Warning! Lyrics may contain offensive, vulgar language.
This is the one hundred and fifty-seventh installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Songs of Sacrilege is I Like it Heavy by Halestorm.
[Verse 1]
Some like beautiful, perfect, and pretty
I see the good in the bad and the ugly
I need the volume one louder than ten
Put the pedal to the metal, needle into the red
If the windows ain’t shaking
Making my heart race
If I can’t feel it in my chest
I’m in the wrong damn place
Got a demon in my soul
And a voice in my head
Saying go, go, go
I can sleep when I’m dead
There’s a sonic revelation bringing me to my knees
And there’s a man down below that needs my sympathy
I got a ringing in my ears getting ready to burst
Screaming hallelujah mother fucker take me to church
[Chorus]
I like it louder than the boom of a big bass drum
I need it harder than the sound of guitar grunge
I like to crank it up, make it thump, and evil to the core
Headbanging in the pit and throwing my horns
And just like old school Sabbath, Zeppelin, and Lemmy
I need to drop it down low and make it heavy
I like it heavy
Who-o-o-oa
I like it heavy
Who-o-o-oa
[Verse 2]
I ride the lightning, roll with the thunder
Going down, down, down with my sisters and brothers
I fell in love with the darkest parts
Standing on the side of the wild at heart
I plucked a feather off a crow so I could fly
Since I was 13 years old I’ve had my fist to the sky
[Chorus]
I like it louder than the boom of a big bass drum
I need it harder than the sound of guitar grunge
I like to crank it up, make it thump, and evil to the core
Headbanging in the pit and throwing my horns
And just like old school Sabbath, Zeppelin, and Lemmy
I need to drop it down low and make it heavy
I like it heavy
Who-o-o-oa
I like it heavy
Who-o-o-oa
[Bridge]
I like it, it like it, I like it heavy
I like it, it like it, I like it heavy
I like it, it like it, I like it heavy
I like it, it like it, I like it heavy
Some like beautiful perfect and pretty
I see the good in the bad and the ugly
I like it heavy
Who-o-o-oa
I like it heavy
Who-o-o-oa
I like it, it like it, I like it heavy
I like it, it like it, I like it heavy
I like it, it like it, I like it heavy
I like it, it like it, I like it heavy
[Verse 3]
Take me home tonight I, do anything with you
Buy a bottle of whiskey, we’ll get matching tattoos
Tell me that you love me, oh let me drive your car
We can sit to morning light, just countin’ every stars
Cause if there’s a Hell, I’ll meet you there
And if there’s a Heaven, they’re serving beer
And if you’re an angel then, I must be high
Oh if there’s a church, it’s rock ‘n roll
If there’s a devil, I sold my soul
And it’s alright whatever we do tonight
Cause if there’s a God dammit she won’t mind
If there’s a God, baby she won’t mind
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Sogyal Rinpoche, a renowned Tibetan Buddhist teacher, stands accused of psychologically and sexually abusing numerous students and devotees.
David Leser, a reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald writes:
On a late September evening this year, a group of leading Australian business figures gathered in a Sydney boardroom to discuss a series of allegations that had scandalised the Buddhist world, and shaken their own to the core. The meeting was called by David White, chairman of business strategy advisers Port Jackson and Partners; Ian Buchanan, former lead partner with management consultants Booz Allen Hamilton; Diane Grady, non-executive director of Macquarie Bank and chair of Ascham School; and Gordon Cairns, chairman of Origin Energy and Woolworths.
What these four had in common was a long-standing involvement in Practical Wisdom, a series of business retreats held in Sydney over the past 15 years with Sogyal Rinpoche, the Tibetan Buddhist teacher and author of the 1992 international bestseller The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.
These retreats were now up for review, as Rinpoche stood accused by eight of his former senior students of decades of physical, psychological and sexual abuse.
“There is such a deep sadness over what has happened,” Buchanan tells Good Weekend. “Whatever the facts turn out to be post investigation, this will inevitably be a tragedy. That this should come from an organisation that has done so much good, and from an individual who has done so much good, is very sad.”
….
But on July 14 this year, Rinpoche’s world came crashing down, and soon thereafter the faith of thousands of his devotees and admirers. That was the day he received a 12-page letter from the eight former senior students accusing him of years of violent and abusive behaviour.
