High price of diplomacy with China
The first of two investigative reports from the Center for Investigative Reporting's James Sandler examines the Bush administration's efforts to squelch legal proceedings against two high ranking Chinese officials accused of torturing members of religious groups, including Fulan Gong. The two accused officials are former trade minister Bo Xilai and Beijing’s Olympic Organizing Committee President Liu Qi. Despite the extent of the abuse allegations — including deaths and organ harvesting, the Bush administration claims the suit would have "immediate adverse foreign policy consequences." Supporting documents for the investigation can be found here.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Separation of church and state blurred by former Utah governor
Robert Gehrke of The Salt Lake Tribune reported that U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt discussed incorporating Mormon doctrines and beliefs into state government when he was governor of Utah. When The Tribune started inquiring, Leavitt requested the state remove transcripts of his discussions from public display. PDFs of the minutes from the "seminary" meetings he held with other government officials are posted on The Tribune's website.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Some Boy Scouts leaders earn six-figure salaries
Lee Davidson of the (Salt Lake City) Deseret Morning News analyzed nearly 300 tax returns, known as IRS Form 990, filed by tax-exempt organization and found that Boy Scouts both in Utah and across the U.S. tend to pay their top executives significantly more than do other nonprofit groups that serve youths. It's a topic of particular interest in Utah, which is home to some of the largest Boy Scouts councils in the country in part because The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints makes scouting part of its youth activity program.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Secret Shelters
Fred Kelly reports on a two-week investigation by The Charlotte Observer which uncovered an "underground network" of shelters and safe houses, many run by religious ministries, which have sprung up as official shelters face issues of overcrowding. Exact numbers on how many of these make-shift shelters exist are unknown, but The Observer located 17 in the course of their investigation. Officials in the area worry about lack of oversight and regulation which could put residents at risk.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Tax dollars pay for religion behind bars
Diana B. Henriques and Andrew Lehren of The New York Times report on the proliferation of faith-based rehabilitation programs funded by tax dollars and springing up in correctional facilities across the country. "Since 2000, courts have cited more than a dozen programs for having unconstitutionally used taxpayer money to pay for religious activities or evangelism aimed at prisoners, recovering addicts, job seekers, teenagers and children." Proponents of these programs look to President Bush's Faith-Based and Community Initiative, "a high-profile effort to encourage religious and community groups to participate in government programs," as justification for the funding "so long as any direct financing is used only for secular expenses." Recent Government Accounting Office reports indicate improvements are needed in how grants to faith-based organizations are monitored.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Fort Worth Diocese concealed abuse
After a 19-month legal battle by The Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the newspapers obtained more than 700 pages from the personnel files of seven priests that the diocese had fought to keep secret. The records show that Fort Worth Catholic Diocese leaders systematically helped predator priests stay in ministry for two decades by concealing information from parishioners, police and the public.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Faith and foreign aid
Farah Stockman, Michael Kranish, and Peter S. Canellos of The Boston Globe, with Globe correspondent Kevin Baron, examined the complete database of USAID prime awards from 2001 to 2005, containing more than 52,000 funding actions, to reveal that USAID gave more than $1.7 billion to 159 "faith-based" organizations. The percentage of USAID funds to NGOs that are faith-based doubled from 2001 to 2005, and 98.3% of the faith-based funds go to Christian groups. Bush's orders altered the longstanding practice that groups preach religion in one space and run government programs in another. The administration said religious organizations can conduct services in the same space as they hand out government aid, so long as the services don't take place while the aid is being delivered. The newspaper found many Christian groups are leveraging their proselytizing and missionary activities with US funding - doing the bare minimun, if that, to separate out their church and state functions.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Special benefits for religious groups
Diana B. Henriques of The New York Times, with computer analysis by Andy Lehren and research by Donna Anderson, examined the quiet expansion of special benefits for religious groups. "In recent years, many politicians and commentators have cited what they consider a nationwide 'war on religion' that exposes religious organizations to hostility and discrimination. But such organizations - from mainline Presbyterian and Methodist churches to mosques to synagogues to Hindu temples - enjoy an abundance of exemptions from regulations and taxes. And the number is multiplying rapidly." An analysis of legislation passed by Congress since 1989 found more than 200 examples of special considerations for religious groups or their members, plus additional benefits created by court decisions and administrative rules.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Church's report on priests incomplete
