Ohio priest faces murder charges in ritualized killing of nun

In 1980, the day before Easter, a nun in Toledo Ohio was strangled and stabbed to death. The 27-32 wounds were in the template of a cross, and the body was found in a hospital chapel.


Sister Margaret Ann Pahl was her name. And for many years this case sat, unsolved and unexplained. Until 2004, when a woman came forward claiming she had been the victim of ritual sex abuse by a cult of clergymen who dressed in nuns' clothing and held sadomasochistic orgies.

Eventually three others also claimed that similar things had happened to them. These events led to an investigation of, and subsequent charging of murder against Rev. Gerald Robinson, a chaplain at the hospital.

The reopening of the Sister Pahl homicide investigation didn't start with DNA findings or even a tip. It began with a secret hearing in the downtown headquarters of the Toledo Catholic diocese unrelated to the nun's death.

A 41-year-old woman appeared before a church review board in June, 2003, with a simple request: She wanted the diocese to pay for more than $50,000 in counseling costs she incurred as an alleged victim of clerical sex abuse.

But her story wasn't like dozens of others exploding in the diocese over the last decade. She said she had been a victim of ritualistic sexual abuse by a group of priests.

She claimed they gathered in church basements and rectories in "cult-like ceremonies" where children were molested and ordered to watch other youngsters being abused. She named four clerics, including Chet Warren, a former Oblates of St. Francis de Sales priest ousted from his order in 1993 after five other women accused him of sexual misconduct.

She claimed Father Warren had orchestrated her repeated abuse, including arranging one encounter with the man now facing murder charges: Father Robinson.

The accuser said her only sexual encounter with Father Robinson took place when she was 14 in a room near the chapel of St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center but without any of the rituals that occurred in other sessions.

Ok, there's a lot of details to this whole case. I suggest that you read through the articles I'll be linking at the end of the post. But what I find most disturbing is this:

They (the police) spent several days last month trying to determine if there were any connections between the women's allegations and a loose-knit group of church lay members who gathered on church properties while dressed in nuns' clothes.

Police interviewed Jerry Mazuchowski, 53, a church lay minister and retired Toledo public school teacher who founded the group known as Sisters of Assumed Mary, or SAM. He said he told police detectives that his group did not break church laws.

"We did nun drag," he told The Blade. "We gave each other nuns' names. It was nothing but absolute fun. Camp. Foolishness."

He said a dispute broke out between him and Father Paul Kwiatkowski, the former pastor of St. Hedwig's Church, over allegations the group was responsible for vandalizing the church and holding secret ceremonies - events that led to the pastor to hold a prayer service to cleanse the church. But Mr. Mazuchowski denied vandalizing the church, pointing out he was cleared of any wrongdoing in a special diocese Court of Equity hearing in 1993.

Ok. Let's assume that the priest was a single wacko, who killed the nun. Let's assume that the outrageous stories of the 4 women are false memory syndrome.

...uhm...

But, someone explain to me the purpose of founding a group within your church to dress up in drag as nuns and hang out on church property? I'd like to think that I have some eccentric friends who have done wild and wacky things, but something seems...off about this somehow. I don't 'get' it. Maybe if they were teenagers, or part of some fraternity.


www.toledoblade.com.../20050220/NEWS08/502200352

www.priestsofdarkness.com...

www.courttv.com...

www.theaustralian.news.com.au...

WOW. i guess some people would do that just because they are nuts. and crazy people only like hanging out with other crazy people, so they made their own secret society with cult like scimatics basically. This is only scary because it may not be JUST these guys....these guys may be just the ones who got caught....



CHEERS mate! finially a REAL conciracy worthy of research. THIS is what i joined this sight for.

David Berkowitz wasn't acting alone. I'm sure there are more of these people out there.

As an update to this story: the priest was found guilty of murder.

www.cnn.com...

It seems however, to simply hang on the fact that it was his letter opener that killed her. Forensic evidence showed that the emblem on the letter opener left a bloodied mark on the altar cloth.

Satanism is very much more common than they would have us believe.

We know this by the sheer scale of news stories of this kind.

