Jewish ancestry in genes? DNA separation

Sex scandal: Nun 'sexting with priest'

Aurora Bosotti, 6/30/23 | UPDATED; Crystal Q., Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Mistakes were made. I was on fentanyl. But what's his excuse? I'm suing! Rev. Mother Superior
Teresa Agnes Gerlach was ousted from her convent on 6/1/23 (CBS News•Fort Worth Diocese).

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Texas nun evicted from monastery in heated row over 'sexting with priest'

Gypsy Rose Blanchard on sex life w/ husband

The ousted nun had previously rejected claims that she had violated her vows of celibacy after allegedly confessing to the technological (and sinful) relationship while under the influence of fentanyl.

A Texas Catholic Carmelite nun, not a mere sister but the mother superior, who was accused of having an illicit sexual affair with a Catholic priest was evicted from her nunnery (convent) after admitting to sexting the man of the cloth.

Rev. Gerlach has sued Bishop Olson

Rev. Mother Superior Teresa Agnes Gerlach, 43, had previously denied the accusation and launched a $1 million lawsuit alongside her sisters against Bishop of Fort Worth Michael Olson.

The bishop secured a confession about the scandalous affair during an interview on April 24, 2023, in which Rev. Gerlach maintains she was still heavily medicated and under the influence of fentanyl because of a recent surgery.

The nun, who is in a wheelchair and uses a feeding tube on a day-to-day basis, was removed from the Carmelite Nunnery of the Most Holy Trinity she led in Arlington, Texas, on June 1, 2023, after the patriarchal diocese found she had had a fling with Father Bernard Marie of Montana

• [who is completely innocent because he is a man and the church needs all the priests it can lure in and hold on to, even if they engage in homosexual child molestation of young boys, gambling, seducing nuns, or other improprieties because, as Pope Francis, the CEO of the Catholic Church of the head of the Holy Roman Church, has said, "Who am I to judge?"]

"Who am I to judge [sexy priests]?" - Pope F

In a recording of the interview with Bishop Olson, Rev. Gerlach can be heard saying: "I made a horrible, horrible mistake. I was not in my right mind. Even a nun can fall.”

• READ MORE: Nuns in standoff with Vatican after bishop denies mass over fentanyl confession [LATEST]

 and the Catholic diocese for $1 million (Image: CBS NEWS)

The Fort Worth Diocese and Rev. Gerlach are currently in dispute on whether the case should be handled in civil court or let the Vatican intervene in what the bishop has maintained is a Canon Law issue.

Bishop Olson testified in court that Gerlach's fellow nun Sr. Francis Therese had informed him the Mother Superior's relationship with the priest involved "sexting."

In the audio recording, Rev. Gerlach said she had been getting [sexually] frisky with the priest, but just on the phone, oh, and on video calls. But she said they never met in person.

She said: "Bishop, I need to tell you something. I don’t know how to explain this, but this did not happen in person. At all. It was all over the phone.

"I promise you, Bishop. At the time, I was having seizures [a sign of demonic possession in the Church], and I was really in a very difficult position. and I think my brain just got really messed up." More

Police State evicts Buddhist monk

Buddhist monks look at a notice from the state committee of Great Monastic Order (Sangha Maha Nayaka) at Shwenyawar Monastery in Rangoon, Dec. 15, 2011. The state committee announced the removal of Pyi Nyar Thiha from the monastery after he preached at the NLD.

(VOA) A Buddhist monk in Burma has been ordered out of his monastery after giving a speech at an office of [pro-democracy] leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party.

Ven. Ashin Pyinyar Thiha, who recently met US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her historic visit to Burma, says he received a letter from a government-backed council of Buddhist elders.

• ASIA NEWS: Daily 30-min radio show

The state committee [that tries to control the Buddhist monastic order] is asking him to leave Sadhu Buddhist Monastery in Rangoon, saying the speech he gave in September at a branch of Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD in Mandalay, in central Burma, was inappropriate.

Ashin Pyinyar Thiha told the French news agency he will appeal the decision. In recent months the Sadhu monastery has held a series of political events. Burma's new government took over in March and has shown tentative steps toward democratic reform. More

Occupy study: California has 150 camps

Steven Cuevas (KPCC FM, SCPR.org); OccupyTogether.org; Wisdom Quarterly

Occupy protests have spread to nearly 150 locations equally distributed between Northern and Southern California.

Researchers at UCR used social media sites like Facebook to track the movement’s growth from large urban centers to remote mountain towns.

Sociology professor Christopher Chase-Dunn and graduate student Michaela Curran-Strange helmed the study, which has traced the Occupy Movement to some far-flung locations.

“I found this guy up in Yreka who had lost his house to foreclosure," said Chase-Dunn, referring to the former Gold Rush town north of Mount Shasta, which boasts a population of 7,800.

“And he was angry, and he was trying to start a local Occupy. I don’t think he ever did, but he was trying, and it was one person.”

UC Riverside researchers tracked him down, along with dozens of other California Occupiers, using social media like Facebook and Twitter.

“Basically it’s a cheap way to find out what’s going on in Idyllwild and Weaverville," said Chase-Dunn. "With social movements you wanna study how they diffuse, where do the ideas come from and then where do they go to.”

• Find an Occupy camp near you
  

Some Occupy sites have a handful of campers. Others, like one based in the Northern California town of Arcata, have Facebook followers that number in the thousands. Some groups stage regular public actions; others limit their activism primarily to the Web. More

Mob, police force nuns to leave monastery

HANOI, Vietnam — Followers of a world-famous Buddhist teacher [Thich Nhat Hanh] say police and an angry mob have forced them out of a monastery in central Vietnam, ending a religious experiment in the communist country that turned into a months-long standoff with authorities.

Followers of Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnam-born [Zen] monk who has popularized Buddhism in the West, said about 150 monks were forced from the Bat Nha monastery in Lam Dong province Sunday, and about 230 nuns left on their own Monday morning.

"The Vietnamese government has won," said Sister Dang Nghiem, speaking by telephone Monday from a monastery in San Diego, California, where Thich Nhat Hanh is visiting. "Their 'victory' is that Bat Nha is completely destroyed. Everything is smashed." More>>

Vietnam evicts Thich Nhat Hanh's monks

Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, center, seen here on March 16, 2007, arrives for a Great Chanting Ceremony at Vinh Nghiem Pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. Communist Vietnam's sometimes edgy relationship with religious freedom is being tested in a dispute over a monastery inhabited by Hanh's disciples (AP/file).

Vietnam says booting Buddhist monks not repression
Ben Stocking (AP)

HANOI, Vietnam — Buddhist monks following world-famous teacher Thich Nhat Hanh are being evicted from a Vietnamese monastery for failing to clear their activities with the government, an official said today, but he denied the dispute was about religious freedom.

Followers of Thich Nhat Hanh, who has sold more than one million books in the West, say the government is punishing them because their France-based leader suggested that his native Vietnam's communist government should abolish its control of religion. However, Bui Huu Duoc of the government's Committee on Religious Affairs, blamed the dispute on a failure to abide by local regulations and said it is normal for governments to oversee the operations of religious groups operating within their borders.

"Managing religious groups doesn't mean controlling them," Duoc, who oversees Buddhist affairs for the committee, said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We're here to facilitate their efforts to do good things for the country."

However, Duoc did allow that officials were "very surprised" at postings on the main Web site for Hanh's main monastery in southern France calling for the government to disband religious police. Vietnam formally recognizes less than a dozen religions, and they are all required to register with the state. Hanh's followers have been asked to leave the Bat Nha monastery in the Central Highlands by early September. More>>