Kansas City Pastor Call Congregation Broke Then Apologizes Full Video

Kansas City diocese names priests in ‘the dreadful scourge of sexual abuse of minors’

By Judy L. Thomas

September 06, 2019 12:52 PM, Updated September 06, 2019 11:03 PM

Susie McClernon is still dealing with the trauma of the sexual abuse her youngest brother, Kevin Hunter, suffered years ago. Hunter died in 1989. By Jill Toyoshiba



Saying that “the dreadful scourge of sexual abuse of minors has wounded our entire family of faith,” Bishop James V. Johnston Jr. of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph on Friday released a list of 24 priests he said have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor.

“The release of these names cannot change the past,” Johnston said in a statement. “It is merely a step forward in hope, but a necessary step. All sin is terrible, but the sins of clerics who betray the sacred trust to care for little ones is especially egregious. Jesus himself singled out this betrayal as particularly wicked in the eyes of God. The anger at these sins is fully justified.”

Of the 24 priests, 19 were priests of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese, three worked in the diocese but are now under the jurisdiction of other dioceses and two served in the diocese but belonged to religious orders. Thirteen of the diocesan priests are deceased, two have been permanently removed from ministry, and four have been laicized, or removed from the clerical state.

One of those who was laicized — Shawn Ratigan — is serving time in federal prison for child pornography.

KCK archbishop calls Tim Kaine a 'Cafeteria Catholic'

Joseph Naumann criticizes Kaine's stance on abortion, capital punishment
Updated: 10:37 PM CDT Oct 19, 2016


Brian Johnson KMBC 9 News Reporter

KANSAS CITY, Kan. —

The archbishop of Kansas City, Kansas, has called Democratic Vice President nominee Tim Kaine an Orthodox Democrat and a Cafeteria Catholic who picks and chooses from his faith.


In his weekly column, Archbishop Joseph Naumann mentioned Kaine’s Catholic roots in the Kansas City area, but he said he wishes the candidate supported all of what the church teaches.

Read the full column here

He based his comments from Kaine’s debate with Republican rival Mike Pence earlier this month.

“Families that can’t have children can adopt more readily those children from crisis pregnancies,” Pence said.

“Governor, why don’t you trust women to make this choice for themselves?” Kaine said.

Naumann said he’s never met Kaine, but understands he’s an “affable” and “likeable person.”

Catholics at Mass on a presidential debate night said Naumann’s comments provide clarity. The people who spoke with KMBC 9 News at Mass Wednesday said they will either vote for Trump or a write-in candidate.

KMBC KANSAS CITY




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Kansas police officer shot and killed responding to shooting report

POLICE AND LAW ENFORCEMENT

Published July 19, 2016
FoxNews.com

A Kansas City, Kan. police officer was shot and killed Tuesday afternoon while responding to a reported drive-by shooting.

Officials said Capt. Robert David Melton, 46, was pronounced dead at University of Kansas Hospital at 2:55 p.m. local time.

Later Tuesday, authorities said the suspected shooter was caught about a block away from where Melton was shot. The suspect was being questioned along with a second person suspected in the initial drive-by. A third person who had been taken into custody was determined not to have been involved and was released, police said.


"There's a lot of pain and brokenness in our community and our nation right now, and we just want to ask everyone to be prayerful and thoughtful right now," Mayor Mark Holland of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County said.

Tuesday marked the second time this year that a Kansas City, Kan., police officer had been shot in the line of duty. Detective Brad Lancaster, 39, was shot and killed near Kansas Speedway during a violent crime spree on May 9. Melton had been part of the police honor guard at Lancaster's funeral.


Chief Terry Zeigler tweeted news of the shooting just after 2 p.m.


We have an officer shot at 22nd & Haskell. Start prayers, unknown condition.— Terry Zeigler (@KCKPDChief) July 19, 2016

Ida Ford, 87, was watching television in her two-story brick home when gunfire erupted just outside. Ford said she thought someone was knocking on her air conditioner until her son rushed downstairs and told her the three loud noises she had heard were gunshots. Ford said she looked through her window and saw the officer sprawled and unresponsive on the asphalt road in front of her home. She watched for a few minutes as paramedics worked on the officer.

"I'm just so sorry for his family," she said.


The shooting happened after police responded to a report around 1:30 p.m. from a person who said several people in a car were firing shots. The suspect vehicle took off as police arrived, but it crashed into a fence and the occupants bailed out at 1:36 p.m., police spokesman Tom Tomasic said. Two people were taken into custody within three minutes of the wreck, he said.