It is becoming more and more apparent that satanism is the guiding force behind many of our major institutions



[edit on 12-5-2006 by Edelweiss Pirate]

Aside from Masonry, which ones? The Catholic church? The Anglicans/Episcopalians, Sikhs, Hare Khrisnas?

Originally posted by Edelweiss Pirate
Satanism is very much more common than they would have us believe.
...
It is becoming more and more apparent that satanism is the guiding force behind many of our major institutions

Reading the descriptions of the ritualistic aspects of the case is pretty horrifying. Actually, my first instinct was that this is more "repressed memory" BS, like was all the rage in the previous decade. I still hope it's not true!

On the other hand, what about the possibility of the RC Church been infiltrated, as it were, by Satanists? What better cover to do some real damage then a priest? I don't know to what extent "Satanists" are organized, especially sufficiently so to execute a conspiracy of this magnitude. But if they could get this kind of act together, it would be a pretty earthshaking event.

I'm sure that there are clergy of all ranks who also members of various secret societies like the Masons, but I would have thought these would be relatively benign in their aims. But a Satanic organization... YIKES!

Baack

Originally posted by Edelweiss Pirate
Satanism is very much more common than they would have us believe.

We know this by the sheer scale of news stories of this kind.

It is becoming more and more apparent that satanism is the guiding force behind many of our major institutions



[edit on 12-5-2006 by Edelweiss Pirate]

This statement has nothing to do with this case that we're talking about at all...that's like me walking into a mason bashing frenzy and saying i really like the circus.

Satanism was never referred to at all in this whole thing, and you bring no evidence to the table to support yourself at all.

Show us where there satanism, show us how this was a satanic ritual. instead of just saying well it's bad, it's gross, it's border line evil, SATANISM it must be.

Originally posted by umwolves123
Satanism was never referred to at all in this whole thing, and you bring no evidence to the table to support yourself at all.

Show us where there satanism, show us how this was a satanic ritual. instead of just saying well it's bad, it's gross, it's border line evil, SATANISM it must be.

That's all I thought at first also. Charges of "Satanism" get thrown around quite loosely whenever something spooky and ookie like this show up in the news. People who look for the hand of Satan everywhere in the world are likely to find it everywhere they look.

On the other hand, reading these news accounts does produce specific incidents of what one could only call Satanism. Here's a couple of quotes:

From the Priests of Darkness web site, citing the April 21, 2005 Toledo Blade :
www.priestsofdarkness.com...
The woman said the abuse included chanting of Satanic verses, cutting her with a knife as a sacrifice to Satan, drawing an upside-down cross on her abdomen, and forcing her to drink the blood of sacrificed about two animals, such as a rabbit.

She said the men dressed in nun's clothing and performed the rituals while she was on a table. They restrained her if she tried to leave.

In addition to being raped and molested, the woman also alleges that she was forced to perform sexual acts on the men.

She said the abuse escalated dramatically as the sessions continued ,to the point of including putting lighted matches to her feet and the corner of her eyes.

She said the abuse took place in the basement of the church until 1972 when it was moved to an undisclosed wooded area.

From the Australian News , May 13, 2006:
www.theaustralian.news.com.au...
According to the Toledo Blade newspaper, the woman said she had been forced into a coffin filled with cockroaches, made to eat what she thought was a human eyeball and penetrated with a snake "to consecrate these orifices to Satan".

She also claimed the clerics performed an abortion on her, chopped up dogs and killed an infant and a three-year-old child.

Three other women - including one who received a payoff from the church - also claimed they were sexually abused in cult-like ceremonies.

This is pretty hair-raising stuff. I don't know that I specifically believe in Satan as a literally existing being, but people who do and choose to worship him give me the willies. For safety's sake, I would apply a sort-of reverse Pascal's Wager; you have nothing to gain and everything to lose by choosing Satan over God.

Even taking Satan completely out of this story, the sort of heinous violence and psychological degradation provides a pretty good working example of "evil."

Baack

I saw this on the news last week. Pretty creepy. I hate when "religious role models" become murderers.