Egyptian Copts, Reeling From Violence, Want Protection

Firefighters extinguish a blaze at a church following clashes between Muslims and Christians in Cairo, Egypt.

Cairo (CNN) -- Muslim-Christian sectarian violence intensified in Egypt this weekend, spurring an emergency meeting of the Cabinet and public exhortations from Coptic Christians for international protection.

At least 12 people were killed and 232 others were wounded in sectarian clashes outside a Cairo church, according to state TV. Officials said violence began over rumors that a Christian woman who converted to Islam was being held at the church against her will.

Prime Minister Essam Sharaf postponed a trip to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to discuss the church attack and hold the emergency meeting, according to EgyNews, Egypt's official news agency.

A small group of Coptic Christians gathering near the U.S. Embassy in Cairo on Sunday called for international protection of Egypt's Christian community and condemned the government for not doing more to protect them.

Small groups composed of Christians and Muslims engaged in heated debate sectarian tensions mounted, but they were peaceful. Soldiers stood in a line across the road to prevent protesters from approaching the U.S. embassy.

In the Cairo neighborhood of Maspiro, violence erupted when several hundred people, predominantly Christian but also Muslims, demonstrated in favor of national unity in front of the TV building.

Stones were hurled and people threw bricks from rooftops on predominantly Christian protesters. Some people were injured.

Chants could be heard of "with our souls and blood we will sacrifice ourselves for the cross." Military riot police with red helmets and clubs separated mutually hostile crowds.

Problems between Egypt's Muslim majority and its Coptic Christian minority have been on the rise in recent months, with a number of violent clashes reported between the two groups. Tensions flared after a recently-published U.S. government report on international religious freedom detailed the hostility targeting the minority Copts in the predominantly Muslim society.

During clashes on Saturday, witnesses said an armed group of Muslims marched on Saint Mena Coptic Orthodox Church, one of the oldest churches in Egypt.

Witnesses said Muslims and Christians exchanged gunfire, sending people running for cover.

"With my own eyes I saw three people killed and dozens injured," said Mina Adel, a Christian resident. "There's no security here. There's a big problem. People attacked us, and we have to protect ourselves."

There were conflicting reports about who attacked the church.

Some witnesses said the group was made up of Muslim fundamentalists, known as Salafists. Others, including Interior Ministry spokesman Alla Mahmoud, said it was angry Muslims from a nearby mosque.

Mahmoud said the clashes were sparked by reports of a Christian woman who married a Muslim man and was allegedly being held inside the church.

Military, special forces and riot police were called in to try to break up the violence, firing warning shots in the air, according to witnesses.

At the same time, at the nearby Coptic Church of the Holy Virgin, firefighters responded to a blaze that witnesses said appeared to have been started by the members of the same group that attacked the other church.

Hundreds of residents in the working class neighborhood of Imbaba stood outside as the church burned and two men were seen jumping from a window of the building, according to witnesses.

Across the street, residents standing outside the Al Wehda mosque blamed "thugs" for the violence.

"It was thugs who burned the church, not Salafists (fundamentalists)," said Jamal El Banan. "We never had such sedition before the revolution."

Tensions were high in the neighborhood following the clashes, with soldiers firing shots into the air overnight to break up the crowd, witnesses said.

CNN senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman, based in Cairo, described the crowd as "very hostile," saying he was forced to leave the neighborhood after his vehicle was targeted with rocks.

A Coptic church in the town of Alexandria was bombed on New Year's Day, killing 23 people -- the deadliest attack on Christians in Egypt in recent times.

Ten days later, a gunman killed a Christian man and wounded five others on a train in Egypt.

In November, a group with ties to al Qaeda in Iraq announced that all Christians in the Middle East would be "legitimate targets," as the group's deadline for Egypt's Coptic church to release alleged Muslim female prisoners expired.

