TULLAHOMA, TN—Emphasizing a simpler, more plainspoken approach to sexually abusing minors, a local evangelical minister told reporters Tuesday his church peels away all the extravagance and ostentation historically associated with molestations in the Roman Catholic faith. “You don’t need all these elaborate costumes and rituals like the Catholics have. All those superficial trappings just distract from the pure, direct experience of intimate physical contact with a child,” said Pastor David Almdell of Crossroads Missionary Baptist Church, remarking that he pities Catholic priests, who he believes will never genuinely experience God’s grace flowing through them and the boy or girl they are assaulting. “As evangelicals, we’re trying to get back to what the church was like in its earliest days, before Christian molestation was corrupted by priests who cornered altar boys in the alcoves of opulent cathedrals and fondled them beneath luxuriant satin robes. The only thing that matters in our faith is the relationship between a Christian, his underage conquest, and God. That’s really what the Reformation was all about.” Almdell added that evangelical leaders pride themselves on their spiritual independence and would never let an ecclesiastical hierarchy based in Rome dictate how many children they can abuse.

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