“This letter is our request to you to stop your unethical and immoral behaviour,” they wrote. “Your public face is one of wisdom, kindness, humour, warmth and compassion, but your private behaviour, the way you conduct yourself behind the scenes, is deeply disturbing and unsettling.”
The letter then laid out in spectacular and shocking detail the nature of the Tibetan master’s alleged abuse: “We have received directly from you, and witnessed others receiving, many different forms of physical abuse. You have punched and kicked us, pulled hair, torn ears, as well as hit us and others with various objects such as your back-scratcher, wooden hangers, phones, cups and many other objects that happened to be close at hand.”
“Your physical abuse – which constitutes a crime under the laws of the lands where you have done these acts – have left monks, nuns and lay students of yours with bloody injuries and permanent scars. This is not second-hand information; we have experienced and witnessed your behaviour for years.”
Among the letter’s co-authors: his Australian IT expert Ngawang Sangye, and his personal assistant, an Australian artist turned Buddhist nun known as Drolma, who fled Rigpa – the organisation Rinpoche founded – in 2010 after what she claims was nearly eight years of abuse.
“His behaviour was often wildly unpredictable and irrational,” Drolma tells Good Weekend in a Skype interview from London, where she now lives. “If anything went wrong and his anxiety got the better of him, he would take it out on me. One of those times he grabbed me by the ear and it was torn all the way along the back. There was blood pouring down my neck.”
According to his accusers, the mistreatment went far beyond the physical. “Your emotional and psychological abuse has been perhaps more damaging than the physical scars you have left on us,” they wrote. “You have threatened us and others, saying if we do not follow you absolutely, we will die ‘spitting up blood’. You have told us that our loved ones are at risk of ill-health, or have died, because we displeased you in some way.”
Then came a range of alleged eye-popping sexual misdeeds. “You use your role as a teacher to gain access to young women, and to coerce, intimidate and manipulate them into giving you sexual favours.”
“Some of us have been subjected to sexual harassment in the form of being told to strip, to show you our genitals (both men and women), to give you oral sex, being groped, asked to give you photos of our genitals, to have sex in your bed with our partners, and to describe to you our sexual relations with our partners.”
“You have for decades, and continue to have, sexual relationships with a number of your student attendants, some who are married. You have told us to lie on your behalf, to hide your sexual relationships from your other girlfriends. Publicly you claim that your relationships are ordinary, consensual and proper because you are not a monk. You deny any wrongdoing and have claimed on occasion that you were seduced.”
….
In Sogyal Rinpoche’s case, the “channels in his body” were less than subtle, according to British journalist Mary Finnigan, who was to spend nearly two decades trying to expose him. “I’m one of the people who launched Sogyal on his career as a teacher in London in 1973, when he was very young and very inexperienced,” she told a Canadian documentary team in 2011. “There was just this continuous stream of seductions. He didn’t even hide it in those days. He was absolutely flagrantly promiscuous. He would pick girls up – usually vulnerable, needy – and entertain them for a short while and then dump them.”
One of those young women, American Victoria Barlow, first met Rinpoche in New York in 1976 after grappling for years with her own childhood sexual abuse. Rinpoche was visiting Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the pioneer of Tibetan Buddhism in the US, and Barlow wanted Sogyal Rinpoche’s advice on the dharma, or Buddhist teachings.
“He opened the apartment door without a shirt, holding a bottle of beer,” Barlow recalls now in a written response to Good Weekend. “I [had] just turned 22 and I arrived in an almost floor-length dark brown tent dress that I had made a few months before in Calcutta.
“I thanked him for taking the time to see me and was in the process of asking him my question when he reached over and touched my cheek. He said, ‘I think we have a special connection.'”
“My face flushed. I had just been touched by a lama. This was such a blessing … but as I spoke, he reached toward me and literally mashed my face with his face. He was literally slobbering all over me.
“He roughly put his hand up my long dress, groped my privates, unzipped himself and lay on top of me, literally grunting for the minute or two until he released. Immediately, he got up, said he had things to do, that he was getting ready to travel across America.”
Barlow was mortified, but still willing to believe that – in the spirit of “Crazy Wisdom” – Rinpoche had just transmitted a powerful “source of enlightenment”.
In the following months, she received several calls from him, including one from Trungpa’s spiritual centre in Boulder, Colorado, where Rinpoche “spoke with amazement about how Trungpa had girls lined up outside his door like a rock star and that he wanted that, too. I thought he was joking and only later realised that was his actual aspiration, to have a conveyor belt of groupies.”
