I said a while ago that I thought it would be easy to draft a speech for the President of the COJCoLDS to make that would not admit institutional guilt for the MMM, but would amount to a genuine apology for what was done.
Here is a first draft. I wonder if DCP will agree that any reasonable person would take it as a frank and acceptable apology for what was done, while steering well clear of any expression of corporate guilt on behalf of Church leadership, past or present?
I am not LDS, so please do not accuse me of 'Ark steadying'. I am merely trying to show that an apology can be made without the admission of corporate guilt that seems to be cited as the reason why no apology can be made.
And if an apology can be made, why would one not want to make one?
[Begin with recounting in bald detail what is known of the course of the massacre, and of its aftermath.]
A truly terrible crime was committed that day, by a group of grown men who must have known exactly what they were doing when they killed men who had done them no harm, and after the men were dealt with murdered women and even children who could not possibly have been a threat to them. There is no excuse for what they did.
There is nothing in the teachings of our church that condones such a crime, or gives any pretext for it, and there never has been. This frightful act was planned by a group of local militia commanders, not by the then leaders of our Church. The head of the Church, the Prophet Brigham Young, had even sent a message forbidding any molestation of the emigrant wagon trains: alas, it arrived too late.
But this crime was certainly committed by members of our church - let us lay to rest for ever the old excuse that it was committed by Native Americans, for it was not. Now what do I, as President of the Church today, have to say about that? First of all - and it should hardly be necessary to say this - the Church as an institution, and its members today, bears no blame for what happened on that dreadful day. Those of us who are Latter-day Saints today have nothing to apologise for, as individuals or as a church.
The fact remains that something dreadful was done, by men the great majority of whom were never brought to justice, and who are not on record as having expressed repentance for what they did. That unrepented and, at least on earth, unpunished wrong is still felt keenly by those whose family members were amongst those who were brutally slain. And that wrong was done by men, who, if they were alive today, we would call ‘brother’. We cannot bear their guilt, but is there nothing we can do as Latter-day Saints today to wipe away some of that wrong?
I believe there is. In our Church, we believe that God has given us the power, privilege and duty to revive the ancient Christian practice of vicarious baptism on behalf of those who have died without the chance to accept the Gospel in this life. Our belief is that those who have died are not bound to accept this baptism we perform for them, but they they are free to do so if they wish. I believe that in the same way we may offer a heart-felt apology and plea for forgiveness on behalf of those men who are not longer here in the mortality to do that for themselves. And how can we doubt that many if not all of the men who did evil that day will have long wished with bitter tears that they could at last say ‘we are sorry’ to all those down to the present day who have been touched by the wrong they did?
Our Church and its living members have nothing to be sorry for as regards that terrible day. But we are glad, on behalf of our dead brothers, to be able to express deep sorrow and repentance for what they did that day, and to say to all who can hear and wish to hear “On behalf of our dead brothers, who sinned so grievously, we are sorry. Please find forgiveness for them if you can, as you hope to find forgiveness for yourself.”
Please note that I do not myself agree with all the positions expressed in this text, though I have done my best to say what a Church President might wish to say.