AlsoNotTheMamma t1_iwlsdpm wrote on November 16, 2022 at 4:15 PM

Reply to comment by 1_1x1_1 in LDS Church comes out for federal bill that recognizes same-sex marriage by creamboy2623

>You know what would be uplifting news? The LDS church announcing that they will stop lobbying for clergy confidentiality to protect untrained men from making horrible decisions when it comes to protecting women and children from sexual assault.

They have never lobbied for this. In fact, it was a member of the LDS clergy who recently proposed a change to the laws that allow this.

>Yes you read that right. The LDS church does not train their clergy (they’re volunteers) on dealing with sexual assault.

They do, but they could definitely get better training. FYI, the get training not only in protecting children, but also in teaching practices (google "Teaching - No Greater Call") and other areas specific to their calling. Leaders also have additional training at least once a quarter, usually more often.

>They direct the leaders to call a hot line run by their law firm.

As I understand it, the hotline is not run by their lawyers, but by legal and clinical professionals. This incident was escalated to a person giving purely legal advice.

>All call records are deleted. The hot line then looks up whether they are required to report the incident to authorities or not.

No, the people who answer the phone evaluate the situation and escalate to people providing legal or clinical support. In this instance, the legal advice was not that they weren't required to report it to authorities, but that they had a legal obligation not to report it to authorities.

>They essentially protect abusers so they can save face.

Actually, no. The lawyers (who took the call in this instance) evaluated the church's legal responsibility. In the recent case you are most likely referring to, the LAW created an expectation of privacy for the person who spoke to his Bishop. Because the law protected the abuser, had the Bishop reported the crime, he personally would have been liable for any ensuing lawsuits.

So that we are on the same page, the abuser spoke to the Bishop, not the victim, and the Bishop was told he was legally not allowed to report the abuse. The Bishop did, in every single meeting with the abuser, counsel him to hand himself over to the police.

Maybe the Bishop should have reported it in any case, but that could have ruined his family, and in any case, it's possible he wouldn't have been allowed to testify, making the entire thing pointless.

Had the lawyer said "Report it to the cops" the abuser would have been able to sue the Bishop AND the church, all with the same outcome where it's possible the Bishop's testimony would not have been allowed - while I couldn't find anything specific to Utah, New York State has affirmed that confessions made to a clergyman or other minister are privileged and cannot be used as evidence, and many states follow the same policy.

The LDS church does not have "confessionals" as such, and there is no sanctity of the confessional in our doctrine, at least not as it applies to criminal acts. The law that created this problem is more likely to have been used by religions that observe the "Priest-Penitent Privelege" doctrine. Regardless of whether Mormon Bishops want this exemption (none that I know do), it is the law, and there does not seem to have been a win for the Bishop here. As I recall, he did everything he could short of breaking the law to resolve the issue, and even breaking the law is unlikely to have solved the problem.

Shortly after this came to light, though, Phil Lyman, who currently represents district 73 in the Utah House of Representatives and is a member of the LDS "clergy", announced his desire to sponsor legislation to remove the clergy exemptions that allowed this to happen.

I have no idea about who Phil is, and this isn't an endorsement of him. But he does seem to want to change this, and he wouldn't if the church was in any way opposed to it.

For what it's worth, this isn't a law that protects only Mormon clergy, all clergy have the same exemptions and hence the same problems. Also, what would or could have happened had the Bishop gone to the police or gone public can be debated until we are blue in the face. The only FACT is that the law gave the abuser a reasonable expectation that what he said was confidential and could not be repeated, which is the problem that needs to be solved.

The Bishop who was at the centre of this problem was clearly unhappy with the instruction not to report it, and was clearly not keeping things quiet to protect the abuser.

>So instead of judging the church by the least of its members, let’s judge about how the corporation behaves.

Lets. In South Africa and Botswana, two countries I've served in, the Church's message for decades has been unequivocal - anyone who abuses a child in any material way faces internal discipline and criminal charges. I have friends who have told me they have received the same counsel in Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

The church's official position is that "abuse cannot be tolerated in any form", and that "individuals who ... abuse spouse or offspring, or who fail to fulfil family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God".

Additionally, the "Church Handbook of Instruction" has, since at least 1999 (The oldest copy I have) stated that "In instances of abuse, the first responsibility of the Church is to help those who have been abused, and to protect those who may be vulnerable to future abuse.". If you can get an older copy (Handbook of Instruction 1999) check on page 157. Here is the current version of that manual. A lot of policy has been clarified or changed since then, but in this the church has been constant.

The problem here was not that the church was protecting abusers, although that is how it was reported, but rather that the hotline the Bishop called turned this into a legal matter, and the Bishop was given legal advice that offered legal protection but did not reflect the position of the Church officially or unofficially. The law in question also makes it appear that even had the Bishop gone to the police his testimony and evidence would not have been allowed and any action taken as a result of his report may have been seen as "Fruit of the poisonous tree" and not used, possibly even allowing the abuser to be tried and found not guilty of the offence. We, as leaders, have since received communications that clarify our responsibility. The legal advice was also incomplete - the hotline should have told the Bishop to speak to his Stake President, who should have been covered under the same exemptions.