Despite growing doubts, Barlow allowed her spiritual mentor to convince her to fly to Berkeley, California to receive teachings from another Buddhist master. She was invited to stay with an American couple, both Tibetan Buddhist students who showed her a room with two beds. “They said, ‘That’s Sogyal’s bed next to yours. He told [us] to put you in here.’ I felt a combination of shock, shame, humiliation, defeat and anger.”
“Within a minute of his arriving in the room, Sogyal said he’d had a fight with his girlfriend in London. He made it apparent that he wanted sex with me, so that made me just some lay he’d arranged to use in Berkeley.” Barlow concluded then that Rinpoche was a “charlatan”; that she needed to get away as soon as possible. “Eight weeks later,” she says, “I miscarried his child.”
….
Over the 15 years that Buchanan and Cairns helped convene the “Practical Wisdom” retreats, there was nothing in Rinpoche’s behaviour to suggest scandal. Yes, there had often been questions about his inner circle of beautiful young women, and how it was that a teacher of loving-kindness could so often publicly humiliate his senior students. But never a hint of physical or sexual abuse.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Convicted rapist Michael Mercado believes God wanted him to marry his victim. Mercado, however, was already married. Mercado’s crime was reported to church officials. It is unclear whether they reported Mercado’s behavior to law enforcement.
Johnathan Hogan, a reporter for the Idaho State Journal, writes:
When Michael Mercado’s ex-wife caught him having sex with a minor, he told her it was God’s will that he take this woman as his second wife.
District Judge Joel Tingey wasn’t buying that defense Monday when he sentenced Mercado, 48, to five to 20 years in prison for sexually abusing a minor.
“I considered a rider program. As with probation, I think that minimizes the damage done,” Tingey said.
Mercado of Idaho Falls was arrested in June after the relationship was discovered. He was charged with sexual battery committed by lewd or lascivious acts on a minor child 16 to 17 years of age. The charge was amended to rape where the victim is 16 or 17 years of age.
During Mercado’s sentencing, the ex-wife read a victim impact statement to Tingey about how her former husband’s actions had affected her.
She said Mercado had tried to guilt-trip her for reporting him, and when she spoke to a church leader about the abuse, told her to call him back and deny her earlier statements. She said Mercado said they should stay together, and that the abuse would stop if she didn’t report it.
“After this, I don’t know what part of my relationship was real,” Mercado’s ex-wife said. “I used to think the worst thing that could happen in a marriage was to have my husband cheat on me, but I was wrong, so very wrong.”
The woman said she was disgusted by the harm he had done to the victim, and said she did not feel safe with her ex-husband free.
“At this time, I would ask the court to extend the full wrath of the law to Mr. Mercado,” she said.
The victim of Mercado’s abuse agreed.
“I know that he can get life in prison, and that’s what I want,” the victim, now 18, said in her victim-impact statement.
She said she met Mercado when she was 13, and he said he wanted to get to know her better. He told the victim he had prayed, and God told him they should marry.
Mercado proposed to the then 17-year-old girl in May, and said he had even looked up how much time he may face in prison if caught. The victim said she typically went along with what Mercado wanted for fear of how he would react if she said no.
“He also brainwashed me to think it was OK to rape me,” the victim said.
John Thomas, Mercado’s defense attorney, acknowledged the unusual nature of the case, but said his client’s actions would not have been a child sex abuse crime if he waited six months.
…
He argued, however, that his client needed treatment for sex addiction, pointing out that Mercado had four marriages that failed because of cheating. Thomas also said his client has no criminal history.
“I just don’t think this is a prison case,” Thomas said. “I certainly don’t think it’s a life-in-prison case.”
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Catholic priest James Talbot was indicted earlier this month on charges of gross sexual assault. Talbot previously spent six years in prison after pleading guilty to raping two high school students.
Dennis Hoey, a reporter for the Press Herald, writes:
A former Jesuit priest who taught and coached at Cheverus High School for nearly two decades before being fired in 1998 is scheduled to be arraigned in Portland on charges he sexually assaulted a minor in Freeport nearly 20 years ago.
A grand jury indictment dated Nov. 9 and obtained by the Press Herald on Tuesday identifies the priest as 80-year-old James Francis Talbot of Dittmer, Missouri.
The indictment charges Talbot with gross sexual assault, a Class A offense, and with unlawful sexual contact, a Class C offense.