Assaults on Law Enforcement Officers | Graphiq

About a half-hour after the initial call, Melton saw someone who matched the description of the third suspect about 20 blocks from the original scene and pulled up to them, police spokesman Tom Tomasic said. Before he could get out of his car, he was shot multiple times.

Tomasic told reporters it was too early to determine whether the shooting was linked to other attacks on police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge.

"As far as we know this started out as a crime that we were investigating, so to just say that he was shot for no reason, we don't know that yet. We do believe that he was investigating a crime so he was out here doing his service."

Tomasic went on to describe Melton as a "good friend, good person. [I] knew him well, worked with him everyday."

Melton was a 17-year veteran of the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department. According to his LinkedIn profile, he had also served in the Kansas Army National Guard and was deployed to Afghanistan from September 2010 to March 2012

Outside the hospital where Melton died, local Baptist preacher Jimmie Banks -- a friend of the city's mayor -- sat dejected on a bench, head lowered, after attending the news conference announcing the officer's passing. He said it was painful to sit in that room and see the grief-stricken faces.


"The contributions that peace officers make to protect and serve -- they deserve better," said Banks. "When they leave home, the family expects them to return. It's shameful this has happened."


The Associated Press contributed to this report.


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Death Threats Concern Minister

Photo (Courtesy) http://www.kmbc.com/news/minister-reports-threats-after-samesex-marriage-ceremony/30101502?ver=1


By The Associated Press
8 hrs ago



WICHITA — A Wichita pastor who performs same-sex weddings is growing increasingly frightened by death threats directed at her and members of her church, especially since she officiated at a ceremony for 15 same-sex couples last month on the Sedgwick County Courthouse steps.

The Rev. Jackie Carter said First Metropolitan Community Church has been receiving at least one phone call a day threatening to kill her or to perform acts against her congregation, The Wichita Eagle reported.

She said the threats were coming even before a federal judge struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriages in November. Before the group ceremony Nov. 17, two callers threatened to chop off her head and put it on a stake, she said.

“Monday was probably the most scary time for me,” Carter said. “The phone rang and I went to answer the phone and it was just somebody heavy breathing on it. Then somebody rang the doorbell and then somebody started throwing rocks at the windows.”

Her church has instructed people to leave the building in pairs for safety, especially at night. Carter said she has reported some of the threats to the Wichita Police Department, but the department’s ability to investigate is limited because the callers have been anonymous and no phone numbers show up on the church’s caller ID.

Mayor steps in

Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer called the threats unacceptable and said he would discuss the matter with police to get more details.

“It’s our responsibility and law enforcement’s responsibility to protect everybody’s rights, and no one, no one, should ever be threatened on anything, whether it be death threats or any other type of physical threats,” Brewer said.

Terry Fox, a conservative Wichita pastor who has led activism against same-sex marriage, called the threats against Carter despicable.

“Anybody who does something like that, there’s nothing Christian about threatening someone bodily damage or something like that. In fact it’s about as un-Christian as anything can be,” Fox said.

He said he also has received death threats in the past because of his opposition to same-sex marriage.

Kerry Wilks, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit challenging the state’s ban and a member of Carter’s church, said most of the people she talks to underestimate the prejudice that gay and lesbian people face regularly.

“I think sometimes people get lulled into complacency and think, ‘No, that’s too far off, that won’t happen,’ ” Wilks said.


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JCC Hosts Interfaith Vigil For Shooting Victims

Victims’ families speak at moving memorial service in Overland Park, Kansas
By Stephanie Butnick|April 17, 2014 12:12 PM|


A Crime Scene Investigation unit sits parked outside the Jewish Community Center on April 14, 2014 in Overland Park, Kansas. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

Four days after Frazier Glenn Miller shot and killed two people outside the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and a third person outside Village Shalom, a nearby Jewish retirement home, the JCC reopened to host an interfaith memorial service for the three victims. Miller, 72, a well-known anti-Semite who yelled “Heil Hitler” from the back of a police car after his arrest, made no secret of his decades-long vitriolic hatred of Jews. In a dark and morbid twist to the tragic shootings, which took place the day before Passover, none of the victims were Jewish.

The first two victims, William Lewis Corporon and his 14-year-old grandson Reat Griffin Underwood, a high school freshman who was at the JCC to audition for a local singing competition, were members of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood. The third victim, Terri LaManno, who was visiting her mother at Village Shalom when the shooting occurred, was a longtime parishioner at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Kansas City along with her husband and children.

This morning’s memorial, which was attended by U.S. General Attorney Eric Holder, was billed as an interfaith service of hope and unity, incorporating Jewish and Christian traditions in a moving repudiation of the hate that fueled Sunday’s attack. There was music and speakers who spanned the religious spectrum, all emphasizing the message that acts like these should unite communities, not divide them.

