Faith healing parents plead ‘no contest’ in death of child

Source: Examiner

Author: Michael Stone

“Faith healing parents Herbert and Catherine Schaible pleaded no contest to third-degree murder in the death of their infant son, Brandon. By their own admission the couple failed to provide medical care for their child, choosing prayer over modern medicine, with tragic consequence.

According to a NBC report issued Nov. 15, the Schaibles were each convicted after entering their pleas late last week. The Schaibles each pleaded no contest to third-degree murder, child endangerment, and conspiracy.

8-month-old Brandon Schaible died on April 18 at his home in Rhawnhurst, Philadelphia, from bacterial pneumonia, severe dehydration and an infection, after his parents withheld medical care, according to a report issued by Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Gary Collins.

Adding insult to injury, the couple was already on probation after a jury convicted them of involuntary manslaughter in 2010 for the faith healing death of their 2-year-old son, Kent.

After Brandon’s death last April, the dead boy’s father, Herbert Schaible, 44, told Philadelphia homicide detectives the following:

“We believe in divine healing, that Jesus shed blood for our healing and that he died on the cross to break the devil’s power. Medicine is against our religious beliefs.

Both Schaibles gave statements to homicide detectives after Brandon’s April 18 death, in which they admitted they did not follow the terms of their probation.

“My husband and I decided we wanted to trust in God,” Catherine Schaible told detectives, explaining why they did not take Brandon to a doctor.

The Schaibles attend the First Century Gospel Church, a fundamentalist congregation that believes in faith healing and prayer over science and medicine for the treatment of illnesses and injuries. Their pastor, Nelson Clark, said the Schaibles lost their sons because of a “spiritual lack” in their lives

Common Pleas Court Judge Benjamin Lerner set sentencing for Feb. 19. The Schaibles face 20 to 40 year maximum prison terms for their crime.

The Schaibles’ seven surviving children are currently in foster care.

For more news, information and humor relevant to atheists, freethinkers, and secular humanists, check outProgressive Secular Humanist Examiner on Facebook.

Emphasis Mine

See: http://www.examiner.com/article/faith-healing-parents-plead-no-contest-death-of-child?CID=examiner_alerts_article

GOP leadership takes strong role in recent Murders?

NOT!

From Frank Schaeffer, Alternet:”What are the Republicans in Congress and the other “respectable” leaders on the far right — from Focus on the Family’s James Dobson to Rush Limbaugh, from Laura Ingraham to the leaders of the NRA — doing to stop the right-wing domestic wave of terrorism exploding in the aftermath of President Barack Obama’s election? I ask this as a former evangelical right-wing and “pro-life” leader who quit the right and the Republicans in disgust over their extremism.

In the wake of the election of our first black president, we’ve seen rage — an abortion doctor gunned down; three police officers in Pittsburgh shot by a man who feared “they” would take his guns; and a black security guard at the National Holocaust Museum slain….Who has been beating the anti-immigrant drum? Who has been calling abortion doctors “murderers”? Who has been saying that Obama will take away our guns? Who is ratcheting up the anti-Obama hysteria?…

  • In the light of the rising tide of right-wing terror, if leaders on the right were serious about standing against violence and acting responsibly you would see:
  • Pro-life leaders in front of abortion clinics to protect doctors from violence.
  • People like radio talk host Ingraham — who has been sounding an anti-immigrant drumbeat incessantly — at the funeral for the little girl gunned down in Arivaca and begging her far-right listeners to not commit acts of domestic terrorism against immigrants.
  • Letters from the NRA to its membership refuting its own scaremongering, anti-Obama election tactics and saying that Obama is not going to take Americans’ guns away.
  • Republican senators and representatives giving speeches calling on their followers to accept and work with the president in a truly loyal opposition and denouncing Dick Cheney for saying the president is making us “less safe.”
  • Evangelical Christian and Roman Catholic leaders telling their congregations to stop believing insane Religious Right lies, like the one about Obama being a Muslim, and/or the Antichrist …

Instead, the rising tide of violence is met with silence and/or pretended horror by leaders on the right and yet even more hateful words amounting to outright provocation — “I hope Obama fails,” or, “Obama is making America less safe,” or, “We regret Tiller’s murder, but after all, he murdered 60,000 babies…” or, “Illegal immigrants must be stopped!” and so on.

Who on the right-wing radio shows, among the Republicans in Congress and in far-right media such as Fox News, will now try to cure the sickness of their right-wing followers — before it explodes again? Or don’t they care?

So far, the insanity continues including (according to Timemagazine) the New Bethel Church’s highly publicized “open-carry service.” Assemblies of God church (Sarah Palin’s old denomination) in Louisville, Ky., having a service to celebrate carrying weapons, wherein NRA and other members of gun groups were invited and a video was shown of a Marine being asked what he would do if asked to “disarm Americans.” More hysteria, more craziness, more religious leaders — locally and nationally — ramping up the Obama-will-take-your-guns threat.Right-wing domestic terrorism committed by a few unhinged people who take the crazy talk (and nutty “open-carry” church services) seriously is a test of the patriotism of the so-called mainstream right-wing leaders. If the mainstream right doesn’t stand up to try to tamp down the fear levels in its very own lunatic fringe, and if it doesn’t lower the pitch of its anti-Obama rhetoric, then it is complicit in whatever comes next.

see: http://www.alternet.org/story/141019/’i_quit_the_evangelical_movement_in_disgust’:_former_evangelist_fears_right-wing_lunacy_will_lead_to_more_murder/