Jean Guccione and William Lobdell of the Los Angeles Times analyzed church records to show that 11 priests were left out of the 2004 "Report to the People of God" even after parishioners raised concerns about inappropriate behavior with children. "Seven of these 11 cases were not detailed in the People of God report. The other four were mentioned incompletely; the report said they were removed when complaints were lodged but did not disclose that the Los Angeles Archdiocese had received earlier reports of misconduct." One of the 11 cases involves the late Msgr. Leland Boyer, whose publicly released file summary revealed that three allegations of child molestation had been lodged against him. One of his alleged victims, Jaime Romo, said archdiocesan officials had assured him in 2002 that he was Boyer's only accuser.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Md. churches violate law with political donations
John Fritze of The (Baltimore) Sun reviewed candidate finance reports to show that more than 100 churches in Maryland — including dozens in Baltimore — have made campaign contributions to political candidates in recent years, an act that is prohibited by federal tax law and blurs the line between politics and the pulpit. Some have given repeatedly, such as the Southern Baptist Church in East Baltimore, which made a dozen campaign donations between 2000 and 2004 that add up to more than $3,000. Statewide, at least 115 churches have given to about 40 candidates since 2000, and while the donations are generally small and sporadic, they flout Internal Revenue Service regulations that prohibit churches from advocating for specific political candidates. "Churches that give to candidates can face revocation of their tax-exempt status or a 10 percent excise tax on the contributions, according to the IRS." A variety of candidates from both parties — including many in top leadership positions — have taken money from churches in recent years.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Ex-adviser gets out of jail early, but victims get little
Brent Schrotenboer of The San Diego Union-Tribune used court records in an investigation of John W. Gillette Jr., a former financial adviser to high-profile athletes. He is four years removed from prison after fleecing those athletes out of more than $11 million. He serves as the chief operations officer at Shadow Mountain Community Church in San Diego. The investigation found Gillette was released three years after his sentencing because he cooperated in recovering more than $5 million, including turning over his 50 percent share of Seau's Mission Valley restaurant. "But after attorneys were paid and assets distributed through bankruptcy court, many victims said they received only a small fraction of what Gillette took, if anything." Records show Gillette's family lives in a three-bedroom house with mountain views (owned by his in-laws) and is financing a 2005 BMW SUV.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

U.S. secretly monitoring radiation levels at Muslim sites in D.C. area
David E. Kaplan of U.S. News & World Report finds the U.S. government has been monitoring more than 100 "Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities" since 9/11 in search of a terrorist nuclear bomb. As part of the top-secret program, investigators went "on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program."
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Vast scope of priest abuse in Los Angeles
Jean Guccione and Doug Smith with contributions from William Lobdell of the Los Angeles Times tracked the assignments of 228 priests from 1950 through 2003 who have been named or identified as the subject of abuse complaints. The analysis reveals that because the accused priests moved around the archdiocese on average every 4.5 years, the total number of parishes in which alleged abusers served is far larger —more than three-fourths of the 288 parishes. "In at least eight cases, the archdiocese allowed priests to remain in ministry after receiving information about their alleged sexual interest in minors. " Starting in the 1950s, the percentage of diocesan priests who eventually would be accused of wrongdoing climbed steadily from about 6% to a high of 11.5% in 1983. See priest abuse accusations in the Los Angeles Archdiocese.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Church leader takes in millions
John Blake of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution used public tax and property records to show how Bishop Eddie Long, leader of the 25,000-member New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, received more than $3 million in salary and property over four years from a tax-exempt charity that he founded in 1996. The charity's compensation for Long was nearly as much as it gave to all other recipients combined in the same period. Blake used the charity's tax returns and property records in Georgia and corporate papers filed in New York.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Police helped hide sexual abuse cases involving priests
Joe Mahr and Mitch Weiss of The (Toledo) Blade reviewed thousands of documents and interviewed dozens to find that Toledo-area police helped the local Catholic diocese hide cases of sexual abuse by priests. "Beyond past revelations that the diocese quietly moved pedophile priests from parish to parish, The Blade investigation shows that at least once a decade - and often more - priests suspected of rape and molestation have been allowed by local authorities to escape the law." Some alleged abusers were never investigated, while officials prevented the release of case files for other investigations. "The cover-up has been confirmed by former police officers and the diocese's former spokesman, Jim Richards, who said church leaders 'knew who to call in the police department' to keep cases quiet."