The indictment alleges that Talbot engaged in a sexual act with a minor and subjected the minor, who was 8 or 9 years old at the time, to sexual contact on or between May 1, 1997, and June 14, 1998.
The indictment said the alleged crimes took place in Freeport, but offered no information about a specific location, Talbot’s relationship to the minor, or why Talbot was in Freeport. It also was not clear why the charges are being brought now or whether this is the first time Talbot has been charged in Maine.
According to Maine statute of limitations, a prosecution for incest, unlawful sexual contact, sexual abuse of a minor, rape or gross sexual assault may be commenced at any time if the victim was not 16 at the time of the alleged crime.
The Boston Globe reported in October 2005 that Talbot pleaded guilty to raping and sexually assaulting two Boston College High School students in the 1970s and was sentenced to five to seven years in prison. Prosecutors said the assaults took place during wrestling practices.
When Talbot was accused of molesting the Boston College high students in 2002, the president of Cheverus said the school was unaware of the incidents in Boston when Talbot was hired in 1980.
“It was absolutely not known,” the Rev. John Keegan told the Press Herald in March 2002. “I was superior of the community and I would have heard. But there were no hints at all.”
Talbot served six years before he was released in 2011. He was ordered by the court to live out of state in a secure, monitored treatment facility.
….
Talbot was targeted in the Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigation into abuses that had occurred within the Catholic Church. The Globe’s investigation resulted in the movie “Spotlight” that told the story of how the newspaper uncovered the sex abuse scandal in the Boston church.
In a March 2002 Spotlight article, the reporting team said that Talbot coached wrestling at Boston College High School and that he engaged in a “bizarre habit” of wrestling with students who were in various stages of undress, including wearing only athletic supporters. He was transferred to Cheverus High School in 1980.
The Globe reported that Michael S. Doherty of Freeport filed a lawsuit against Talbot in 1997 for molesting him while he was a student at Cheverus. The case was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount, the Globe reported. No criminal charges were filed because the alleged abuse fell outside the statute of limitations at that time.
As the Black Collar Crime series has shown, Evangelical pastors can and do commit all sorts of crimes, including — in the case of Missouri-Synod Lutheran pastor Christopher Gattis — murder. Gattis stands accused of murdering his wife, stepdaughter, and the stepdaughter’s boyfriend on Thanksgiving Day.
Gattis worked for and was a member of a church that believes “the Bible to be the inspired and inerrant Word of God and the only revelation on both beliefs and practice.” Lutherans believe people must persevere until the end to be saved (as do Calvinists). The difference between Lutherans and Calvinists, according to Douglas Sweeney, chair of the church history and history of Christian thought department and director of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, is that Lutherans believe:
….the elect will certainly persevere in faith. God is not impotent to carry out his decrees respecting salvation. But not everyone who is born again is among God’s elect. It is possible for regenerated people to apostatize. So perseverance is largely a matter of walking in step with the Spirit, persevering, and encouraging other people to do the same.
According to Sweeney, Martin Luther believed that there were sins that could result in people losing their faith. Luther wrote:
“it is necessary to know and teach that when holy people—aside from the fact that they still have and feel original sin and also daily repent of it and struggle against it—somehow fall into a public sin (such as David, who fell into adultery, murder, and blasphemy against god), at that point faith and the Spirit have departed.” Luther, Smalcald Articles (1537), 3.3
None of us can know Christopher Gattis’ “heart.” For the purpose of this post, I am going to assume that he was a good Missouri-Synod Christian who loved Jesus, and the moment he committed the very public sin of homicide, the Spirit of God took flight from his soul and Gattis is now a sinner in need of conversion.
Using murderous, adulterous David as an example, Luther believed that when King David publicly sinned against God, faith and the Holy Spirit departed. Gattis, much like David, had a record of misconduct. In 2010 he was accused of public intoxication, and in 2012 he was charged with assault and battery. Kevin Defford, his victim in the assault, said the following to the NBC-12:
“He was on edge that day, was my thinking,” says Kevin Defford, who is the victim in the 2012 case.
Defford was delivering samples of a newspaper with his son and tossed one onto Christopher Gattis’ driveway.
“On the way up, he had come from his driveway and was standing in the middle of the road,” said Defford.
He says Christopher Gattis threw the paper at his face and started yelling, even going as far as to pull out a box cutter.
“The fact that he pulled the box cutter, it had me thinking about my son at that point, and that’s why the police were called,” says Defford. “But again, it seemed like he was on edge that day when I met him.”
