Missing girl buried in murdered mobster’s tomb was kidnapped for Vatican sex parties

Emanuela Orlandi, 15, went missing in Rome in 1983. Pietro Orlandi, Emanuela’s brother said it was time for the Vatican to come clean about what it knows of Emanuela’s disappearance

Daily Mail | May 22, 2012

By Nick Pisa

The Catholic Church’s leading exorcist priest has sensationally claimed a missing schoolgirl thought to be buried in a murdered gangster’s tomb was kidnapped for Vatican sex parties.

Father Gabriel Amorth, 85, who has carried out 70,000 exorcisms, spoke out as investigators continued to examine mobster Enrico De Pedis’s tomb in their hunt for Emanuela Orlandi.

Last week police and forensic experts broke into the grave after an anonymous phone call to a TV show said the truth about Emanuela’s 1983 disappearance would be ‘found there’.

And although bones not belonging to the mobster were recovered they have not yet been positively identified as hers.

However Father Amorth, in an interview with La Stampa newspaper, said: ‘This was a crime with a sexual motive.

‘It has already previously been stated by (deceased) monsignor Simeone Duca, an archivist at the Vatican, who was asked to recruit girls for parties with the help of the Vatican gendarmes.

‘I believe Emanuela ended up in this circle. I have never believed in the international theory (overseas kidnappers). I have motives to believe that this was just a case of sexual exploitation.

‘It led to the murder and then the hiding of her body. Also involved are diplomatic staff from a foreign embassy to the Holy See.’

Today there was no immediate response from the Vatican to Father Amorth’s claims.

But Vatican officials insisted they had always co-operated with the investigation into Orlandi’s disappearance – a claim that her brother has often disputed.

Father Amorth is a colourful figure who in the past has also denounced yoga and Harry Potter as the ‘work of the Devil’. He was appointed by the late Pope John Paul II as the Vatican’s chief exorcist.

It is not the first time Father Amorth has raised eyebrows with his forthright views – two years ago he said sex scandals rocking the Catholic Church were evidence ‘the Devil was at work in the Vatican.’

In 2006, Father Amorth, who was ordained a priest in 1954, gave an interview to Vatican Radio in which he said Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and Russian dictator Josef Stalin were possessed by the Devil.

According to secret Vatican documents recently released the then wartime Pope Pius XII attempted a ‘long distance exorcism’ of Hitler but it failed to have any effect.

Charismatic mobster De Pedis, leader of a murderous gang known as the Banda della Magliana, was gunned down aged just 38, by members of his outfit after they fell out.

Detectives investigating the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, 15, in 1983, believe De Pedis is linked to her kidnap and the body of the Vatican employee’s daughter has never been found.

Last month the diocese of Rome, on orders from the Vatican, granted investigators permission to open up the tomb in the Sant’Apollinare basilica close to Piazza Navona in the centre of Rome.

At the time of his funeral there were raised eyebrows when despite his criminal past church chiefs allowed De Pedis to be buried in the crypt of Sant’Apollinare.

At the time it was said the burial was given the go ahead because prison chaplain Father Vergari told bishops that De Pedis had ‘repented while in jail and also done a lot of work for charity,’ including large donations to the Catholic Church.

De Pedis, whose name on the £12,000 tomb is spelt in diamonds, was buried in Sant’Apollinare church after he was gunned down in 1990 in the city’s famous Campo De Fiori.

He and his gang controlled the lucrative drug market in Rome and were also rumoured to have a ‘free hand’ because of their links with police and Italian secret service agents.

The disappearance of Orlandi reads like the roller coaster plot of a Dan Brown Da Vinci Code thriller with a touch of The Godfather thrown in for good measure.

Twelve years ago a skull was found in the confessional box of a Rome church and tests were carried out on it to see if it was Orlandi after a mystery tip off but they proved negative.

