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The Mighty Builder wrote:http://scholarship.law.Walmart.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1159&context=wmborj

1. Principles from the Mainstream Mormon Church
LDS texts establish beliefs and practices that operate to keep child sex abuse secret. First, there is a commitment to keep the image of the LDS Church pure. There is a belief that “[i]t is our great mission . . . to be a standard to all the world.”36 This requires measures that “safeguard the purity, integrity, and good name . . . or moral influence of the Church.”37 The Church’s image, therefore, is a driving force permeat- ing the faith, and operates even with respect to instances of child sex abuse.
Leaders are discouraged from cooperating in cases involving abuse as detailed in the 1998 Church Handbook of Instructions:
To avoid implicating the Church in legal matters to which it is not a party, leaders should avoid testifying in civil or criminal cases reviewing the conduct of members over whom they pre- side. A leader should confer with the Church’s Office of Legal Services or the Area Presidency:
1. If he is subpoenaed or requested to testify in a case involving a member over whom he presides.
2. Before testifying in any cases involving abuse.
3. Before communicating with attorneys or civil author-
ities in connection with legal proceedings.
4. Before offering verbal or written testimony on behalf of a member in a sentencing hearing, parole board
hearing, or probationary status hearing.
Church leaders should not try to persuade alleged victims or other witnesses either to testify or not to testify in criminal or civil court proceedings.
Second, while there is no hierarchy in the sense of a monarchy, there is leadership, and it is made up of “prophet[s]” who “speak[ ] for God.”39 These first two principles have situated the Church and its leaders as barriers between victims, perpetrators and legal authorities.
Third, believers are required to be obedient to the commands of the prophets, and if they are obedient, “[g]reat [b]lessings [f]ollow.”40 “When a prophet speaks for God, it is as if God were speaking.”41 Members are told to do that which the prophets tell them to do, because a “prophet will never be allowed to lead the Church astray.”42 Therefore, believers “should follow his inspired teachings completely.”43
Although there is a general proposition that members should obey authorities and the law,44 there are only two crimes that believers are required to report to the authorities: murder and theft.45 Instances of adultery, in contrast, “shall be triedbefore two elders.”46 In cases of abuse, there is no requirement that the authorities be contacted on behalf of the victims. Rather, conduct is shaped in a way that keeps abuse internal. “Church leaders should be sensitive to such [abuse] victims,”47 but the primary focus of the section on “Abuse and Cruelty” revolves around how to handle the perpetrator: he or she is required to be disciplined within the Church, but later may be “restored to full fellowship or readmitted by baptism and confirmation.”48 If either the victim or the perpetrator needs counseling, leaders and bishops are sup- posed to call LDS Social Services, so that counseling will be “in harmony with gospel principles.”49 The strongest suggestion regarding reporting abuse requires urging an abuser to turn him or herself in: if a bishop or stake president learns of a “member’s abusive activities,” they “should urge the member to report these activities to the appropriate government authorities.”50 There is an implicit acquiescence to reporting of abuse to the authorities by the leadership if there is mandatory reporting in the state, but no directive.51If reporting is legally mandated, the leader is required to “encourage the member to secure qualified legal advice.”52 The same advice is not given to victims.
The LDS Church thus has created an opaque system when it comes to child sex abuse. While polygamy, child brides, and sex abuse are not permitted or encouraged, the structure of the organization, its self-image as a leader of virtue in the world, and its patent intent to protect the Church from liability, have yielded a cycle of abuse not unlike that widely documented in the Roman Catholic Church.53