Christopher Gattis was found guilty, but the charge was dismissed once Christopher Gattis paid restitution. Now knowing this man is connected to a triple murder has Defford shaken.
“Now it makes me wonder a little more um, what might have been,” he said.
It seems that Gattis has had several bouts of faithlessness. The good news is that if Gattis repents — telling God, my bad, Jesus. I promise never to kill anyone again — he can, once again, become a man after God’s own heart. No sin — no matter how perverse, vile, disgusting, or evil — is beyond the forgiving power of the miraculous blood of Jesus. For Gattis, restoration is but a prayer away.
Or is it?
Evangelicals love to talk about how bad they were before they became new creations in Christ Jesus. As anyone who has sat through a Baptist testimony time can attest, wild claims of depravity are quite common. The greater the sin, the greater the grace needed to save sinners from their sins. Over the course of the fifty years I spent in the Christian church, I never heard believers minimize their sinfulness. Oh no, the bigger the sinner, the better. This is why the history of Evangelicalism is filled with stories about people who were once witches, Satanists, and mob hit men before J-e-s-u-s saved them. Such people regale congregations with stories of murder, sexual abuse, demonic possession, sacrificing infants to Satan, and all sorts of perversion. Yet, Jesus somehow, some way, reached down into their wretched souls and saved them. (Of course, many of these wild testimonies are lies straight from the mythical pit of hell.)
Murderers present a real conundrum for Evangelicals. They know that David was a murderer, yet God forgave him, and he was considered not only a man after God’s own heart, but also a relative of Jesus. Evangelicals read and hear stories about murderers whose lives were transformed by the mighty working power of the triune God. This must mean, then, that murderers can be saved too, that even killing your family or strafing innocent men, women and children with weaponized drones is within the purview of Jesus, the savior of humankind. But, is it really? What does the Bible say on the matter?
Revelation 21:8 states:
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
Revelation 22:14,15 adds:
Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. [OMG! all dogs go to hell!]
The writer of First John said:
Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. (1 John 3:15)
Speaking of reprobates — those beyond the grace of God — the Apostle Paul said:
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. (Romans 1:26-32)
Paul emphatically states in Galatians 5:19-21 that murderers shall not inherit the Kingdom of God:
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Did Christopher Gattis, by murdering his family, cross a line of no return? Has his nonrefundable ticket for the Lake of Fire been punched? Or, is there still hope for Gattis; that if he really, really, really says he is s-o-r-r-y that God will say to him, aw shucks, Chris, I forgive you. The Bible is incoherent on this matter, as it is with virtually every other theological, cultural, and social issue Christians say the Bible addresses. God said it, and that settles it, right?
Of course, there is no God, so flesh-and-blood humans are left with the unenviable task of trying to figure out why Gattis picked up a gun and murdered those closest to him. Was he mentally ill? Was he under the influence of drugs or alcohol? Did he shoot them in a fit of rage? If so, what caused him to be so angry? So many questions, and regardless of the answers, Gattis, if convicted, should spend the rest of his life in prison (and I know some readers think this is a death-penalty-worthy crime).
I grieve for those left behind in the wake of Gattis homicidal rage. And for those who attempt to paper over this tragedy with God, prayer, and faith? Child, please. Stop excusing bad behavior with nonsensical theological arguments and clichés. What’s next? — God needed more good angels so he used Christopher Gattis to send his family to heaven; that God always works things out according to his purpose and plan? Enough, already. (Please read Sutherland Springs Massacre: God Answered the Victims Prayers by Allowing Them to be Murdered.)
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 60, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 39 years. He and his wife have six grown children and eleven grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.
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Warning! Lyrics may contain offensive, vulgar language.
This is the one hundred and fifty-sixth installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Only the Good Die Young by Billy Joel.
Come out, Virginia, don’t let me wait
You Catholic girls start much too late
But sooner or later it comes down to fate
I might as well be the one
They showed you a statue and told you to pray
They built you a temple and locked you away
But they never told you the price that you pay
For things that you might have done…
Only the good die young
You might have heard I run with a dangerous crowd
We ain’t too pretty, we ain’t too proud
We might be laughing a bit too loud
But that never hurt no one
So, come on, Virginia, show me a sign
Send up a signal I’ll throw you the line
The stained-glass curtain you’re hiding behind
Never lets in the sun
Darling, only the good die young
You got a nice white dress and a party on your confirmation
You got a brand new soul
And a cross of gold
But, Virginia, they didn’t give you quite enough information
You didn’t count on me
When you were counting on your rosary
They say there’s a heaven for those who will wait
Some say it’s better but I say it ain’t
I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints
The sinners are much more fun…
You know that only the good die young
You say your mother told you all that I could give you was a reputation
She never cared for me
But did she ever say a prayer for me?