In 2008 Sabrina Minardi, De Pedis girlfriend at the time of Orlandi’s disappearance, sensationally claimed that now dead American monsignor Paul Marcinkus, the controversial chief of the Vatican bank, was behind the kidnap.

Monsignor Marcinkus used his status to avoid being questioned by police in the early 1980′s probing the collapse of a Banco Ambrosiano which the Vatican had invested heavily in.

The collapse was linked to the murder of Roberto Calvi dubbed God’s Banker because of the Vatican links and his body was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in London in June 1982.

His pockets filled with cash and stones and it was originally recorded as a suicide but police believe he was murdered by the Mafia after a bungled money laundering operation.

At the same time as Minardi made her claim a mystery caller to a missing person’s programme on Italian TV said the riddle of Orlandi’s kidnap would be solved ‘if De Pedis tomb was opened’.

Following Minardi claims the Vatican took the unusual step of speaking publicly and dismissed her claims about American Monsignor Marcinkus, who died in Arizona four years ago.

Pastry-making cannibal cult seeks to ‘purify the world and reduce population’

A screen grab from Vanderlei Almeid TV shows Jorge da Silveira (L) and Isabel Pires in Garanhuns, Pernanbuco, Brazil (AFP/Handout/Policia)

Brazil cult members arrested for cannibalism

AFP | Apr 13, 2012

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazilian police announced Friday that they had arrested a man and two women on suspicion of having murdered and cannibalized at least two women in what was described as a purification ritual.

The three defendants formed a sect called “Cartel” that seeks to purify the world and reduce the population, police spokesman Democrito Honorato from the northeastern Brazilian town of Guaranhuns told AFP.

The three defendants, Jorge and Elizabeth Pires da Silveira, both 51, and Bruna da Silva, 25, intended to kill three women per year, police said.

Brazilian Cannibals Make Empanadas With Human Meat

“The details of the actions of the trio, with drawings and explanations of cannibalism, were found in a 50-page book written by Da Silveira, a man with a diploma in education and a black belt in karate,” Honorato said.

The book, entitled “The relationships of a schizophrenic,” hints at acts of cannibalism.

“The three ate the flesh of their victims to purify their souls,” said the police spokesman.

Two bodies were found in the garden of the house occupied by the three defendants, which police believe were those of two women who disappeared recently: Alexandra Falcao, 20, and Gisele da Silva, 30. Both had been seen in the vicinity.

The house of the three suspects was set on fire Thursday by neighbors.

One of the suspects confessed she knew the name of a woman the group killed in 2008, Jessica Pereira, in the nearby city of Olinda.

A five-year-old girl found with the trio is believed to be the daughter of the victim, police said. She was placed under the protection of a juvenile judge to find her a new family.

The group attracted victims “by offering them well-paid babysitting jobs,” Honorato said, and they chose victims when “a spirit warned them they were bad people.”

Welsey Ferandes, the police official in charge of the case, told reporters the suspects planned to kill another woman in the neighboring town of Lagoa de Ouro. Police did not rule out the possibility there had been other victims.

After families of the victims reported their relatives missing, police were drawn to the suspects when a credit card bill arrived at the home of one of the victims after her death. Security cameras at the shops where the credit card purchases were made showed images of the suspects doing the transactions.

Police chief found with cult-like Knights Templar leaflets

AP | Mar 22, 2012

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican Army says it has detained the police chief of a town in western Mexico who had pamphlets and banners about the cult-like Knights Templar drug cartel, as well as cocaine and hand grenades in his patrol car.

The Defense Department says in a statement released Thursday that Raymundo Monroy was detained Monday in the town of Huetamo in Michoacan state, where he is police chief. Soldiers also found cocaine, two automatic rifles, and two hand grenades.

It says troops searched Monroy’s car after he began acting nervously at a military checkpoint in Huetamo.

The Knights Templar cartel appeared in 2010. It claims to protect Michoacan and defend ethical principles, but in fact engages in drug trafficking, killings and extortion.