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Allegations pile up in Denver church scandal
Eric Gorski of The Denver Post uses church documents and interviews to investigate claims that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver was told "at least three times of child sex-abuse allegations against one of its priests but continued to allow him to serve and moved him from parish to parish for years." The paper has received seven additional stories of abuse, following the one allegation detailed on Tuesday.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Mormon population numbers falling
Matt Canham of The Salt Lake Tribune used records obtained through a public records request to investigate Mormon population numbers in Utah. The investigation found that "the Mormon share of Utah's population is expected to hit its lowest level since The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints started keeping membership numbers." According to the 2004 count, Utah is now 62.4 percent Mormon with every county showing a decrease.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

TV evangelist receives millions from ministry
Carolyn Tuft of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch used Missouri's Open Records law to obtain documents showing that "TV evangelist Joyce Meyer and her family have received millions in salary and benefits from her worldwide ministry in recent years." The details were included in a property tax dispute involving the tax status of the ministry's headquarters. Joyce Meyer earned a $900,000 salary in 2002 and 2003, and her husband got $450,000 in each of those years.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

U.S. implements secret policy to win over Islam
David E. Kaplan of U.S. News & World Reports details how the White House is implementing a secret policy to intervene not just in the Muslim world, but within Islam itself, and how Washington has set up a program of political warfare unmatched since the height of the Cold War forty years ago. The project details how the U.S. government is quietly funding Islamic schools, mosques, think tanks, and media around the world. The piece also includes a graphic detailing the United States' projects to influence Islam globally, and two sidebars, the first describing the role of rocket scientists in the strategy, and the second examining Sufi, a moderate sect of Islam and an enemy to al-Qaeda and other extremists organizations.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Charity linked to evangelical sex cult
Don Lattin of the San Francisco Chronicle used tax and property records to show that a Southern California charity called the Family Care Foundation has "deep, ongoing ties between the organization and the Family, the evangelical sex cult rocked by a recent murder-suicide." Officers of the foundation are linked to the Family via property records, Internet domains and other ties. "Former members say the vast majority of projects funded by the foundation are run by the Family. Two children's programs, including one which was based in San Francisco, were run by one-time cult members who had faced separate allegations of child sexual abuse." The foundation denies any link to the Family.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Britain helps fund illegal street meetings for cleric
Sean O'Neill of the The Times of London used Britain's new Freedom of Information law to obtain records showing that "almost €900,000 has been spent by police to steward illegal street meetings by the radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri and his followers.... The figure is far in excess of previous estimates for the 22-month police operation." Police provided protection for weekly meetings outside the Finsbury Park Mosque.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Accused priests relocate, often with church's help
Reese Dunklin, Brendan M. Case, Brooks Egerton and Andrew Fa'asau of The Dallas Morning News spent a year tracking Catholic priests accused of sexually abusing children, finding that "from Africa to Latin America to Europe to Asia, these priests have started new lives in unsuspecting communities, often with the help of church officials. They are leading parishes, teaching and continuing to work in settings that bring them into contact with children, despite church claims to the contrary." The first story focuses on the Rev. Frank Klep, a convicted child molester and Australian priest who was sent in 1998 to Samoa, where "Australian police can't touch him now because their country has no extradition treaty with Samoa." A second piece reports that "a prominent candidate to succeed Pope John Paul II recently sheltered a priest who is an admitted child molester and now an international fugitive." The paper has posted a timeline and other resources on its site.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Town struggles with housing, growth issues
A three-part series in the Asbury Park Press by Jason Method and Richard Quinn found that Orthodox Jewish real estate practices in Lakewood, N.J., apparently broke fair housing laws. The series also documented how both Orthodox and Hispanic residents were cramming into dwellings that had not been inspected nor, in many cases, approved by township officials. Plus, the series showed the leniency of the zoning and planning boards in granting high-density housing. The paper examined planning and zoning records from the past five years to show that developments catering to Orthodox Jews studying at Beth Medrash Govoha rabbinical college have caused complaints from other residents that "they feel locked out of the housing market."