Come out, come out, come out
Virginia, don’t let me wait,
You Catholic girls start much too late,
But sooner or later it comes down to fate
I might as well be the one,
You know that only the good die young
Tell you baby
You know that only the good die young
Only the good die young
Only the good
Only the good die young
Voices of Reason sing Only the Good Die Young A capella
Lately, it’s occurred to me that progressive-leaning Christians like myself have more in common with atheists right now than with white evangelicals, the ones who, overwhelmingly, will stop at nothing to see the United States turn into a theocracy, using Margaret Atwood‘s The Handmaid’s Tale as a handbook rather than as a cautionary tale.
Religious beliefs aside, atheists and progressive Christians need each other during these uncertain times. Our politics, if nothing else, are more alike than they are different. You don’t need to share spirituality to understand the consequences of enforcing so-called “bathroom safety” laws that target transgender people, rejecting climate change, allowing businesses to deny women’s health care, or allowing Creationism to be taught alongside evolution in public schools. As citizens, we all have common adversaries, among them faith-based ignorance and bigotry. As human beings, we also have common causes worth uniting for: freedom and education.
— Sarahbeth Caplin, The Friendly Atheist, Atheists and Progressive Christians Must Work Together to Fight Evangelicals, November 26, 2017
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Felix Broussard, pastor of St. Bernard Roman Catholic Church in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana is still awaiting trial on child pornography charges. According to a previous news report, Broussard “repented” after every time he looked at child porn [the blood of Jesus making pedophiles and sexual predators “clean” for 2,000 years].
Ken Stickney, a reporter for The Daily Advertiser, writes:
The Rev. F. David Broussard, charged 16 months ago with 500 counts of possession of child pornography, may yet get his day in court.
But it didn’t happen Monday in 16th Judicial District Court in St. Martin Parish, where he was scheduled to appear before Judge Vincent J. Borne. Broussard’s name was called in court simply as “Felix Broussard,” but he did not appear before the judge after court officials scoured the courtroom to see if the defendant was present to stand. Court officials said they were not fully certain why Broussard was absent.
….
A priest for more than two decades, Broussard was arrested in July 2016 after a repair technician discovered more than 500 images of child sex abuse on Broussard’s personal computer. Broussard had brought the computer in for repairs and the technician, after discovering the images, was required by law to report the crime.
Broussard had been assigned to St. Bernard Roman Catholic Church in Breaux Bridge at the time of his arrest; he was also chancellor at the church school.
A police investigation revealed the images were on Broussard’s computer for about two years. None of the images were of local children, authorities said.
On the weekend after his arrest, Broussard sent a letter of apology to his parishioners by way of Most Rev. Douglas Deshotel, bishop of Lafayette, who offered Masses at St. Bernard that weekend and read the letter to parishioners.
Nonetheless, Broussard personally entered a plea of not guilty to the possession of child pornography charges in May before Judge Paul de Mahy.
At his arrest, Broussard was suspended from his priestly duties by Deshotel. Church law says sex with minors is a sin of adultery and are considered criminal. If he is convicted, the church could convene a tribunal for Broussard, and remove him from the priesthood.
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In August 2016, KATC-3 reported:
The Breaux Bridge priest arrested on child pornography charges told investigators he knew viewing the images was wrong and that he “‘repented’ after every episode,” according to an arrest warrant obtained by our investigative team.
Father David Broussard was arrested on July 27 on 500 counts of child pornography after images allegedly were found Broussard’s computer. The images included both male and female children ranging in age from infancy to 12 years old, and included photos of children involved in sexual activity with other children and adults, according to the arrest affidavit.
During an interview with investigators, Broussard allegedly admitted that he used the computer to search and view child pornography.
The computer was found at Broussard’s office or living quarters at St. Bernard Roman Catholic Church, where Broussard was a priest, according to the affidavit.
Investigators examining the computer learned that it had be used from July 2014 to July 2016 to search for child pornography. Genealogy searches for the surname Broussard were also made on the computer in close proximity of searches for child pornography, according to the arrest affidavit.