Knights Templar cease fire for Pope’s visit

AFP | Mar 19, 2012

THE Knights Templars drugs cartel is calling a short truce – but only to welcome Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico.

“They did put up signs announcing this,” a Guanajuato state government source told AFP privately on Sunday.

The Knights Templars are holding off on all violent action, we are not killers, welcome to the Pope,” the official said paraphrasing one of the signs put up in the town of Irapuato, Guanajuato state.

The signs were seen in at least seven towns statewide.

The Pope arrives March 23 in Leon, in the neighbouring state of Michoacan, where the Knights Templars were founded.

President Felipe Calderon has launched a military crackdown against the cartels battling it out for control of the lucrative drug trade, in which some 50,000 Mexicans have lost their lives since 2006.

The Strange Death of Flo Barnett, Mother-in-Law to Scientology Leader David Miscavige

A Ruger 10/22 rifle: Even if you were depressed and wanted to end your life, could you shoot yourself three times in the chest, and then once in the head with this weapon? We’re just asking.

Villiage Voice | Jan 25 2012

By Tony Ortega

We were stunned when Debrah Kitchings said it: in the 26 years since she investigated the odd death of Mary Florence “Flo” Barnett for the Los Angeles County Coroner, she has not once been asked by a reporter about what she remembers of the case.

Only once in that time, she says, was she ever asked about it at all.

“I think her daughter or a relative sent a letter, an inquiry, I think,” Kitchings says.

Today, Kitchings is retired and lives in Riverside County, California, but in 1985, she was an investigator with the LA Department of Coroner when, on the night of September 8, she was called to Dominguez Valley Hospital in Compton to conduct a gunshot residue test on the hands of the dead woman.

Despite the passage of time, Kitchings remembers the case well. And she suspects that there’s a reason I’m interested in this one death out of the many she handled over her career.

“It has something to do with Scientology, right?”

Indeed, it does. Over the years, interest in the death of Flo Barnett has endured because of her connection to the Church of Scientology — Barnett’s daughter, Michelle “Shelly” Barnett, in 1981 married David Miscavige, who today is the supreme leader of the worldwide religion. Flo was Miscavige’s mother-in-law, and Shelly herself has not been seen in public with her husband since 2006. But that’s a story we’ll be going into on another day.

There is another reason why Flo Barnett’s death is still a matter of interest on the Internet, I told Kitchings.

Quite a few of us, I explained to her, wonder how Barnett managed to shoot herself three times in the chest and once in the head — with a long rifle — in what the County Medical Examiner ruled was a suicide.

“It is very unusual,” Kitchings told me Monday night when we talked by telephone.

We spent some time going over her report of the incident, a document that can be found online. She wanted to confirm the facts in her report with what she remembered: that she didn’t respond to the scene of the incident, but was called by Sheriff’s Office personnel to the hospital, where Barnett had already been pronounced dead.

Kitchings wanted me to understand why that made a difference. Normally, if death is pronounced at a hospital, it’s not a pressing case, and student workers in the Coroner’s office would go down in the next couple of days to retrieve the body. Instead, in this case, Kitchings was personally called down to the hospital the same night Barnett’s body was taken there.

“The detective must have had some concern. We respond because they have a question,” she said.

That concern was pretty obvious, and something Kitchings put in her report that night: “Detectives felt, at the time of this report, the decedent may be the victim of a homicide due to the number of times she was shot. However, they were still interviewing at the time of this report.”

After performing an autopsy, however, medical examiner Joan Shipley decided that Barnett’s death was a suicide: “The case is that of a 52-year-old woman who died as the result of multiple gunshot wounds which were self-inflicted,” reads Shipley’s report, which came out more than a month after the incident. I asked Kitchings how an autopsy determined that cause.

“I’ll tell you how. It doesn’t mean it was a suicide, but I’ll tell you how they came to that conclusion,” Kitchings answered. “It’s real easy to get away with murder anyway. It’s only as good as the investigator.”