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

IRE awards three medals
An astonishing story of brutal war crimes by The (Toledo, Ohio) Blade and a book on the American tax system by David Cay Johnston took top honors in the 2003 IRE Awards. In addition, the Freedom of Information Award went to a team from the (Sioux Falls, S.D.) Argus Leader for exposing a massive secret pardons program rife with questions and conflicts for the governor.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Catholicism on the rise in Dallas area
Linda Stewart Ball and Paula Lavigne of The Dallas Morning News used migration data and parish records to find that "in the last 10 years, a 50-year trend has been reversed. In 1952, 60 percent of Collin County's religious followers were Baptist, and Catholics were almost statistically extinct. During the 1990s, Catholicism became the largest faith in the county, with 34 percent by 2000." Church records show that most of the newcomers are not of Hispanic origin, but usually come other parts of the United States. "As Monsignor Glenn 'Duffy' Gardner at St. Mark the Evangelist parish in Plano put it, 'They're all Yankees.'" (Registration is required.)
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Catholic churches undergo reorganization
Daniel J. Wakin of The New York Times obtained and analyzed data on attendance at Mass conducted at New York City area parishes, finding that 149 parishes "have lagged in four benchmarks of vitality — daily and weekend Mass attendance and the number of baptisms and religious-education students." The Archdiocese of New York is examining the figures as part of a reorganization plan that is "likely to close churches, reduce the number of Masses and redeploy priests," the paper says.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Fla. church not all that it seems
A three-month investigation by the Tampa Tribune and WFLA-Tampa finds that a central Florida church is actually "an elaborate money-making machine that generates revenue three ways." According to the report, the Deeper Life Christian Church sends people seeking food and shelter out on dangerous fund-raising missions, pushes its congregants to donate heavily and receives money from satellite churches in other states. Some church watchdog organizations have compare the organization to a cult. "The bulk of the reporting and research was done by John W. Allman, Michelle Bearden, Michael Fechter and Angie Drobnic Holan of the Tribune, and Rod Carter of WFLA."
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Majority of Phoenix's accused priests were in predominantly Hispanic parishes
An analysis by Joseph A. Reaves and Elvia Diaz of The Arizona Republic shows that "eight of the 11 priests criminally accused or convicted of sexual misconduct with minors in the Phoenix Diocese committed their offenses in parishes with large and often predominantly Hispanic populations." The paper's review, based on legal documents and church assignments, does not say whether Catholic Church officials knew about the allegations of abuse at the time, but six of the priests were transferred to other parishes that had significant Hispanic populations.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Accused priests worked in nearly half of Phoenix's parishes
Joseph A. Reaves and Kelly Ettenborough of The Arizona Republic report that "prie sts accused of sexual abuse or harassment worked in nearly half of all parishes in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix during the past three decades." As a result of practices that began decades ago, some repeat offenders were reassigned to mostly Hispanic parishes in the state. Staffer Ryan Konig compiled a database of more than 700 priests since 1969 and cross-referenced them with public records on sex-related crimes.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post

Legislators live in house subsidized by church
Lara Jakes Jordan of The Associated Press delves into the housing arrangement for six members of Congress who share a Capitol Hill townhouse "that is subsidized by a secretive religious organization," according to tax records. The building is owned by a group known as the "Fellowship," which puts on the annual National Prayer Breakfast and is registered with the IRS as a church. Rent for the lawmakers is $600 a month.
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post