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The initial report in the case of David Broussard, the priest arrested on child pornography charges, indicates State Police were initially contacted by the St. Martin Parish Sheriff’s Office on July 15. The State Police Special Victims Unit found that multiple searches for child pornography were made on Broussard’s computer between July 2014 and July 2016, the document states.
The computer was “personally owned” by Broussard. The desktop had more than 500 images of child sexual abuse saved, the document states.
The computer was located a Broussard’s living quarters at the St. Bernard Roman Catholic Church in Breaux Bridge where he was pastor.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Mark Whitaker, assistant pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church (his father’s church) in Portsmouth, Virginia, stands accused of forgery, passing forged checks, and identity fraud.
Scott Daugherty, a reporter for The Virginian-Pilot, writes:
A Circuit Court judge ordered the public out of the courtroom on Monday afternoon so prosecutors and defense attorneys could argue two motions relating to Councilman Mark Whitaker’s case in private.
Retired Hampton Circuit Judge William Andrews III cleared the room after a defense attorney indicated he planned to discuss grand jury testimony the court previously ordered sealed.
A Virginian-Pilot reporter objected to the move, prompting Andrews to ask a deputy to escort everyone out.
Whitaker, assistant pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church, is charged with 11 counts of forgery, seven counts of passing forged checks and two counts of identity fraud.
The charges stem from an investigation Sheriff Bill Watson initiated into Whitaker’s church, its development company and its now-defunct credit union.
Whitaker’s trial was originally set to start Monday, but the judge postponed it until March 21 so the defense could argue various motions.
Whitaker’s attorneys asked Andrews earlier this year to toss the entire indictment. Jon Babineau and Don Scott argued that the special grand jury process was tainted. They took issue with how Portsmouth Circuit Judge William Moore Jr. recused himself from handling Whitaker’s case after overseeing the grand jury and how Watson and one of his investigators had publicly denounced Whitaker.
The attorneys also argued the court should dismiss 15 of the counts because of insufficient evidence. They noted that two of the victims identified in the indictment have come out in support of Whitaker. Malinda Starkley, who worked at the church and credit union, and Caroline Larosiliere, Whitaker’s sister, say that if Whitaker signed their names to any documents, he did so with their permission.
Special prosecutor Andrew Robbins countered that there is no evidence Moore was biased against Whitaker. He also argued that because Capt. Lee Cherry and Investigator Brett Johnson of the Sheriff’s Office were involved in the original investigation, it made sense for the court to order them to assist the grand jury, along with a special agent from the U.S. Treasury Department.
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Whitaker’s church bio page states:
Dr. Mark Micaiah Whitaker is the third of four children born to Bishop James M. and Otelia McIntyre Whitaker of Portsmouth, VA. He is married to Dr. Ingrid Whitaker, who serves as a Tenured Associate Professor of Sociology at Old Dominion University. Dr. Mark and Dr. Ingrid Whitaker made history on Tuesday, November 4, 2014 by becoming the first married coupled elected to Portsmouth City Council and Portsmouth School Board. They are the proud parents of four children – *****.
Dr. Whitaker was educated in the Portsmouth Public School System. In 1983, he graduated 4th in his class with honors from the great Manor High School and was named to the First Team All-State Boys Basketball Team. Dr. Whitaker furthered his education at Virginia Tech where he was the recipient of a full-athletic scholarship in basketball, served as President of the Black Student Alliance, was listed as Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges, and graduated from Virginia Tech in 1987 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Management Science. In 1989, Dr. Whitaker received a Masters of Business Administration from The Pennsylvania State University. Moreover, in 1993, Dr. Whitaker received the Doctor of Jurisprudence (Law Degree) from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law where he served as President of the Black Law Students Association in 1992 and 1993 and served on the College of Law Honor Council. Dr. Whitaker has done further studying in the R.B. Pamplin College of Business Doctoral Program at Virginia Tech and the Samuel Dewitt Proctor School of Theology of Virginia Union in the Masters of Divinity program.