She explained that a medical examiner like Shipley could describe wounds and other conditions of a corpse, but she couldn’t tell by looking how a wound came to happen.

She gave me a hypothetical example of a man with a gunshot wound to the head. “A doctor has no clue whether the man shot his head off, which is a suicide; or died playing Russian Roulette, which is an accident; or if somebody shot him, which is homicide. The doctor cannot tell you whether it was accidental or on purpose. They have to rely on the investigator. So it depends on several things.”

She pointed out that there was no question that what killed Barnett was the shot to the head: “The gunshot wound of the head was immediately fatal and occurred following the 3 gunshot wounds to the chest,” reads the autopsy report.

But the detective would also perform what Kitchings calls a “psychological autopsy,” interviewing people at the scene — such as Barnett’s husband, James Miller, who found his wife’s body and was initially treated as a possible suspect.

“Here you’ve got what appears to be a homicide. But you run into these other factors,” she said. “The hesitation marks on the wrists, for example. Were they fresh or were they healing?”

That was another odd detail in the case: Barnett not only had four bullet wounds, her wrists also showed evidence that they had been slashed.

According to the coroner, Barnett’s wrists had likely been sliced days before: “The wounds are consistent with those of several days’ age but are extremely superficial and may be more acute,” the autopsy report reads, suggesting a possible suicide attempt a few days prior to Barnett’s actual death.

On the other hand, Kitchings says, there were the multiple gunshots.

“Of course it’s unusual to have that many gunshots. And with a rifle? Totally bizarre. But if you think that case is bad, you should hear about this other one, Crystal Spencer,” Kitchings said, referring to a 1988 death. After telling me some things about that case, she came back to the matter at hand.

“It is very unusual and the sheriff’s detective thought it was important,” she said, referring again to her being called down to the hospital that night. “That’s a good detective and that tells me a lot right there. The detective was smart enough to say, ‘Come now.’ And believe me, that was a time we were incredibly busy. The gang problem was never worse than in those years.”

That the Coroner’s Office ultimately ruled it a suicide, however, said more about the detective and his investigation than it did about the autopsy.

“The doctor must have been convinced that it was a suicide based on what the detective told her. The doctor has no clue, and cannot tell you how or why.”

And relying on a homicide detective bureau was not any kind of assurance that the correct conclusion would be reached.

“If it was the LAPD, I’d tell you it was automatically bad. But it was the Sheriff’s Office. And Havercroft, he was good,” she says when I tell her the name of the detective on the reports.

“I didn’t hear anything more in that case, so the doctor relied on the detective. If it was iffy, they would have gone with homicide. But they must have done enough interviews with the husband to convince them that it was a suicide,” she said. “It does sound very suspicious to me. It does. But it was out of my hands.”

I thanked Kitchings for being so helpful, and for not only telling me what she remembered of the case, but for taking the time to explain how a cause of death would be determined.

It was now crystal clear: I needed to track down retired LA Sheriff’s Office detective Bob Havercroft and ask him how he had come to the conclusion that a small, frail woman could kill herself with four rifle shots.

Yesterday, I managed to get him on the phone. Having retired to Oregon, Havercroft was traveling in Southern California, enjoying the warm weather.

I told him why I was calling, and hoped that he remembered the Flo Barnett case out of the many he must have investigated.

“I remember that one,” he said. “This one was very, very, very unusual. But it was a suicide.”

But how, I asked, could Barnett have managed to shoot herself four times?

“Very easily,” Havercroft answered.

“We reconstructed the scene. My lieutenant was there. It was fairly simple to do. The way she was positioned on her bed, the way the rifle was in her hand. I think we even recovered a bullet from next door — this was a trailer park,” he said.

“It was obvious what she was doing, which was typical of some women. She was trying to shoot herself in the chest, and in a critical area. There was a gunshot wound to a breast,” he said.