Reat Griffin Underwood’s father spoke of the diversity of crowd at the day’s event, adding that it’s not an unusual sight at the community center. “This place always looks like this,” he said. He also emphasized the importance of understanding across different communities: “With our connections, we have the power to move past hatred to a life based on love.”


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“To me, this is a no-brainer”: Catholic lawmaker introduces LGBTQ rights measure in Kansas

Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 01:37 PM EST


 "We’re defeating our own purpose as a country that wants to be inclusive," explained state Rep. Louis Ruiz

Katie Mcdonough

 

 
(Credit: AP Photo/Mathew Sumner)


A Democratic state lawmaker in Kansas has proposed an LGBTQ nondiscrimination measure just a month after his colleagues in the Kansas House passed a bill allowing businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ people.

Rep. Louis Ruiz, a practicing Catholic, called his nondiscrimination measure a “no-brainer.”

“What’s our message when we have these type of discriminatory bills that come out at either the federal or the state level? We’re defeating our own purpose as a country that wants to be inclusive. To me, this is a no-brainer,” he told the Wichita Eagle.

The measure would add gender and sexual identity and expression to existing anti-discrimination statutes around race, religion and gender. And while religious lawmakers he serves with in the House have used their faith as a justification to enshrine discrimination into Kansas law, Ruiz said he believes his faith is well protected and wants to see those same protections extended to his fellow Kansans.

The need for such a bill, particularly so soon after the House passed a measure to legalize discrimination, is clear, advocates say.

“If you look at the bills that people are trying to pass that would permanently enshrine open discrimination against gay and lesbian Kansans, can you think of a better reason why we should introduce something [like this bill]?” Witt said at the Capitol on Tuesday.

Katie McDonough is an assistant editor for Salon, focusing on lifestyle. Follow her on Twitter @kmcdonovgh or email her at kmcdonough@salon.com.


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#Obamacare: Sebelius’ history of IT failures in Kansas

Posted by: Phineas on October 24, 2013 at 3:38 pm

**Posted by Phineas



“A track record of epic failure”

Naturally, this is the person you want leading the biggest, most complicated information technology project in US government history, involving a full takeover of 16% of the nation’s economy. For that, my friends, only the best will do:

Obama administration Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ failure at designing websites to provide government services began during her term as governor of Kansas, long before the Obamacare website debacle, Kansas political insiders told The Daily Caller.

Sebelius oversaw numerous costly and disastrous government website projects during her six-year governorship (2003-2009), including a failed update of the Department of Labor’s program to provide unemployment pay and other services and similar updates pertaining to the Department of Administration and the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) services.

The Department of Labor’s overhaul of its computer programs was a notable boondoggle, according to 14-year former Kansas state senator and former state Labor Secretary Karin Brownlee.

“In the Kansas Senate, I chaired the Commerce committee. We had oversight over the Department of Labor. For years, we watched as the Department of Labor under Sebelius worked on that computer program. After seven years and $50 million, something should work,” Brownlee told TheDC.

“In Kansas if you have a 40 or 50 million dollar project, that’s a lot of money,” Brownlee said, noting that the Labor Department project was funded by federal money while other Sebelius website projects sucked up state taxpayer dollars. “They started and stopped that project with at least 3 different major contractors.”

When Brownlee was appointed to head the state’s Department of Labor under new Republican governor Sam Brownback in 2011, she was tasked with cleaning up Sebelius’ technical mess.

Read the article for several example of Sebelius’s managerial incompetence. This line, though, poses a very good question:

“We pretty much expected HealthCare.gov to fail, because she has a pattern of failing on these big initiatives. We thought that was why she was not nominated originally,” Schwab said.

In other words, why did the administration hire someone with such a miserable performance record in just these kinds of projects?

Perhaps we shouldn’t wonder, though. Obama’s first nominee for HHS Secretary, former Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD), had to withdraw from consideration under pressure of ethics and tax questions. And who can forget “Turbo-Tax” Timothy Geithner, whose nomination for Treasury Secretary was almost derailed by questions of tax evasion… until he convinced people he was just too dumb to work a simple tax program right.

Vetting is obviously not the President’s strong suit. After all, no one ever asked any tough questions about his background and qualifications (in either election), so why should he do the same for his own nominees? In fact, this excerpt from The New York Times via The Federalist makes one wonder if he was ever really interested in doing the job at all:

Even as the debate about arming the rebels took on a new urgency, Mr. Obama rarely voiced strong opinions during senior staff meetings. But current and former officials said his body language was telling: he often appeared impatient or disengaged while listening to the debate, sometimes scrolling through messages on his BlackBerry or slouching and chewing gum. In private conversations with aides, Mr. Obama described Syria as one of those hellish problems every president faces, where the risks are endless and all the options are bad.

