{"id":31,"date":"2009-09-30T17:22:58","date_gmt":"2009-09-30T17:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/church-ordains-convicted-pedophile-as-minister.html"},"modified":"2009-09-30T17:22:58","modified_gmt":"2009-09-30T17:22:58","slug":"church-ordains-convicted-pedophile-as-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/church-ordains-convicted-pedophile-as-minister.html","title":{"rendered":"Church ordains convicted pedophile as minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

This piece of news<\/a> just boggles the mind: <\/p>\n

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A tiny Louisville church’s newest minister is a gifted music leader and popular among its three dozen members.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Mark Hourigan is also a sex offender. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Almost a decade ago, long before he joined the flock at the City of Refuge Worship Center, he was convicted of sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy in central Kentucky. Hourigan served a five-year sentence and the 41-year-old was placed on Kentucky’s sex offender registry for the rest of his life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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A former leader at the church along with an abuse victims advocacy group say Hourigan is a risk to hurt another child and he should not have been placed in a position of authority.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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“He’s still a threat” to children, said Cal Pfeiffer, who was abused by a Catholic priest as a young student in Louisville in the late 1950s and early 60s.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Pfeiffer and experts on religion and sexual abuse believe it could be the first time a convicted sex offender has been knowingly ordained as a minister in a Christian church.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“It sets a precedent,” said Pfeiffer, a member of a group that has protested Hourigan’s ordination. “It elevates him to an ordained minister which almost automatically conveys a level of trust and responsibility.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The church’s pastor, the Rev. Randy Meadows, ordained Hourigan during a service on Sept. 13. The self-described Pentecostal church, started by Meadows and a handful of other members six years ago, welcomes anyone “regardless of race, religion, culture (or) sexual orientation,” according to its Web site. It also has a Sunday school for children.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Meadows declined several requests from The Associated Press for an interview, but said in a brief phone conversation that the church has not experienced any backlash based on the decision to ordain a convicted pedophile.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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“We’re just finished with the whole ordeal with everything, so we’re moving on,” Meadows said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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There’s more at the link<\/a>. <\/p>\n

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This piece of news just boggles the mind:  A tiny Louisville church’s newest minister is a gifted music leader and popular among its three dozen members. Mark Hourigan is also a sex offender.  Almost a decade ago, long before he joined the flock at the City of Refuge Worship Center, he was convicted of sexually abusing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people-in-the-pews"],"yoast_head":"\nChurch ordains convicted pedophile as minister - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/church-ordains-convicted-pedophile-as-minister.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Church ordains convicted pedophile as minister - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This piece of news just boggles the mind:  A tiny Louisville church’s newest minister is a gifted music leader and popular among its three dozen members. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}