“When we finished the investigation I was absolutely convinced it was a suicide. There was no question,” he said, adding that he remembered a suicide note being found. In fact, two notes were found.

“I have never heard another word about this case since it was investigated. And I worked another 10, 11 years after that,” Havercroft said.

Again, he acknowledged that the situation was extremely unusual, and that on its surface, it seemed to suggest a different conclusion.

“Hey, I can tell you my patrol deputy who was there was ready to take the husband to jail for murder. I had to cool him off. I walked him through it,” he said, and explained that eventually, his deputy came to the same conclusion.

“There’s no question,” he added. “It’s never a murder until it’s a murder. We never got beyond suicide. It was easy to reconstruct with the body and the position of the gun and so on. There was no cover-up. It was a suicide. It was not a murder,” he said. “It was one of those very, very interesting cases.”

Interesting, to be sure. And one wonders why Barnett was so determined to kill herself that she endured what she did.

Full Story

Black magic rituals force closure of caves carved out of sandstone by followers of the Knights Templar

Labyrinth: The caves were painstakingly carved out by the Knights Templar in the 17th century

Trespassing cult etched sinister symbols into sandstone labyrinth…then had cheek to knock on owner’s door for return of garments

Daily Mail | Jan 21, 2012

By Simon Tomlinson

A labyrinth of mysterious caves has been closed down after its owners finally got sick of them being invaded by a satanic cult.

The Caynton Caves, hidden in dense woodland near Wolverhampton, have a rich history stemming back to the 17th century when they were apparently carved out of sandstone by followers of the Knights Templar.

In the past, the landowners have tried to be accommodating when sects, good or evil, have asked permission to use the site.

Their patience began running thin when, over Christmas, they found the caves had been filled with candles, sinister symbols scrawled on the walls and rubbish.

But the final straw came when they answered the door to two red-faced warlocks who had the cheek to ask for the return of their robes which had been used in the black magic ceremony.

The entrance has now been sealed up in the latest attempt to keep the trespassers at bay.

Dominic Wass, an urban artist who has a workshop on the site, said: ‘There’s definitely some strange stuff gone on down there. It’s surreal to have two warlocks knock on your door, but at least they asked.’

Inside the caves, mystic sigils (seals) competed for crowded wall space with more modern scrawled messages, written by youths who have turned the temple into a drinking den.

Spirits were present, too – empty bottles of booze littered the floor.

Mr Wass, 25, who works under the name Sketch, scanned the cobweb-encrusted inner sanctum and shook his head in disbelief.

‘They’ve moved the sacrificial stone again,’ he said.

‘Obviously, it’s not something we want to be associated with. But in the past, if people have asked permission, explained what they wanted to do and we were happy with it. Only if they tidied up afterwards. This is going too far.’

Time and again, wrought iron gates have been placed over the entrance to the caves, which is only just big enough to crawl through.

But they have been ripped down within days.

Mr Wass, who has lived on the site for two years, said: ‘It’s almost impossible to control. You can put up razor-wire, but if someone gets injured, we’re the ones who land in trouble.

‘People don’t seem to realise that this is private property and they are trespassing.

‘It’s a difficult one. Publicity just leads to more people trying to get into the caves.’

In other efforts to keep unwelcome worshippers away, CCTV has been increased at Caynton and more robust fencing erected. A walkway has also been blocked off.

Plans to fill in the caves have been considered, but rejected.

News of the closure is likely to be a blow to the many polite Pagans who ask permission to use the place.

Yet it appears the appeal of worshipping in one of the most mystical areas in the Midlands is too attractive.

The site ranks alongside Castle Ring, a public Stone Age monument near Cannock Wood, Staffordshire, which has become a hotspot for Druids.

Solstice and Halloween pose particular problems at Caynton.

One Halloween bonfire party for local children was interrupted when trespassing worshippers, alerted by smoke, spilled out from the cave.