The group's claim that the Coptic Church in Egypt is holding female prisoners is based on widespread rumors of Coptic women in Egypt converting to Islam and being detained by the church in an attempt to compel or persuade them to return to their original faith.

About 9% of Egypt's 80 million residents are Coptic Christians. They base their theology on the teachings of the Apostle Mark, who introduced Christianity to Egypt, according to St. Takla Church in Alexandria, the capital of Coptic Christianity.

The religion split with other Christians in the 5th century over the definition of the divinity of Jesus Christ.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent bipartisan federal agency, last month added Egypt to a list of countries named as the worst violators of religious freedom.

"The Egyptian government engaged in and tolerated religious freedom violations before and after President Hosni Mubarak stepped down on February 11, 2001," the commissioners wrote in the report. They cited violence toward religious minorities in Egypt including Coptic Christians and non-majority Muslim groups.

"Since February 11, religious freedom conditions have not improved and attacks targeting religious minorities have continued," the report said.

The group said Egypt was put on the list of "Countries of Particular Concern" for "a number of very specific reasons but one that was a particular concern to the commissioners was the issue of impunity," commission chair Leonard Leo told reporters at a Washington news conference about the report.

One benchmark the commission looked at for Egypt, Leo said, was the trial following the Naga Hammadi shootings, which involved a massacre on the day Coptic Christians celebrate their Christmas Eve services.

"That, for us, was a very important signal the impunity issue was getting worse and not better. When you combine that with other conditions that have existed, particularly various elements of state sponsored repression, we believe there was sufficient grounds for triggering the (International Religious Freedom) act standard, which is a systematic, egregious violations of the freedom of religion," Leo said.

Elizabeth Prodromou, a vice-chair of the commission, said the group noted "both a qualitative, as well as a quantitative, deterioration in religious freedom issues in Egypt."

"In particular, we saw a dramatic uptick in targeted religious violence, primarily against the Coptic Orthodox community, but also against the Roman Catholic community and other Christian communities," she said.

The commission recommended that the U.S. military direct some of the "existing military assistance" to protecting Coptic Christians and other religious minorities, in addition to diplomatic efforts to pressure the new government with reform measures.

Anti-Gay Christian Pastor Charged Over Public Masturbation

Rev. Grant Storms, a renowned anti-gay Christian pastor from Louisiana, was arrested last week for masturbating at a public park, in the vicinity of a carousel and playground where children were present.

According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, one woman saw Storms parked in his van "looking at the playground area that contained children playing, with his zipper down...," the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office report read. After judging that Storms was masturbating, the woman and another mother who witnessed the event both alerted deputies.

After being apprehended by authorities, Storms claimed that he had been urinating into a bottle. He was then booked for obscenity -- charges that he denied -- and then released due to overcrowding in the jail.

The reverend appeared less willing to discuss the matter at a press conference on Tuesday, during which he blamed "pornography" for the incident.

"Pornography is destructive and it can ruin a person's life, and it ruined my life," he said at the conference, admitting that he had his hands in his pants, but maintaining that he wasn't masturbating. "Do I have problems? Yes. Did I do something wrong? Yes."

Despite his apology, which he also extended to the gay community, to which he has been a prominent opponent, Grants also denied claims that he had been "looking at the children" in the area.

New York Priest Defrocked For Child Sex Abuse

New York (CNN) -- A high-ranking New York priest has been found guilty by a church tribunal of sexually abusing a minor in the 1970s, according to a statement obtained Saturday from the Catholic Archdiocese of New York.

Monsignor Charles M. Kavanagh was dismissed from the priesthood following the decision Wednesday by the tribunal, which was acting on authority from the Vatican.

The accuser, a former seminary student of Kavanagh's, brought the case to the Manhattan district attorney in 2002. He then wrote to Edward Cardinal Egan, the former Archbishop of New York, informing him of his claim, according to the Office of Communications for the Archdiocese.

