When a priest who received complaints from one of his parishioners on his answering machine played the tape in church and asked his congregation “Should we send him to hell or to another parish?”

Angel Llavona, the parishioner who left the complaint, filed a defamation lawsuit Monday claiming the events at St. Thomas the Apostle Church caused him emotional distress that forced him to leave the Roman Catholic parish.

All this started about a year ago when Llavona left a message for the Rev. Luis Alfredo Rios complaining about a sermon he had given, the lawsuit said. “I attended Mass on Sunday and I have seen poor homilies, but yesterday broke all records,” Llavona said.

The lawsuit says Llavona, a high school teacher who helped out with the church’s religious education program, tried to meet with Rios. But when the meeting fell apart, he left another complaint on the priest’s answering machine.

Llavona said on Oct. 1, 2006, Rios played his voice messages for the congregation.

Then, according to the lawsuit, Rios said: “This is the person in charge of religious education here last year. That’s why it is no surprise to me we had the kind of religious education we had. That’s why we didn’t get altar boys. What should we do, should we send him to hell or to another parish?”

Llavona is seeking at least $50,000 in damages. “Rios impugned Llavona’s reputation as a teacher and as a good Catholic before his fellow parishioners,” the suit said.

Penny Wiegert, a spokeswoman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockford, said Rios was at a retreat Wednesday and unavailable for comment.

The diocese is also named as a defendant. Wiegert said she couldn’t comment on the specifics of the lawsuit, but released a diocese statement expressing hope for “a peaceful solution.”

I thought all limo’s had tinted windows. I guess not …

A 33-year-old woman was detained by police in September after complaints by residents at a mobile home park in Michigan City, Ind., that she had been having sex in an untinted-windowed limousine on one of the park’s streets, in front of what grew to be a large crowd, mostly yelling at her for her indecency. If the people were so offended why did they stand around and crowd the car? Seems like they were voyeurs too. Don’t ya think?

At one point, according to police, the otherwise-occupied woman yelled back at the crowd defiantly that she was “doing adult business” and “I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do.” Business? This wasn’t a social exhibit?

Get this story, about a man who claimed to be carrying a bomb-

A recent stand-off between a man and the police ended peacefully in the streets of Phoenix.

The Phoenix Police received a call at about 3:50 p.m. one day, from a driver who said he saw a man acting strangely and walking in and out of traffic along Central Avenue in downtown Phoenix. I live in a big city too, I’m sure police gets calls like this often enough. When the police arrived to check out the complaint they noticed a man was holding a yellow blanket to conceal his hands and upper chest and he was saying that he had a bomb.The Police shut down the street and evacuated a Burger King and Circle K.

The officers asked the man to put down the blanket and surrender for more than an hour, but when he refused, police fired several stun bag rounds and concussion grenades, and sicked a police dog on the man. Ow!

After the police action, officers ran up to the man, and he threw what he had been concealing at them. It turned out to be a block of wood. It was unclear why the man was acting in such an odd way. He might have been mentally unstable or on drugs.

The man faces charges of aggravated assault and disorderly conduct. He was taken to a local hospital with a minor bite on one of his arms. I bet that ended up being an interesting story for the ER staff to talk about.

Odd Sport Cancelled:

The 30-year-old traditional festival of eel-“bowling” in the fishing village of Lyme Regis, England, was canceled in July after complaints from an animal rights activist that it was disrespectful to eels.In the ritual, teams of anglers stand on platforms and swing a giant (but dead) conger eel, attached to the ceiling, to see who will be the last person standing.

Said a spokesman for the charitable event, which raises money for lifeboat crews, “But it’s a dead conger, for Pete’s sake. I shouldn’t think the conger could care one way or another.”

How on earth do the English think up these crazy “Sports”?

Creating a new crime to do the time:

Leon Howard Matter was arrested in Sandusky, Ohio, in August for sending a letter containing “anthrax” (though it turned out to be harmless powder) to the local FBI office.

He told agents the reason he did it was because he was facing earlier child pornography charges and didn’t want to go to prison for that because he’d get beaten up. Threatening the FBI, he reasoned, has a better cachet.