Mr Wass said: ‘Very little is known about why they are there. There are all kinds of stories.

‘We were told they were dug by followers of the Knights Templar (a sect dating back to the days of the Crusades).

‘They wanted a place where they could worship without being persecuted. It must have taken them a long time to create.

‘We’ve also been told that a landowner hid slaves down there. Slavery was illegal by then and he’d hide as many as 60 down there.’

Some believe the grotto is more recent, dug out in the 1850s by a wealthy family as a folly.

One website, devoted to Britain’s hidden treasures, states: ‘It consists of a series of passages and chambers, with niches for candles, and the carving of the rooms is quite professional.

‘It’s a creepy place and is rumoured to have been used in the 1980s for Black Magic rituals – probably not involving boxes of chocolates.’

Former scientology member ‘held against will aboard cruise ship’

Australian Valeska Paris has alleged she spent years imprisoned on the Church of Scientology’s cruise ship, The Freewinds Photo: ABC

A former Church of Scientology member has claimed she was held against her will aboard the Church’s cruise ship, The Freewinds, for 12 years.

Telegraph | Nov 30, 2011

By Jonathan Pearlman in Sydney

Valeska Paris, an Australian resident, said she was forced onto the ship by the Church’s leader, David Miscavige, when she was 17 after her mother tried to dissociate her from the organisation.

Ms Paris, who was born in Switzerland, moved to the UK at age six, where she was placed in the church’s youth wing, the cadet org. At 14, she joined the church’s elite Sea Organisation and signed a contract which bound her for a billion years.

“I was woken up in the morning and I was sent to the ship for ‘two weeks’,” she told ABC TV.

“I did not want to be there. I made it clear I did not want to be there and that was considered bad ethics, meaning it was considered not right.”

Ms Paris claimed she was not allowed to leave the ship without an escort during her first six years aboard and was asked to perform hard labour in the engine room.

Ms Paris’s mother left the church and denounced it on French television after the suicide of Ms Paris’s father, a self-made millionaire.

The Church denied Ms Paris had been mistreated or performed hard labour, saying the Freewinds was “a wonderful place”.

“She certainly wasn’t ‘forced’ to be there,” the Church said in a statement. “Her allegation that she could only leave the ship with an escort is totally false.”

However, Ms Paris’s claims were backed up by a former senior executive on the Freewinds, Ramana Dienes-Browning.

“She made it very clear she did not want to be there,” she claimed. “She had been sent to the ship so as not to be in contact with one of her parents and that is not what she wanted. She was very, very distressed.”

Vatican weighs in on cult-like Legion of Christ

Pope Benedict XVI appointed Velasio De Paolis, the archbishop of Thelepte in Tunisia and president of the Prefecture for Economic Affairs of the Holy See, head of the Legionaries of Christ  in July 2010. Andreas Solaro, AFP / Getty Images

Associated Press | Oct 17, 2011

By NICOLE WINFIELD

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican has proposed giving hundreds of women who live like nuns within the troubled Legion of Christ order greater autonomy after a Holy See investigation found serious problems in their regimented communities.

The pope’s delegate running the Legion, Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, said in a letter published Monday that the problems of the consecrated women of the Legion’s lay branch were “many and challenging.” Of particular concern is that they have no legal status in the church.

In a 2010 Associated Press expose, former consecrated women spoke of the cult-like conditions they lived in, with rules dictating nearly every minute of their day — from how they ate to what they watched on TV — all in the name of God’s will.

The women described emotional and spiritual abuse they suffered if they questioned their vocation, and of how they would be cast aside if their spiritual directors no longer had any need for them.

The Vatican ordered the investigation after word of the abuses emerged during a broader Vatican probe into the Legion, a conservative order founded in Mexico in 1941 by the late Rev. Marciel Maciel.

After decades of denying allegations Maciel was a pedophile, the Legion in 2009 began admitting to his double life: that he sexually abused seminarians and had fathered at least three children with two women.