Between July 2002 and July 2003 the district attorney's office worked closely with the Archdiocese and found the allegations to be credible. Following an initial investigation that was conducted under the policies of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Archdiocese of New York, Kavanagh's priestly faculties were removed, according to Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the New York diocese. Kavanagh was instructed not to engage in any active ministry or even appear to be a priest.

Kavanagh requested a canonical trial as approved by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, according to Zwilling.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith ordered the trial, which was conducted outside the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of New York in 2004, Zwilling said. The trial found Kavanagh guilty and dismissed him from the clerical state.

Kavanagh requested the decision be reviewed by a church appellate court, also outside the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of New York. The appellate court upheld the lower court's decision on Wednesday, Zwilling said.

In a phone interview Saturday, accuser Daniel Donohue, who was a teenager when the abuse occurred, criticized the judicial process.

"This was an eight-year process with not a lot of transparency," he said. "The judicial system under the Vatican is not an open system, unlike our judicial system. Nobody has access to the testimony. You're sitting on the outside doing this difficult thing and in the situation under that system, only the clerics and the priests have rights. In my case, this was the Archdiocese of New York Vs. Kavanaugh, not Donohue vs. Kavanagh."

Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan apologized to Donohue in a statement.

"It is my prayer that the resolution of this case will bring a sense of peace and consolation to all who have been affected by this tragic situation," he said.

The decision of the appellate court cannot be appealed, bringing a definitive conclusion to the eight-year process of appeals.

Televangelist Says He Cheated On Wife

A televangelist admitted in front of a television audience that he cheated on his wife, an announcement he made to thwart people he said were trying to extort millions of dollars from him.

The Rev. Marcus Lamb made the confession Tuesday night on his show "Celebration" with his wife Joni Lamb by his side.

The couple also displayed a special message about the incident on the website of Daystar Television Network, the couple's television network.

"At the top of the program, the Lambs shared a compelling, transparent account of a personal challenge in their marriage that occurred several years ago, involving an inappropriate relationship between Marcus and another woman," the message said.

The couple explained that there were three people who said they would expose the affair if the couple's ministry did not pay them $7.5 million.

Daystar Television Network is based in Texas and airs some of the most popular evangelists in the nation, including T.D. Jakes, Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Kenneth Copeland and Joyce Meyer.

Ugly Betty Actor Calls Mother's Murder 'The Work Of God'

Onetime Ugly Betty bit-part actor Michael Brea has confessed to brutally killing his mother with a three-foot ceremonial Freemason sword – saying God told him to do so because she was possessed by a demon.

"I didn't kill her. I killed the demon inside her," Brea, 31, told New York's Daily News in a prison-ward interview at Bellevue Hospital, where he is being psychiatrically evaluated.

Brea said he heard voices, including that of God, instructing him to attack his mother Yannick, 55. He confronted her late Monday night in the Brooklyn apartment they shared together.

"She had the voice of the demon," Brea said. "I asked, 'Do you believe in God?' She said, 'No, Michael no,' and began screaming. I began slashing her like this," he said, making violent hacking motions with his right hand.

He added: "I didn't want to kill her right away. I wanted to give her time to get right with God," he said.

The police arrived, but Brea says he knew he had time to finish the job. "I knew they wouldn't open the door and stop me because the spirits were protecting me," he said. "I just kept cutting her. No one could stop me. I was doing the work of God."

Brea has been charged with second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon.

Police: Priest Solicited Murder Of Boy Accusing Him Of Sex Abuse

A Catholic priest, facing criminal charges and a lawsuit alleging that he sexually abused a teenage boy, is now charged with attempting to hire someone to kill the youth, authorities said Tuesday.

The Rev. John M. Fiala was in the Dallas County, Texas, jail on Tuesday, charged with one count of criminal solicitation to commit capital murder, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety and the jail's website. He also is charged with two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child. His bail totals $700,000.

Fiala, 52, of Dallas, was out on bond on other sexual assault charges involving the youth, now 18, when he allegedly attempted to negotiate the boy's murder, said Tom Rhodes, the teen's attorney.

