the reporter asked why Swaggart had approached her, Garcia said, “He asked me for sex.  I mean that’s why he stopped me.  That’s what I do.  I’m a prostitute.”

Shaken but not stirred by these scandals, the Jimmy Swaggart Ministries today mainly comprises the Family Worship Center in Baton Rouge, The Jimmy Swaggart Telecast, other radio and television programs, and a website.  The reprobate Minister is still preaching, if not practicing, the Holy Word, and continues to vacuum out the wallets of his faithful dimwit followers.  On November 10, 2002, the confessed porn addict Swaggart publicly called-out Islam’s Prophet Muhammad as a “pervert” and a “sex deviant”.

“I’ve Got Your Back!”

The scope and depravity of what has become known as the “Catholic Church Sex Abuse Scandal” only began to achieve notoriety in the last two decades of the 20^th century.  The scandal, which continues to unfold, concerns sex crimes against children committed by Catholic priests and members of religious orders under diocesan control.  One of the more troubling aspects of the scandal is that the heinous crimes against innocent children were known to officials in the Church hierarchy, possibly all the way to the top.  And, there was an organizational effort to hide the crimes, throttle complainants, and hide the sex pervert priests when they became exposed

The scale of the scandal is staggering.  In the United States alone, almost 4,400 Catholic priests and deacons have been accused of approximately 11,000 cases of sexual abuse, according to the John Jay Report, published by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.  That report stated that the abuse was primarily sexual in nature and involved mostly boys between the ages of 11 and 17.

By 2009, U.S. dioceses had paid out more than $2.6 billion in abuse-related costs.  Several dioceses found it necessary to close churches and in some cases declare bankruptcy.  In Ireland, 18 religious orders agreed to pay victims about $1.2 billion Euros ($1.7 billion USD).  Catholic congregations in many other countries have been hit hard, too.  Confidence in the Mother Church is at an all-time low.

One of the more notorious pervert priests uncovered to date was John Geoghan of the Boston Archdiocese.  Over a 30-year career in six parishes, Father Geoghan was accused of sexual abuse involving 130 children.  After initially agreeing to, and pulling out of, a $30 million settlement with 86 of Geoghan’s victims, the Boston archdiocese settled for $10 million and is still negotiating with other victims.  The most recent settlement proposed is $85 million for 542 victims of priests within the Boston archdiocese.

The settlements are being made because of evidence that the archdiocese had transferred Geoghan from parish to parish despite warnings of his behavior.  As a result of allegations against Geoghan, evidence arose that the archdiocese displayed a pattern of shipping other priests to new parishes when allegations of sexual abuse were made.  In other words, the Church simply found fresh meat for the known predator, rather than firing him or turning him over to civil authorities.

When Geoghan finally entered the criminal justice system, his reputation preceded him.  In 2003, while in protective custody at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center , Father Geoghan was strangled and stomped to death by his cellmate, a self-described white supremacist serving time for murdering a sexual deviant.

A number of high-level Catholic Church officials have been implicated in the scandals.  Probably the most infamous of these clergymen is Cardinal Bernard Law of the Boston Archdiocese. His actions and inactions relative to accusations of sexual impropriety by priests under his direction prompted public scrutiny of all members of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the steps they had taken in response to past and current allegations of sexual misconduct at the hands of priests.  Cardinal Law became the first individual shown to have actively participated in the cover-up of child molestation.  The evidence was overwhelming, but the Cardinal refused to step down as Archbishop of Boston.

A massive number of lawsuits were filed against the Archdiocese.  As a result, the Archdiocese lost millions of dollars in fines and settlements, it slipped into large financial deficits, and had to close sixty-five parishes in a cost-cutting move.

Eventually, fifty priests signed a letter declaring no-confidence in Cardinal Law and asking him to resign.  When he did finally submit his resignation to the Vatican and Pope Paul II, he was allowed to remain a Cardinal and was put in charge of the prestigious Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, with the title of Archpriest.

The office of the Vatican in charge of oversight of clerical discipline, the “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”, has been involved in questions regarding the final disposition of clergy accused of sexual abuse.  Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was Prefect of the CDF for twenty-four years from 1981-2005, when the sexual abuse scandal hit the fan.  Criminal investigators during this period were pretty much stonewalled by Ratzinger’s CDF with little admission of any type of problem.

In 2006, Cardinal Ratzinger was elected Pope (known as Benedict XVI) by his appreciative cronies.