The revelations have put the Legion in a tailspin and cast a shadow over the Vatican since Pope John Paul II had held Maciel up as a model for his orthodoxy and ability to attract new priests and donations.

Maciel had created the consecrated branch of the Legion’s lay movement Regnum Christi primarily as a fundraising tool and to provide unpaid teachers for Legion-owned schools. The consecrated women also run youth programs and work to recruit new members.

The members, who at their height numbered about 900 women and a few dozen men, make promises of poverty, chastity and obedience like nuns do, though they enjoy none of the legal protections nuns have that make it difficult for their orders to kick them out.

Legion officials have repeatedly declined to provide statistics on how many remain in the movement. Former members say many women have either left amidst the Maciel scandal or are taking time to discern whether they still have a vocation.

In his letter, De Paolis said those who remain are happy and providing a valuable service to the church.

“However, the issues regarding personal and community life that have emerged from this same visitation on an institutional level initially appear to be many and challenging,” he wrote.

He said the women should have greater autonomy from the Legion, in both their personal and community lives, and that they need a legal status that corresponds to canon law.

They would, however, maintain a “link of participation” with the Legion.

De Paolis said the women would have to rewrite their norms, but that for now the statutes guiding their life that were approved by the Vatican in 2004 remain intact.

One of the great scandals about the consecrated women is that they were told the Vatican in 2004 had approved a set of over 1,000 rules dictating how they were to behave when, in fact, the Vatican approved only about 150 general norms.

Genevieve Kineke, who runs an active blog read by many former Legion and consecrated members, said she hoped the autonomy envisaged by De Paolis will enable current and future members to truly discern whether they have a vocation. Up until recently, some 18-year-olds would make their lifelong commitments to being consecrated after a mere six-week candidacy program.

“As long as the delegate relies on the existing superiors to guide his actions concerning these individuals, then we have a closed circle of conformity to the same methodology,” Kineke said in an email.

While current consecrated members say they are happy and participating in the reform process, their choices haven’t always pleased their parents.

Kelly Tuttle said she grieves daily for the loss of her 27-year-old daughter, who gave up a partial medical scholarship to the University of Dayton, Ohio to become consecrated in 2003.

“The Katie that I knew, I grieve for that Katie,” Tuttle told the AP. “There’s only the shell of her left. Because they’ve taken the person that I knew as my daughter, who was young and vibrant, intellectually alive and athletic, and they’ve taken that out of her.”

“It’s like she’s dead and gone,” she said.

Katie Tuttle declined to be interviewed, according to a Legion spokesman.

Churches to Focus on America and End Times in 9/11 Sermons?

Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, begins a sermon series called “Twilight’s Last Gleaming,” beginning Sept. 11, 2011. (Photo: First Baptist Church of Dallas via The Christian Post)

Christian Post | Sep 1, 2011

By Nicola Menzie

Prominent leaders of two Baptist churches have special sermons planned for Sunday, Sept. 11, which is the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks against the United States. One sermon promises to discuss America’s “inevitable collapse” while the other is to be delivered by Dr. Tim LaHaye, known for his popular end times book series.

It has not yet been confirmed to The Christian Post whether LaHaye would indeed be speaking on the issue of the end times during his appearance at First Baptist Church of Atlanta on Sept. 11.

CP left a message with Tim LaHaye Ministries Wednesday morning, but no response was received by press time.

LaHaye’s bestselling Left Behind fictional book series and his place at the forefront of biblical prophecy makes it a strong possibility that his 9/11 sermon may indeed follow along the same lines as that of another Baptist church in Texas.

First Baptist Church of Dallas has released a video promoting a new sermon series beginning Sept. 11, that discusses America’s “inevitable collapse.”

Are we witnessing America’s last days? That is what Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, asks Christians to consider in his new sermon series entitled “Twilight’s Last Gleaming.”