Dr. Whitaker presently serves as a Tenured Associate Professor of Management at the historic Hampton University. In 1992, Dr. Whitaker was licensed as a minister and ordained in June of 1995. Moreover, Dr. Whitaker serves as the Assistant Pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church in Portsmouth, VA where his father, Bishop James M. Whitaker has served as the Pastor since June of 1964 and his mother, Otelia McIntyre Whitaker, is the Minister of Music. Under the direction of his father, Dr. Whitaker initiated an endowment fund ministry at the church, computerized the operations of the church and church credit union, received over $1 million from the Virginia Department of Education 21st Century Community Learning Center Grant for after-school tutoring and summer enrichment programs for elementary and middle school students in the Cavalier Manor neighborhood, expanded the catering business of the church, coordinated the purchase of the former Bona Villa 15 acre apartment complex, created the New Bethel Development, LLC , reorganized the Diaconate Ministry, and developed the Wednesday night Christian Development Institute.
In May 2002, Dr. Whitaker was elected to the Portsmouth School Board as the youngest person ever elected and served until December 2014. As a School Board Member, Dr. Whitaker served as chair of the Minority Contracting Committee and the Corporate Sponsorship Committee. Moreover Dr. Whitaker was very instrumental in the School Board implementing a Minority and Women Business Enterprises Program, Middle School Athletics Program, Pay Equity Study, and in advocating for social justice and respect for all.
Dr. Whitaker is one who believes that, through Christ, we can do all things.
In April 2017, Daugherty reported:
Councilman Mark Whitaker was indicted Thursday on 20 felony charges of identity fraud, forgery and using forged checks.
A special grand jury impaneled to hear evidence about Whitaker’s church, New Bethel Baptist Church, and its development company and its now-defunct credit union returned the indictments.
Eleven counts alleged forgery, seven “uttering a forged check” and two identity fraud. Most of the charges stem from August 2013, but two are from October 2014.
Three people were identified as victims in the paperwork – Kevin Blount, Caroline Larosiliere and Malinda Starkley. New Bethel’s website lists a Malinda Starkley as a deacon.
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Whitaker previously blasted the grand jury investigation as politically motivated, noting that Sheriff Bill Watson was involved in the initial inquiry. The two are longtime political foes, with each accusing the other of racism and grandstanding over the years.
A source familiar with the case told The Pilot that Watson had his employees start the investigation, and then they looped in the U.S. Treasury Department.
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According to court documents, investigators with the Sheriff’s Office, Treasury and the federal agency that regulates credit unions first presented evidence to Portsmouth Commonwealth’s Attorney Stephanie Morales. But she asked the court in January to assign a special prosecutor, citing a conflict of interest “and to avoid the appearance of impropriety.”
Chief Circuit Judge William Moore Jr. impaneled the nine-member grand jury Tuesday to look into the church, the financial relationships between its entities and transactions between those entities and their members, among other things.
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After Robbins presented the charges to the jurors, eight of whom appeared to be black and one white, it took about an hour to return with signed indictments.
Earlier Thursday, an attorney representing the church said she did not believe any crimes had occurred.
“If they indict anyone in this matter, it would be an absolute tragedy,” said Verbena Askew, who accompanied a half-dozen church employees Tuesday and Wednesday while they testified to the grand jury.
Over the past month, Askew has repeatedly argued the jury was not legally able to return an indictment. She continued questioning that ability Thursday.
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James and Mark Whitaker run the church at 4212 Greenwood Drive and are involved in its development company. Whitaker headed the church’s credit union before it was liquidated in August 2015 because the National Credit Union Administration determined it would never be able to “restore viable operations.”
The church started the development company about 11 years ago to buy a dilapidated rental complex next door, but financing dried up, and New Bethel Development defaulted on a $2.9 million loan, with the church as collateral.
A third party took control and arranged to sell it so the bank could get its money back. The buyer, Herman & Kittle, wants to build 280 apartments there. But the project didn’t get City Council approval after pressure from residents in the Cavalier Manor neighborhood, and Herman & Kittle is suing.
The Declaration of Independence announces the sublime truth, that all power comes from the people. This was a denial, and the first denial of a nation, of the infamous dogma that God confers the right upon one man to govern others. It was the first grand assertion of the dignity of the human race. It declared the governed to be the source of power, and in fact denied the authority of any and all gods. Through the ages of slavery — through the weary centuries of the lash and chain, God was the acknowledged ruler of the world. To enthrone man, was to dethrone God.
Warning! Lyrics may contain offensive, vulgar language.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, 
Lately, it’s occurred to me that progressive-leaning Christians like myself have more in common with atheists right now than with white evangelicals, the ones who, overwhelmingly, will stop at nothing to see the United States turn into a theocracy, using Margaret Atwood‘s The Handmaid’s Tale as a handbook rather than as a cautionary tale.