He was arrested last week after he offered an undercover agent with the Texas Department of Public Safety $5,000 to kill the teen, according to department spokeswoman Lisa Block.

"This guy," Edwards County Sheriff Don Letsinger said, "is an evil man."

A call to Rex Gunter, the defense attorney listed in jail records for Fiala, was not immediately returned Tuesday.

The youth met Fiala in 2007, according to Rhodes. The attorney said the priest started "grooming him," buying him gifts including a computer and a car. In early 2008, when the boy was 16, under the guise of providing private catechism lessons, Fiala "gained access to him and began to sexually abuse him once or twice a month, including on church grounds," Rhodes said.

At the time, Fiala was administrator of Sacred Heart of Mary in Rocksprings, Texas, which is in Edwards County. The alleged abuse occurred in two counties -- Edwards and Howard -- and included the youth's rape at gunpoint, the attorney said.

Fiala allegedly threatened to kill the youth if he told anyone -- threats he repeated in daily text messages, Rhodes said, and Fiala also threatened to kill himself, telling the teen they would "go to heaven together."

The teen, after struggling with the abuse, told a school counselor, who notified authorities, Rhodes said. He filed suit in April against Fiala, as well as the archdioceses of San Antonio, Texas, and Omaha, Nebraska -- where Fiala was before Texas -- and Fiala's religious order, the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, the attorney said.

The suit claims that all three covered up Fiala's record of abuse. All three have denied doing so, according to the San Antonio, Texas, Express-News. When former San Antonio Archbishop Jose Gomez and the religious order learned of the police investigation into Fiala's relationship with the teen, he was removed from active ministry in October 2008, the newspaper reported.

In September, an Edwards County grand jury indicted Fiala on three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and one count of aggravated sexual assault by threat, according to the Express-News. Fiala was arrested in Kansas by a fugitive task force and was extradited to Texas, where he posted bail on September 27, according to the newspaper. He then moved to Dallas County.

A grand jury in Howard County handed up an indictment last week on the two aggravated sexual assault charges, the Express-News said.

Meanwhile, "approximately a week ago, we got an anonymous phone call from someone saying, 'Look, I'm living in a building with this guy, and he's talking about killing this young man,' " Rhodes said. "Our response was, 'You need to call police.' "

Letsinger said he got a call November 11 from the neighbor. The man at first just told authorities they should "be looking at this guy," the sheriff said, but later said Fiala had offered him $5,000 to kill the teenager. The allegation surprised him, Letsinger said.

The Department of Public Safety and its Texas Ranger Division got involved, sending the undercover agent to speak with Fiala, Rhodes said. The conversation was caught on video and audiotape.

Rhodes said his client was relieved to hear of Fiala's arrest. He was attending college but had to withdraw and be spirited away somewhere safe because of the threats, he said.

"He's still very afraid, but he is hoping that this time Fiala will stay behind bars," Rhodes said.

A hearing on the lawsuit was held Monday, he said. The Omaha diocese had argued it should be sued in Nebraska rather than Texas. The judge rejected that argument, Rhodes said.

"I think he's cooked his goose now," Letsinger said of Fiala. "We know that pedophiles sometimes threaten their victims to keep them quiet. But this is kind of an older victim, and you wonder sometimes why they wouldn't come forward. ... I can see now the evil in this guy is pretty bad."

Mitchell To Police: God 'Delivered' Smart To Me

Salt Lake City, Utah (CNN) -- Brian David Mitchell told police Elizabeth Smart was "converted by the priority of God" and willingly stayed with him after she vanished from her bedroom in June 2002.

"The Lord God delivered her," he told police.

Jurors at Mitchell's federal watched police grill him on a two-hour video played Monday at Mitchell's federal kidnapping trial. On the video, Mitchell offered religious responses to questions posed by an FBI agent and a police detective from Salt Lake City, Utah.

