BishopAccountability.org
	More from the " You Have to Be Kidding Me File…" Off My Knees September 16, 2009 http://michaelbaumann.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/more-from-the-you-have-to-be-kidding-me-file/ Once again I find myself spending my lunch break looking at Kathy Shaw's "Abuse Tracker" to get up to speed on the latest news. Today there was a blog piece discussing the recent ordination of a registered sex offender at a church in Kentucky. The Blogger, who goes by the pseudonym of "De Facto", describes himself as "a passionate writer with a mission which is a higher calling". If you read his rambling and repetitive user profile you will find out that his mission is to uplift us with his vast knowledge and experience. He lists his occupation as a "non-profit actor". I have no idea what that means, although I think he may be gifted at delivering the line "Would you like fries with that?". In his blog post titled "Do You Know Better?", De Facto has decided to lecture us on our unwillingness to accept the ordination of a registered sex offender as a minister at the City of Refuge Worship Center in Germantown, Kentucky. His rationale is that there are many significant characters in the Bible who overcame adversity and criminal activity to serve god well later in life. He argues that we do not have the moral right to question the ordination of Mark Hourigan, a registered sex offender, because god knows better than we mere mortals who is called and why they are called. (Nope, I am not making this up!) Had De Facto done any research, gone through any thought process or even prayerfully reflected on what he had written before piously pressing "publish" he may have seen the folly of his own post. Had he looked at any empirical information, beside the bible, he may have found the recidivism rate of sexual predators is extremely high. To ordain this man and put him in a position of trust where he will have access to children is not only stupid and dangerous, it very well could be an act of criminal negligence. His dependence on the bible as a source document to show other "sinners" who went on to do the work of the lord is specious. His absolute submissiveness to that book belies any rational thought that puts the welfare of children or vulnerable adults ahead of the vocational desires of a registered sex offender. De Facto's thought process is naive at best and dangerously myopic. His religious zeal and passion have obviously brought him to an unsupportable conclusion. That conclusion is that we should not question god's will and that we should set aside all we know about sexual predators. What is lost on the wise De Facto is that evil does exist in this world. Sometimes that evil wraps itself in the cloak of ministry to prey on the most innocent and vulnerable. To blindly follow that the ordination of this predator as the will of god shows me that passion is a poor substitute intelligence and that De Facto, in fact, lacks the experience to make a compelling argument on why a sex offender should be allowed to hold a position of trust. I invite De Facto to read some of the stories by victims of ministers and priests who were, in fact, wolves in sheep's clothing before he summarily dismisses our well founded concern over this predator's ordination.
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