It's really easy to attack the church. Getting the truth is a lot more difficult. While I understand your concerns, a lot of what your concerns are based on is misleading or wrong, and stories like this are often reported with extreme prejudice against the church, muddying the waters for everyone.

1_1x1_1 t1_iwmbsct wrote on November 16, 2022 at 6:26 PM

Please read this article. It's from the AP news. https://apnews.com/article/sex-abuse-catholic-church-mormon-5d78129a2fe666159a22ce71323f6da3

I made no comment about the arizona case. Which you seem to think that abuse in the church is limited to a single case. It isn't, just read about the LDS church boy scout settlement. I've made comments about the LDS church as a system and not a single incident.

The AP News article describes the positions the LDS church as taken with HB90. It includes quotes from a written response received from the LDS organization describing confessions as "sacred." Pointing to a single congressman, or pointing to a single case doesn't help here.

Nor does pointing to the LDS stances on abuse. It's not helpful. Every company can produce a legal document on sexual harassment policies. It doesn't prevent it. It's their actions around how they handle it. That's how we can judge them.

Now you have produced some good examples of how they have handled it. And I have produced some examples of how they are currently advocating against mandatory reporting from clergy.

You'd think they'd defer to the best case scenario for the vicitms involved EVERYWHERE. But it's obvious that is not the case.

AlsoNotTheMamma t1_iwmv0zs wrote on November 16, 2022 at 8:32 PM

>The AP News article describes the positions the LDS church as taken with HB90. It includes quotes from a written response received from the LDS organization describing confessions as "sacred." Pointing to a single congressman, or pointing to a single case doesn't help here.

HB90 did not only apply to sexual abuse, it would have compelled clergy to report any and all neglect and anything they reasonably believe could constitute abuse or neglect. It also compels the police to act on all reports.

So if a Bishop visits the home of a member who is sick / lost their job, and the kids have gone without food, or clothes, or seem neglected in any other way that is not due to deliberate abuse, the Bishop is not able to decide to get food and clothing for their kids and make sure the situation is fixed, he has to report it to the police, who are forced to investigate and report their findings to what ultimately becomes CPS, and there is the risk of the kids being removed from the home.

If a person comes to the Bishop and says "We need money for food, we haven't eaten in 2 days" the Bishop is forced to report neglect to the police.

In these cases, are people in need more or less likely to approach their Bishop when they have issues? Because it seems to me this is likely to make people less likely to try to get help, which will ultimately cause more harm to kids than good. More members approach their Bishops with welfare concerns than with all other abuse concerns.

>Nor does pointing to the LDS stances on abuse. It's not helpful. Every company can produce a legal document on sexual harassment policies. It doesn't prevent it. It's their actions around how they handle it. That's how we can judge them.

How did the Church handle the Arizona abuse case? What did the Bishop do? Do you know? The Arizona case is recent and that's why I'm referring to it.

The man confessed to a single incident of abuse of one child in the past. This happened in 2011.
It seems the legal advice given was because the Bishop had no evidence or belief that there was any ongoing abuse and, in the context of what the Bishop knew, there was no ongoing abuse to stop.
He regularly counselled the man to get professional help for himself and the child.
He encouraged the man's wife to get professional help for the man, for herself and for the child, and encouraged her to report the incident. She refused.
The abuser rarely attended church before and after his confession, and resisted efforts by the Bishop to speak to him.
The man was excommunicated from the Church (that is, he lost his membership) in 2014, less than 2 years after his confession. This may seem like a long time, but he had extremely limited interaction with the Bishop during this period and actively avoided him.
It wasn't until 2017 (4 years later) that the church learned (from media reports) the extent of the abuse, and that it had been ongoing.

>Now you have produced some good examples of how they have handled it. And I have produced some examples of how they are currently advocating against mandatory reporting from clergy.

Lets draw a clear line between mandatory reporting of sexual and extreme physical abuse, and mandatory reporting of anything that could be construed as abuse or neglect, even if it is clear that reporting it is not in the interest of the child.

>You'd think they'd defer to the best case scenario for the vicitms involved EVERYWHERE. But it's obvious that is not the case.

Is it in the best interest of children suffering from unintentional or non-abusive neglect to have their situation reported to the police without any judgement calls being made as to whether there were better ways to deal with the situation?

Bishops deal with welfare issues tens of thousands of times more often than they deal with sexual or physical abuse cases. The proposed HB90 changes would have had unintended negative consequences for thousands more simple welfare victims who benefited from the welfare program than it would have helped the victims of sexual abuse.

Regarding "best case scenario for the victims" (I only became aware of this info when I was looking for HB90), the church hotline directs Bishops to ignore legal reporting requirements when a child is in imminent danger. The Hotline itself routinely reports cases of abuse to the authorities.

Things are seldom black and white, and the instances you have shown of the church resisting changes to the exemption clauses have included resisting changes that would have other, seemingly unintended, consequences.

It's also highly misleading to claim that the church does this to cover up abuse in the church or to avoid embarrassment. It acknowledges this happens, and has the long-established helpline as one tool to deal with it. It addresses it in training for all leaders who work with children. It happens, the church acknowledges it happens, there is no cover up. From reading media reports it's easy to be critical of the church's response, but at the same time many of the media reports I've read seem one-sided and more interested in making the church look bad than reporting the facts objectively.