That was in reference to Syria this last summer, which had turned into a genuine crisis for the administration. But we know Obama isn’t really interested in foreign affairs, except for the occasional apology tour. But Obamacare is his baby, the thing he’s most likely to be remembered for in the history books. It’s his New Deal, his Great Society, the great liberal project. Wouldn’t he want to be danged sure the person he put in charge was qualified to carry it out?

In real life, I manage a small staff. I hire, train, evaluate, and, if needed, get rid of each of them. We have a job to do, and seeing that they do their job right is part my job. And I am judged in part on how well my staff does their jobs. The same can be said of any boss, any manager, any…. Chief Executive.

Shouldn’t President Obama be held to that same standard?


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Church pastor suspended after being arrested on sex charges

Photo (Courtesy) http://salinapost.com/2011/10/07/salina-pastor-arrested-on-sex-charges/

10/8/2011

By the Salina Journal

A Salina church pastor was suspended Friday after being arrested Thursday on sex charges.

Birger Draget, 54, of 503 Claremont, was arrested Thursday on charges that include rape, aggravated indecent liberties and aggravated criminal sodomy.

Draget is pastor of the Seventh Day Adventist church in Salina.

Carson Mansfield, deputy Salina police chief, said authorities began investigating after a teenage girl reported to police that she had suffered years of sexual abuse.

Draget was being held in the Saline County Jail.

Administrative leave

Church officials placed Draget on administrative leave immediately after hearing about the allegations.

Ron Carlson, president of the Kansas-Nebraska Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists, said he was "shocked and dismayed."

He said that the church would cooperate with the investigation in any way it could.

"He will have no responsibility for the congregation" until the case is resolved, Carlson said. "We certainly want to provide a safe environment for our young people."

Carlson said Draget had been pastor of the Salina church for more than five years.

Church leaders in Salina were being informed of Draget's suspension Friday evening.

Source

Related:

Abuse Happens, Even in Church

Why the church needs an Abuse Prevention Emphasis Day.

http://www.salinasda.com/rssarticle.php?id=225889

Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church

By ROXANA HEGEMAN,
AP
posted: 56 MINUTES AGO


WICHITA, Kan. (May 31) -- Dr. George Tiller, one of the nation's few providers of late-term abortions despite decades of protests and attacks, was shot and killed Sunday in a church where he was serving as an usher.

The gunman fled, but a 51-year-old suspect was detained some 170 miles away in suburban Kansas City three hours after the shooting, Wichita Deputy Police Chief Tom Stolz said.
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Controversial Life, Shocking Death

Larry Smith, AP

A prominent pro-choice doctor who performed late-term abortions was shot and killed while attending church in Wichita, Kan., Sunday. Dr. George Tiller, here in 2002, was serving as an usher at Reformation Lutheran Church when the gunman attacked and then fled by car, his attorney said. Hours after the shooting, a police official said a suspect was in custody.

Politics Daily Commentary: Pro-Crazy Is Not Pro-Life

Although Stolz refused to release the man's name, Johnson County sheriff's spokesman Tom Erickson identified the detained man as Scott Roeder. He has not been charged in the slaying and was expected to be taken to Wichita for questioning.


There was no immediate word of the motive Tiller's assailant. But the doctor's violent death was the latest in a string of shootings and bombings over two decades directed against abortion clinics, doctors and staff.

Long a focus of national anti-abortion groups, including a summer-long protest in 1991, Tiller was shot in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church, Stolz said. Tiller's attorney, Dan Monnat, said Tiller's wife, Jeanne, was in the choir at the time.

The slaying of the 67-year-old doctor is "an unspeakable tragedy," his widow, four children and 10 grandchildren said in statement. "This is particularly heart-wrenching because George was shot down in his house of worship, a place of peace."

The family said its loss "is also a loss for the city of Wichita and women across America. George dedicated his life to providing women with high-quality health care despite frequent threats and violence."


Stolz said all indications were that the gunman acted alone, although authorities were investigating whether he had any connection to anti-abortion groups.

Tiller's Women's Health Care Services clinic is one of just three in the nation where abortions are performed after the 21st week of pregnancy. The clinic was heavily fortified and Tiller often traveled with a bodyguard, but Stolz said there was no indication of security at the church Sunday.


Source: http://news.aol.com/article/abortion-doctor-killed/505406?icid=mainhtmlws-maindl1link4http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Farticle%2Fabortion-doctor-killed%2F505406

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