DALLAS (AP) — The pastor of a Texas megachurch has resigned after a woman said he had sexually abused her on multiple occasions in the 1980s, beginning when she was 12.
Gateway Church's board of elders said in a statement Tuesday that they'd accepted the resignation of Robert Morris, the church's senior pastor and founder. The board said it had hired a law firm to to conduct an independent review to make sure they “have a complete understanding of the events” from 1982 to 1987.
The allegations came to light Friday on the religious watchdog blog The Wartburg Watch. Cindy Clemishire, Morris’ accuser, told The Dallas Morning News in an interview Saturday that she met Morris in 1981, when he was a traveling preacher and began preaching at her family’s church in Oklahoma. She said Morris and his wife and young son became close to her family. She said he was staying at her house in 1982 when he asked her to come to his room. He told her to lay on his bed and then began touching her inappropriately, said Clemishire, now 54.
She said the abuse continued for about the next four-and-a-half years. The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Clemishire has done.
When asked about the allegations by The Christian Post, Morris, 62, said in a statement to the publication that when he was in his early 20s he was “involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady in a home where I was staying.”
“It was kissing and petting and not intercourse, but it was wrong,” he said in the statement. “This behavior happened on several occasions over the next few years.”
The board said that before Friday, they “did not have all of the facts of the inappropriate relationship between Morris and the victim, including her age at the time and the length of the abuse.” They said that their understanding of the “extramarital relationship” that Morris had discussed many times throughout his ministry was not that it was “abuse of a 12-year-old child.”
The church, based in the Dallas suburb of Southlake, was founded by Morris in 2000 and has multiple locations in the area and says over 100,000 people attend each weekend. Morris, the founding pastor, has been politically active. He was among those on former President Donald Trump's evangelical advisory board. The church hosted Trump on its Dallas campus in 2020 for a discussion on race relations and the economy.
Morris did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment sent to his email at the church.
This story corrects the age of Cindy Clemishire to 54 instead of 52.
FILE - Pastor Robert Morris applauds during a roundtable discussion at Gateway Church Dallas Campus, Thursday, June 11, 2020, in Dallas. A statement issued on Tuesday, June 18, 2024, said that Morris has resigned after a woman said he had abused her on multiple occasions in the 1980s, beginning when she was 12. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
The Israeli military released photos on Thursday that it says show a staffer with the aid group Doctors Without Borders wearing military fatigues at a gathering of Gaza militants.
The military says that Fadi al-Wadiya, who was killed in an airstrike earlier this week, was a “significant operative” in the Islamic Jihad group and was involved in its rocket program.
Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, did not respond to a request for comment on the photos, which were released late Wednesday. The aid group said earlier that it had no indication he was a militant.
Also Thursday, the Israeli military said a soldier was killed and 16 others were wounded during a military operation overnight in the West Bank. There were no immediate reports of Palestinian casualties.
On Wednesday, an Iranian-backed umbrella group known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed an attack targeting the southern Israeli port city of Eilat. The militants are allied with Yemen's Houthi rebels, who are suspected of attacking a ship in the Gulf of Aden the same day and one in the Red Sea on Thursday.
Shipping has reduced drastically through the route crucial to Asian, Middle East and European markets in a campaign the Houthis say will continue as long as the Israel-Hamas war rages in the Gaza Strip.
International criticism is growing over Israel’s campaign against Hamas as Palestinians face severe and widespread hunger. The eight-month war has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and basic goods to Gaza, and people there are now totally dependent on aid. The top United Nations court has concluded there is a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza — a charge Israel strongly denies.
Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250.
Since then, Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 37,600 people in Gaza, according to the territory's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.
Currently:
— Gunfire, lawlessness and gang-like looters are preventing aid distribution in Gaza, an official says.
— A Palestinian was shot, beaten and tied to an Israeli army jeep. The army says he posed no threat.
— The U.S. military shows reporters the pier project in Gaza as it takes another stab at aid delivery.
— Israelis’ lawsuit says a United Nations agency helps Hamas by paying Gaza staff in dollars.
— Ship attacked in Red Sea in latest maritime assault likely carried out by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
— The U.N. tells Israel it will suspend aid operations across Gaza without improved safety.
— Man who police say urged ‘Zionists’ to get off NYC subway train faces criminal charge.
— Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Gaza at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
Here’s the latest:
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A ship traveling through the Red Sea on Thursday reported being hit in an attack likely carried out by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, a private security firm said, the latest in the campaign targeting shipping over the Israel-Hamas war.
The ship issued a radio call off the coast of the rebel-held port city of Hodeida, saying it had been struck, the private security firm Ambrey said. A warship in the area was responding to the attack, Ambrey added.
It wasn’t clear if anyone was hurt or if the ship was damaged in the assault on the vessel. Neither the British nor U.S. militaries immediately reported the attack.
The Houthis did not immediately claim the attack. However, it can take hours or even days for them to acknowledge their assaults.
TEL AVIV, Israel — The Israeli military says a soldier was killed and 16 others were wounded during a military operation in the West Bank overnight. It said Thursday that an explosive device detonated in the area of the northern city of Jenin, which has seen frequent raids and gunbattles with militants in recent years.
There were no immediate reports of Palestinian casualties. Israel says it has arrested over 4,000 Palestinians in the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack ignited the war in Gaza, including around 1,750 suspected of being Hamas members.
The Palestinian Health Ministry says over 550 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the start of the latest Israel-Hamas war. Most have been killed during Israeli raids and violent protests, though the dead also include innocent bystanders and Palestinians killed in attacks by Jewish settlers. Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military has released photos that it says show a staffer with the aid group Doctors Without Borders wearing military fatigues at a gathering of Gaza militants.
The military says that Fadi al-Wadiya, who was killed in an airstrike earlier this week, was a “significant operative” in the Islamic Jihad group and was involved in its rocket program.
Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, did not respond to a request for comment on the photos, which were released late Wednesday. The aid group said earlier that it had no indication he was a militant.
The photos released by the military appear to show al-Wadiya wearing military fatigues in meetings with Islamic Jihad militants, but they could not be independently authenticated.
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman who shared the photos on the social media platform X, said that al-Wadiya tried to leave Gaza for military training in Iran when he joined MSF in 2018, without providing evidence.
“Al-Wadiya exploited his position in a humanitarian organization to further terrorist operations,” Shoshani said.
Doctors Without Borders said al-Wadiya, a medic and physiotherapist, worked for the group between 2018 and 2022, before resuming work with the charity during the war. It said he was killed while riding his bicycle to work on Tuesday.
The group said he was the sixth of its employees to be killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, calling their deaths “unacceptable.”
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, asked about the competing claims on Wednesday, said the United States was not immediately able to resolve them.
The armed wings of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian militant groups are highly secretive, and fighters rarely identify themselves publicly for fear of being targeted in Israeli strikes.
A woman holds the body of her daughter Zena Naser, killed in an Israeli bombardment on a residential building in Maghazi refugee camp, outside the morgue of al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, June 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Relatives and friends of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group march with their photos during a rally calling for their release in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, June 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Relatives and friends of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group march with their photos during a rally calling for their release in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, June 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Relatives and friends of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group march with their photos during a rally calling for their release in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, June 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israeli army tanks are seen in Wadi Gaza, central Gaza Strip, Wednesday, June 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Israeli army tanks are seen in Wadi Gaza, central Gaza Strip, Wednesday, June 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