Mitchell, his wife, Wanda Barzee, and Smart were taken into custody on March 12, 2003, as they left a Wal-Mart store in suburban Sandy, Utah. They were hitchhiking back from a winter trip to California and headed to a remote mountain campsite when passersby recognized Mitchell and called police.

Mitchell, 57, is charged with kidnapping and transporting a minor across state lines for sex. He could face life in prison if convicted. His lawyers are raising an insanity defense.

Smart, now 23, was composed and certain as she recounted her ordeal during three days of riveting testimony last week.

She said Mitchell snatched her from her bed at knifepoint and led her to a makeshift mountain camp, where he chained and degraded her as he repeatedly raped her, she said.

As the trial entered its second week, testimony focused on the final days of Smart's ordeal.

At times, Mitchell's voice was nearly inaudible on the tape of his police interrogation.

"Not to be too obvious about it, but we've been looking for Elizabeth Smart for some nine months, and she's with you," an unidentified investigator says as the taped interview begins. "And we'd like to know how that came about."

Mitchell, who responds to the name Immanuel, tells police God had led Smart to him: "She was converted by the spirit of God. If you read the book you will understand."

Asked whether his name in the secular world is Brian David Mitchell, Mitchell responds that the question is of no relevance: "I've forsaken the world. It is immaterial to ask me such a question."

He told investigators that the Lord told him Smart was 18. She was 14 when, she testified, Mitchell abducted her at knifepoint from the bed she shared with her sister and led her to a campsite high in the mountains.

Asked if he had sexual intercourse with Smart, Mitchell becomes evasive, saying the question is "too personal." Asked if he took her from her home, he responded, "The Lord God delivered her."

Investigators repeatedly tried to steer him back to the subject of Smart, and he repeatedly deflected their questions with religious speeches.

"So far I have no idea what you're talking about," said one investigator in a autorotation. "For the past nine months, this family has gone through hell."

He tells Mitchell hundreds of law enforcement officers spent hours looking for Smart and the family had thought she was dead.

"They expected to find a corpse," he said.

Mitchell continues with his religious talk, but never directly responds to investigators' questions.

The investigator takes a direct tack: "We've been talking to this girl and she's been saying some really terrible things about you, and I'm going to ask you some direct questions."

Investigator: "Did you take that girl from her house? Yes, or no?"

Mitchell: "I'm not going to answer that question."

Investigator: "We want to be able to go to Elizabeth's family. ... We want to be able to have an explanation for them. You have to feel sorry for them."

Mitchell: "I have great compassion and love for them, because they are the parents of my ... " -- voice trails off.

Investigator: "Oh, [expletive] You took her out of her house!"

The investigator accuses Mitchell of laying the groundwork for an insanity defense, and accuses him of being on a "pretty big power trip."

"I'm just obedient to what God told me to do," Mitchell responds.

"You understand these charges could potentially keep you behind bars for the rest of your life?" the investigator asks.

Mitchell responds, "It mattereth not ... prison or death, it mattereth not."

Mitchell accuses police of trying to get him to say something false, and an investigator notes, "This is getting a little too intense for you, isn't it? ... You keep retreating into your spiel and your diatribe."

"The core of the problem is you, and you are not a prophet and you are not a servant of Jesus Christ. You are Brian David Mitchell," the frustrated investigator states, "and you have done something awful."

The investigator raises his voice:

"If heaven's filled with people like you, I'd be more comfortable in hell! ... You are Brian David Mitchell, and you are a child molester. A criminal. You are a hypocrite and a fraud."

Mitchell repeatedly denies he raped Smart.

"I have only done what the Lord God almighty commanded me to do," he says. "You're asking me to speak about things which are sacred and holy and which I cannot talk about."

"I thought she was 18. And she willingly chose to be sealed," Mitchell says.

Mitchell begins to sing in the interrogation room, as he has at every court hearing since December 2004. An investigator joins him for a while.

