Gore's book lays out claims the organisation is at the heart of a conspiracy involving child grooming, human trafficking, and psychological and emotional control, with former members saying the group used private confessions as leverage against members and drugged those under its sway.
"There's a huge influx in younger people," said Brian Phelan. Specifically, guys in their 20s and 30s, who are taking a leap of faith and coming to church, like Carson Schmidt. "I feel like I've seen more of my friends be more curious about faith, and that's cool," Schmidt said.
Prosecutor Joel Madero said the allegations against Shaleta are connected to monthly rental payments of more than $30,000 from a tenant of the church's social hall that allegedly were missing. He said there were discrepancies in church accounts and that Shaleta provided completely unreasonable tales of where that money was going.
The conference's opposition to stripping folks of birthright citizenship "is motivated by their firmly held belief that each person is endowed by God with an inherent dignity that confers certain universal, inviolable, and inalienable rights."
Pope Leo XIV accepted the resignation of the Roman Catholic archbishop of New Orleans, Gregory Aymond, on Wednesday one day after the archbishop concluded a series of meetings with survivors of a clergy molestation scandal that has embroiled the city's church leadership for years. Aymond had submitted his resignation to global Catholic church leaders at the Vatican as he was required when he turned 75 in November 2024.
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Pope Leo XIV has named a fellow Chicagoan as the next archbishop of New York, one of the biggest US archdioceses, in a signal that the church will continue its stance against the Trump administration on immigration. The US-born pope chose 58-year-old Ronald Hicks, the current bishop of Joliet, Illinois, to lead the church in New York, replacing retiring Cardinal Timothy Dolan who has served for 16 years after being selected by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.
A self-styled mystic who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged fraud. Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year. They are accused of staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their Catholic followers.