Pastor James F. French pleaded guilty to charges he molested a young girl. French is 64. He faces 7 years in prison.
Naperville police began investigating French on Nov. 16, after being contacted by officials of the DuPage County Children’s Advocacy Center. That agency investigates molestation allegations involving children.
French was arrested Dec. 2 at his home, where police confiscated what Sgt. Gregg Bell characterized as “pertinent evidence to the investigation.”
Source: Pastor-professor guilty of Naperville sex abuse by Bill Bird.
French was the founding pastor at Indian Grove Country Church. Can you imagine the pain this man caused to his young victim, the victim’s family, and the members of his congregation? How is this something a Christian pastor could do? He’s thrown his life’s work away over a perversion that his ilk will tell you Christianity is supposed to deliver us from.
One of the reason’s I make these seemingly endless posts on pedophile pastors is that Christians do not bother to take up the discussion. It’s like the combination of embarrassing the church and dealing with a pastoral sex crime is beyond their ability to voice. There is much to learn here. There is a wasted life to examine. There are behaviors that can lead to better practices. There are church policies that can be use to guard against men tike this. More importantly, French’s decent in to debauchery and hypocrisy can be examined closely. I’m sure the results would be help us understand what went wrong. But no… the only discussion will be here.