As they begin to speak with him again, Mitchell screams, "Get thee behind me Satan!" several times.

"You are not a servant of the Lord. You have harmed a child," says an investigator once Mitchell quiets. "You need to evaluate your life."

"You don't have any power here. You don't speak for Jesus Christ," Mitchell is told. "Your name is Brian Mitchell, and you're attracted to young girls, and you're just a loser. ... You're not going down as a servant of God. You're going down as a child rapist. You're going down as the lowest of the low."

As Mitchell sits silently with his eyes closed, the investigator says: "I hate to tell you this, Brian, but the Rapture has not happened. You are still in this room. You cannot escape."

The investigators taunt him about Smart:

"She gave you up."

"She thinks that you are a child rapist."

"She finds you rather smelly, and disgusting."

Later, FBI agent George Dougherty interviewed Mitchell for several days, finally winning a major concession. "Did you then consummate your marriage to make it a true union?" he said he asked. "And he said 'Yes.'"

Earlier in the day, witnesses described seeing an odd trio -- later identified as Mitchell, Barzee and Smart -- walking the streets of Lakeside, California, in their flowing religious robes between late October 2002 and early March 2003.

Retired police officer Jill Olgivie recalled seeing them walking "like ducks in a row" and noticed the young girl seemed "out of place."

She told the jury that the man glared at her in a way "so intimidating, so encompassing it stopped me." She was shown a photograph of Mitchell in court, and identified him as the glaring man.

"And I looked at the girl," she said, "I looked at her eyes. Her eyes were blank. Just dead."

Mitchell bought three Greyhound bus tickets from Salt Lake City, Utah, to San Diego, California, for $177, according to testimony and stipulations between prosecutors and defense attorneys. The bus left Salt Lake City on October 7.

Smart testified last week that she accompanied Mitchell and Barzee to California after a police officer questioned them at the public library in Salt Lake City. The police officer, Jon Richey, testified last week that a caller who claimed the young woman wearing the veil had Elizabeth Smart's eyes, brought him to the library.

She wore a veil, and Mitchell refused to let the officer lift it, saying their religion prohibited anyone but the young woman's husband to see her face.

Afterwards, Smart testified, an additional veil shielded her eyes because, as Mitchell told her: "The world wasn't ready for that light in my eyes."

Adelia Harrington, a former employee, testified that she also noticed the three at the Lakeside branch of the San Diego public library on several occasions.

"Boy, this teenager has really done something to make her parents angry with her, and they're just staying right on top of her," she recalled thinking. She described them as "just not a happy group."

Mitchell took his two wives away from the San Diego area after he spent a week in jail for tossing a brick through a church window. Smart testified that she and Barzee grew weak from hunger as they awaited his return at their makeshift mountainside camp.

Prosecutors played a video of Mitchell's February 18, 2003, appearance in a San Diego courtroom.

On the video, the judge asks Mitchell where he is going to stay the night, and he replies he, his wife, and his daughter are staying with friends, and that he is a minister of the Lord. He pleads guilty to vandalizing church property and is sentenced to seven actual days in jail.

"That was the worst night and the worst week of my whole life," he tells the judge. "For the first time in 22 years, I got drunk that night. ... This week in jail has been like Jonah getting swallowed by the whale," he says, promising to turn his life around.

He had given authorities a false name, prosecutors said.

Smart testified that she convinced Mitchell to hitchhike back to Utah, saying God had suggested it in a revelation similar to those Mitchell claimed to receive.

Trevelin Colianni, a disabled Navy veteran, testified that he saw the hitchhikers at a Burger King in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The teenager "had kind of a grayish wig on and a scarf around it, sunglasses, and a look that I'll never forget. She was very frightened, very nervous," he told the jury.

The man had a hold on the young woman's wrist and led her around, he said. "She never looked like she moved on her own."

He said he told his wife, "something's not right" and called police. Colianni was asked what compelled him to call the police.

"The look in that little girl's face."