SeN: Child Abusers Deserve Clergy Protection?

[msnobody]

I think part of the disconnect deals with the sample space. There may be statistical evidence that on the broader scope of abuse cases mandated reporting may not be as significant. But not with the closed system that the church operates under where the instructions are clear and detailed. Call the hotline. That step right there circumnavigates any other (perhaps more efficient) procedure.

I think you're right, my experience in the corporate world is that any time a company must save itself from some legal debacle, they declare 30 minutes of mandatory training for everyone and make a hotline available. It's all about deniability. "I find it surprising this terrible thing happened, my God, we had a hotline available and everything, yet still?"

Hotline=“action plan”=box checked off

[drumdude]

The LDS corporation's #1 priority is protecting their financial assets from court judgements being awarded to abuse victims.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

The Afore's spin-doctoring of these research articles is thus very irresponsible and also pretty reprehensible. Not surprising, but still off-putting and disappointing.

It’s hard to tell if the Afore just didn’t bother to read the articles or if he’s being dishonest. That’s the issue when you’re dealing with someone that’s both dishonest and lazy.

[Kishkumen]

All I need to say here is that the LDS Church's mishandling of child abuse was one of those nails in the coffin of my membership. I have horrible memories of Bishop interviews as a kid, and I have heard much, much worse from others since then. The failure of the LDS Church to do criminal background checks on people who work with kids, their insistence that old men need to ask children about their masturbation habits . . . all of this stuff is absolutely unacceptable to me. It feels good to separate myself from this. No kidding--it's a real dopamine hit to reflect on my separation from this madness.

[Doctor Scratch]

The Afore's spin-doctoring of these research articles is thus very irresponsible and also pretty reprehensible. Not surprising, but still off-putting and disappointing.

It’s hard to tell if the Afore just didn’t bother to read the articles or if he’s being dishonest. That’s the issue when you’re dealing with someone that’s both dishonest and lazy.

My sense is that he thinks he's "scoring points." Critics are pointing out that the Church's mechanisms for dealing with abuse are problematic and insufficient, and so he is turning to these articles in the hopes of saying, "Nuh uh! You're wrong because forcing clergy to report abuse doesn't work!" Except, of course, that's not what the articles say.

Meanwhile, I posed a very simple question to him--admittedly kind of a personal one--but a simple one nonetheless: i.e., Would he, if faced with this sort of horrific situation, trust the 'hotline"? If it was one of his own loved ones who'd been victimized, does he believe that the Church hotline is "as valuable a tool as exists in the world to protect children," as he posted in an earlier blog entry? It's a simple "Yes or No" question, but of course he hasn't answered it--and I knew he wouldn't answer it. In fact, if you had asked me to predict what he'd do instead, I probably would have said, "Oh, I don't know. Dodge the question? Feign ignorance? Spin the issue somehow? Sling insults?" And guess what? I would have been right, on pretty much every count!

But in a sense, his non-answer *IS* still a kind of answer. Of course he doesn't believe that this phone number would be helpful. There is no way that, if it was one of his own kin who was involved, that he would trust the Church and its attorneys and bureaucrats to do the right thing. Because the reality is that he really only believes in the Church for very selfish reasons: he thinks that it's necessary so that *HE* can continue to live a life of luxury into infinity, but everyone else? Well, they are going to have to settle for traveling back in crowded, uncomfortable coach. The "unwashed" rank-and-file can go ahead and rely on the "hotline" if *THEIR* kids get abused, but the Afore? No way. Just look at that poorly Xeroxed form that Drumdude posted and tell me that the Afore would be okay with one of his own relatives being reduced to little more than a checkmark on a form like that. But he's more than happy to peddle this sort of thing to his readers. That level of hypocrisy is astounding.

Quite reprehensible if you ask me: particularly when it comes to this subject matter. Then again, he can go ahead and announce that I'm wrong and that, in fact, he *would* happily trust the hotline in the case of one of his own kin, and I would have to admit to being wrong about this. But I don't think that I am.

[drumdude]

You can bet your ass that if a bishop or stake president heard a confession involving a young relative of Rusty Nelson, or any other prominent Mormon leader, that the confidentiality and cover-up procedure would go straight out the window.

The Mormon leadership is no different than any other club/cartel/cabal. They are club members, and the peon tithe payers aren't invited.

[I Have Questions]

You can bet your ass that if a bishop or stake president heard a confession involving a young relative of Rusty Nelson, or any other prominent Mormon leader, that the confidentiality and cover-up procedure would go straight out the window.

The Mormon leadership is no different than any other club/cartel/cabal. They are club members, and the peon tithe payers aren't invited.

We have seen cases discussed where the non mandated Bishop didn’t report abuse, and the abuse continued and continued and continued. I guess that’s just a price worth paying as far as Peterson and the Church are concerned. Unless, as you point out, it was one of their relatives.

[malkie]

You can bet your ass that if a bishop or stake president heard a confession involving a young relative of Rusty Nelson, or any other prominent Mormon leader, that the confidentiality and cover-up procedure would go straight out the window.

The Mormon leadership is no different than any other club/cartel/cabal. They are club members, and the peon tithe payers aren't invited.

We have seen cases discussed where the non mandated Bishop didn’t report abuse, and the abuse continued and continued and continued. I guess that’s just a price worth paying as far as Peterson and the Church are concerned. Unless, as you point out, it was one of their relatives.

If I recall correctly, if we are both thinking of the same case, it didn't just continue for years with the one child, but carried on with a second child while she was a baby.

[Rivendale]

We have seen cases discussed where the non mandated Bishop didn’t report abuse, and the abuse continued and continued and continued. I guess that’s just a price worth paying as far as Peterson and the Church are concerned. Unless, as you point out, it was one of their relatives.

If I recall correctly, if we are both thinking of the same case, it didn't just continue for years with the one child, but carried on with a second child while she was a baby.

And the Virginia case the known perpetrator was allowed to babysit children in the ward.

[drumdude]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has not listed its sex offenders.

So far, Floodlit has found:

4,301 reports of sex abuse by Latter-day Saints
374 times LDS officials allegedly hid abuse
$52 million paid after alleged failures
80 reports of abuse in LDS church buildings
77 convicted former Mormon bishops
94 ongoing criminal cases
122 ongoing civil lawsuits

https://floodlit.org/

These seem to have missed DCP's latest Hitchens file entry.