What Kind of Scandals Have Happened in Your Church?

[Freyacat]

new post from buddingmedievalist

Freyacat wrote:

Quote:

The one that comes to mind from my church is just kind of sad. There was an elderly guy who had been a member of the church for decades, and he was mentally slipping. He was a longtime usher. There was suspicion about him stealing from the collection plates at Mass. The priest got the local police involved in this crazy sting operation where they attended Mass and planted marked bills in the plate, then caught him with those bills. The man was arrested and faced charges. However, because of illness his family said he had the mental capacity of a child and may not have understood what he was doing; their big question (that the priest and other diocese officials refused to answer) was: why didn't the priest approach the family, who were all involved in the church, rather than getting the police involved, given that he knew of the man's limited mental abilities? Some parishioners supported the priest, but most thought they way he handled it was inappropriate and in fact un-Christian. My parents are still disgusted by this, and were thrilled when the priest in question left the parish recently.

Oh my goodness, did this happen in NC? Because if it did, I knew that guy... grew up with him (friend of my grandpa's) and he was a wonderful man. So, so sad.

Yes, this was in NC, so I'm certain it's the same case. I didn't know the man personally, although I'm sure I'd run across him, as I grew up in the church in the 80s and he'd been a memeber since the 70s. I just think the priest handled it all wrong!

[emeraldskull]

Church scandals... well, my grandpa was a pastor (before I was born), but was fired for child molestation... his sons. This was before I remember anything though...

At another church we attended for a short while, it seemed everyone was sleeping with everyone... even the pastor with his daughter in law. :-P

[GolightlyGrrl]

No scandals at any church I went to. But on my dad's side we had a relative who was a priest and he knocked up some chick.

Well, at least he wasn't diddling an altar boy.

[watchdog]

Not as interesting as some of your stories (wow), but how about a church whose pastor hired a high-priced church marketing consultant who runs a blog where he discusses male fashion themes like skinny jeans, skinny ties, pedicures, "what is your best color," "how to wear a scarf," "to iron your shirt or not," "pleats vs. no pleats," etc.? He and Dougie would make the perfect pair. They could play dress up every day. This same consultant constantly Twitters about his expensive dinners and trips and makes fun of fat people on planes. Church attendance has plummeted ever since the consultant was hired.

[Black Aliss]

Pentecostal AOG here. Let's see, there was the minister who was caught flagrante delicto "contributing to the delinquency of a [male] minor". No charges were ever filed, and he swapped congregations with another preacher in the same state. The married youth pastor had a long affair with the church organist, which ended only when the organist became pregnant, the pastor divorced his wife, and married the mother of his child.

The choir director had a predilection for underage girls, and molested more than one of them.

The guy who was pastor at the time I left the church had a daughter who was a prostitute in a nearby city. Friends and I ran into her occasionally at an all night diner. She once told some of us somewhat bitterly that people looked down on her for taking money for what she'd had to give her father for free. All right, then.

There were a couple of not-very-well closeted gay men. More than one suspected extramarital affair between members of the congregation.

But, enough about sex. One of the pillars of the church owned the major industry in the town, a factory that was so dangerous that OSHA must have been created just to deal with them. You could tell at a glance who had worked there at one time just by looking at their mangled hands--you didn't work there very long without losing at least one finger.

That's all I know about but then, I left the church when I was 17, and it was a small-town congregation, not a mega-church, so I think they did pretty well for themselves, scandal-wise.

Edited to fix a really badly written sentence.