1. Florida Vegans Charged with Murder After Their Malnourished Baby Dies
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2876403939113113
Location: Florida, USA
2. TV Youth Pastor Gets 1,008 Years in Prison for Sexually Abusing Kids
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2876166182470222
Location: Alabama, USA
3. ‘Christianity Today' Calls For Trump's Removal: Trump Is 'Profoundly Immoral'
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2870289306391243
Location: USA
4. A Satanic “Yule Goat” Has Been Put Up Outside the Michigan State Capitol
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2881212975298876
Location: Michigan, USA
5. Ex-KY Governor: I Pardoned a Child Rapist Since His Victim’s Hymen Was Intact
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2871528962933944
Location: Kentucky, USA
6. Outrage as Pakistan sentences academic to death for blasphemy
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2875293709224136
Location: Pakistan
7. ISIS in Iraq: Militants 'getting stronger again'
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2876049015815272
Location: Iraq
8. Christians Are Telling a Gay Priest How Happy They Are That His Partner Died
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2871654159588091
Location: England, United Kingdom
9. Younger Americans Increasingly Saying No to Religious Weddings
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2883721368381370
Location: USA
10. Legionaries of Christ says priests abused 175
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2881699198583587
Location: Worldwide
1. A Florida raw vegan couple was indicted for murder and other criminal charges in the death of their 18-month-old baby who died after being fed only raw fruits and vegetables. Ryan Patrick O’Leary and Sheila O’Leary were charged with first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter, child abuse, and two counts of child neglect in connection with the treatment of their four kids. The weight of the 18-month-old in question was more appropriate for a baby nearly a year younger. This is a lot like other cases we’ve seen involving parents who kill their children, either through neglect for food or through “faith healing.” Sometimes it’s a combination of the two, as was the case with Jennifer and Jeromie Clark, who were sentenced to just 32 months in prison for letting their 14-month-old son die by failing to get him medical treatment. In that case, the malnourishment was caused by the parents’ extreme interpretation of the Seventh-day Adventist religion, which they believe requires a strict vegan diet. Because of their misguided faith, they attempted to treat a staph infection with vegetables rather than going to a doctor.
2. In what might be the first time in American history a religious leader has received an appropriate sentence for sexually abusing young kids, a youth pastor who posted a popular Christian TV show was given 1,008 years in prison on 28 counts of sex crimes against six boys. Acton Bowen, the Alabama evangelist, author, and public speaker with ties to Roy Moore, pleaded guilty earlier this month after he was arrested in 2018. Bowen is perhaps most well-known for hosting xlroads TV, a show viewed by millions of people in cities across the U.S. and more than 150 other countries around the world. Bowen met the children, between 12 and 16 years old, through his ministry. Many of the victims, now young men, have provided detailed accounts with substantial evidence. Acton Bowen’s consecutive sentences total 1,008 years, and maximum monetary fines of $840,000 were imposed.
3. According to Axios, the evangelical magazine Christianity Today, founded by the late Reverend Billy Graham, published an editorial for the removal of President Donald Trump. "We have reserved judgment on Mr. Trump for years now,” wrote Mark Galli, the editor in chief of Christianity Today. “Some have criticized us for our reserve. But when it comes to condemning the behavior of another, patient charity must come first. ... To use an old cliché, it’s time to call a spade a spade, to say that no matter how many hands we win in this political poker game, we are playing with a stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical incompetence." "That [Trump] should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments."
4. The West Michigan chapter of The Satanic Temple has put up a Yule Goat outside the State Capitol, just in time for Christmas… and right by the Nativity scene that’s also on the property. “With beliefs comes conflict and there’s nothing you can do about it other than go through it,” said Marr Duck, Media Liaison for The Satanic Temple.
5. Gov. Matt Bevin pardoned hundreds of rapists, murderers, and others without offering any real justification for it when he left office. Bevin was asked during a radio interview how he could have pardoned Micah Schoettle, who was convicted of raping a nine-year-old girl. Bevin’s response? The victim’s body was examined, and her hymen was intact, therefore she must not have been raped. Bevin’s claim is flatly incorrect, Dr. George Nichols, who was Kentucky’s chief medical examiner for 20 years and later started the child abuse evaluation system at Kosair Children’s Hospital, told The Courier Journal. “Rape is not proved by hymen penetration,” Nichols said. “Rape is proved by phallic penetration … where the vaginal lips meet the outer surface of the vagina. “He not only doesn’t know the law, in my humble opinion, he clearly doesn’t know medicine and anatomy.”
6. A university lecturer has been sentenced to death for blasphemy in Pakistan a ruling branded a “gross miscarriage of justice” by human rights groups. Junaid Hafeez, 33, has spent years in solitary confinement after being arrested in the Punjab city of Multan in 2013 and accused of posting blasphemous Facebook comments about Islam’s prophet Mohammed. Insulting the prophet carries a mandatory death penalty in Pakistan, where the population is about 95 per cent Muslim. A court order stated he “shall be hanged by the neck till his death subject to its confirmation by the honourable high court” following his sentencing on Saturday.
7. There are growing indications that the Islamic State (IS) group is re-organising in Iraq, two years after losing the last of its territory in the country. Kurdish and Western intelligence officials have told the BBC that the IS presence in Iraq is a sophisticated insurgency, and IS attacks are increasing. The militants are now more skilled and more dangerous than al-Qaeda, according to Lahur Talabany, a top Kurdish counter-terrorism official. He warned that IS would be nourished by the current unrest in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and would exploit the sense of alienation among their fellow Sunni Muslims - a minority community.
8. Reverend Richard Coles, musician and priest in the Church of England, lost his partner to an illness. He announced the death of his partner Rev. David Coles on Twitter. There was an outpouring of love and support, but he also got hate messages. He said: “A letter, courageously unsigned, begins: ‘Dear Mr Coles, I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am to hear of the death of your partner…’.” In a follow-up tweet, he added: “It continues: ‘I have been praying for your pain for a long time now…’.”
9. The American Enterprise Institute has a new survey regarding the decline of religion in American family life. Young Americans are different from their grandmothers and grandfathers in many ways when it comes to religion. For example, there are generational differences in religious upbringing. Young adults (age 18 to 29) are far more likely to have been raised without religion than are seniors (age 65 or older). Younger married Americans (age 18 to 34) are increasingly opting for secular venues and ceremonies. Only 36 percent of younger married Americans say their ceremony was officiated by a religious figure and held in a religious location such as a church or worship center.
10. A report from the Legionaries of Christ — a Catholic order championed by Pope John Paul II — has found that 175 minors were abused by priests since its inception, a third of whom were abused by notorious founder Marcel Maciel. The report sheds light on a dark chapter of the order's history of abuse, which was denied by the papacy of John Paul II as he and clerical authorities routinely dismissed accusations by seminarians that Maciel and others committed such crimes.
Between 1941 and 2019, 175 minors were victims of abuse by 33 priests in the order, the report said. At least 60, or about one-third, were abused by Maciel himself, it said.