33 News interviews Dr. Jeffress and others about his upcoming series, “Twilight’s Last Gleaming” (August 30, 2011)

In the promotional video published on the Internet, the narrator lists a series of social, moral, and economic issues believed to be plaguing America.

Some topics to be covered in Jeffress’ end times series are: why America’s collapse is inevitable; what Christians can do to delay America’s eventual demise; the relationship between abortion and America’s fiscal crisis; and how to prepare for the coming persecution against Christians in America.

The sermon series, which Jeffress told a Dallas television news station was based on Revelation 13, does not point to any specific date of when America can expect to face its end.

“I don’t know when America’s end is coming, but I know from reading the Bible that America’s days are numbered, because this world’s days are numbered,” Jeffress told KDAF-TV.

Jeffress has appeared on various major news networks to discuss public prayer, roles Christians play in politics, and end-time issues.

When Family Radio founder Harold Camping garnered attention for teaching that May 21, 2011, was the beginning of the end for the world, Jeffress spoke out on the issue, saying he doubted that God had told Camping when the world was going to end.

Charles Stanley is pastor of First Baptist Church of Atlanta and the usual speaker during Sunday sermons. The Atlanta preacher released a book in July, titled Turning the Tide, in which he claims that there is a “destructive, man-made tide that is deteriorating our country at a frightening pace.”

The In Touch Ministries founder acknowledges that Americans are currently suffering from a number of financial, social and moral ills, and insists that what America is facing is a tsunami. “It’s coming,” he says.

The problem is, Stanley claims, that the nation has turned its nose up at God instead of falling on its needs to cry out to Him in prayer.

The Christian Post contacted both First Baptist Church of Atlanta and First Baptist Church of Dallas for comments regarding their Sept. 11 sermons. Messages were left with respective parties, but by press time, no calls had been returned.

Hugo Chavez’s supporters shave heads in religious ferment

Dominican Republic citizens who have shaved their heads in a show of solidarity with Venezuelan President Chavez  Photo: REUTERS

Supporters of President Hugo Chavez shaved their heads in solidarity with their leader’s struggle against cancer.

Young men with close-cropped hair stood in the crowd as shouts of “Hallelujah!” and “Amen!”

Telegraph | Aug 24, 2011

Barbers shaved off the hair of several men and at least one woman while the crowd swayed to a religious song on Sunday as hundreds prayed and sang at a televised event.

Mr Chavez, bald from chemotherapy, smiled, clapped with the music and waved to the crowd.

Those attending included a group of six from the Dominican Republic who shaved their heads outside the Venezuelan Embassy in their country on Friday. Mr Chavez greeted the Dominicans with hugs, and stood arm-in-arm with them.

Pro-Chavez lawmaker Robert Serra said in a message on Twitter that “Venezuelan young people and priests cut their hair … in solidarity”.

Young men with close-cropped hair stood in the crowd as shouts of “Hallelujah!” and “Amen!” rose at the end of a song.

Leidy Jimenez, one of the Dominicans, told state television that their decision to shave their heads was “a gesture of love and of strength for the president.”

Mr Chavez blew a kiss to the crowd, and listened as a priest, a minister and others spoke. “Long live Hugo Chavez!,” one Dominican man told the crowd.

Mr Chavez praised the Christian group from the Dominican Republic in a newspaper column on Saturday, saying “may God bless you.” The Dominicans arrived in Venezuela on Saturday night to meet with the president.

Mr Chavez also said in his column that tests show his body has been responding well to chemotherapy. He said he was preparing for a “possible” new round of chemotherapy and that all of his hair has fallen out as a result of the treatment.

Mr Chavez returned from his latest round of chemotherapy in Cuba on Aug 13.

He underwent surgery in Cuba in June that removed a cancerous tumour from his pelvic region. He has not specified where the tumour was located. He has said the chemotherapy aims to ensure no malignant cells reappear.