MTC President Sexually Assaulted Sister Missionaries

[_consiglieri]

One more thing here I would like to add. The church release says they checked their records and could find no evidence of a "meeting" with this lady and elder Asay.

If memory serves, and once again I could be corrected on this, I thought this woman did not mention a meeting, but a telephone call with Elder Asay.

If it was indeed a telephone call she claims to have had, the church's announcement they could find no record of a "meeting" may be another attempt by the church to be disingenuous.

Scratch that. Just checked the transcript. At the bottom of page 29 she says the church sent Elder Asay to her.

[_moksha]

At the bottom of page 29 she says the church sent Elder Asay to her.

Perhaps they are both right. The meeting occurred but was not recorded for plausible deniability purposes. When you engage in machinations, it is always handy to have a contingency plan should those machinations be exposed.

[_I have a question]

Here's the problem with the Church's response to this specific incident involving Joseph L. Bishop, and the response of his son.

Both responses seek to cast doubt on the specific woman's credibility and that of her story. But it doesn't matter. Even if she is making the whole thing up about her alleged abuse at the hands of her Mission President during her stint at the MTC back in 1984, Bishop still admits to other committing other sexual abuses before his Mission President service and during, that warrant Church discipline. He even corroborates and admits some of the woman's story as it relates to him abusing her. The Church does not need to wait for the police or any other organization to conduct any other related investigation, they have his confession on tape and in transcript. There is nothing stopping them convening a Church Court. This week. Now. What's the hold up?

The other problem with the Church's statement is that it is wilfully meaningless. One cannot put out a statement saying "These allegations are very serious and deeply disturbing. If the allegations of sexual assault are true, it would be a tragic betrayal of our standards and would result in action by the Church to formally discipline any member who was guilty of such behaviour, especially someone in a position of trust." whilst simultaneously defending the practice of unrelated adult males asking minors personally intrusive questions of a sexual nature when it has been demonstrated time and time again that this places minors at risk of being abused by either the person conducting the interview directly, or by some other perpetrator because the minor was unwittingly groomed by the process of these interviews.

Stop them. Now. And your statement might mean something. Until then, it's just you laughing at the victims of ecclesiastical abuse.

[_CameronMO]

Maybe this deserves its own thread.

http://thoughtsonthingsandstuff.com/for ... -l-bishop/

It's an interview conducted in 1980 about Joseph Bishop's time at Weber State. Probably Bishop was a mission president in Argentina, before leading the MTC.

Just one thing I found interesting.

John R. Sillito: President Bishop stayed on four more years and things became increasingly worse in terms of criticism of him on campus.

JT: Yes, and not only that but the very things that I had initially drawn to the attention of some of these Institutional Council members, became public issues.

John R. Sillito: So it did become public at a later date?

JT: Yes, much later. There were a lot of people trying to keep the lid on, and they were successful for a while. There were a lot of rumors going around. One rumor was that Bishop was one of the "fair haired boys" of the Church, purposely brought to Weber by Monson and Packer, and the reason it was very difficult to get rid of him was because of that influence. Now I don't know if some of that came out of the non-Mormon camp but I heard it from the Mormons too.

https://cdm.weber.edu/cdm/singleitem/co ... /64/rec/57

Cross-posted from

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comme ... le_he_was/

[_I have a question]

Maybe this deserves its own thread.

http://thoughtsonthingsandstuff.com/for ... -l-bishop/

It's an interview conducted in 1980 about Joseph Bishop's time at Weber State. Probably Bishop was a mission president in Argentina, before leading the MTC.

Just one thing I found interesting.

John R. Sillito: President Bishop stayed on four more years and things became increasingly worse in terms of criticism of him on campus.

JT: Yes, and not only that but the very things that I had initially drawn to the attention of some of these Institutional Council members, became public issues.

John R. Sillito: So it did become public at a later date?

JT: Yes, much later. There were a lot of people trying to keep the lid on, and they were successful for a while. There were a lot of rumors going around. One rumor was that Bishop was one of the "fair haired boys" of the Church, purposely brought to Weber by Monson and Packer, and the reason it was very difficult to get rid of him was because of that influence. Now I don't know if some of that came out of the non-Mormon camp but I heard it from the Mormons too.

https://cdm.weber.edu/cdm/singleitem/co ... /64/rec/57

Cross-posted from

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comme ... le_he_was/

Yet another cover up by the Church.

[_moksha]

It's an interview conducted in 1980 about Joseph Bishop's time at Weber State.

JT: I'd have to say that I saw him do things which I thought were very malicious. An example of that would be the type of humor he displayed in front of people. It was destructive humor: he'd make fun of their baldness, their weight, where they received their degree, if they had a speech impediment, etc. He did not know how to relate to people and so his humor was very destructive. And, I felt that he was a person without a sense of morality, of what was right and wrong. He was almost amoral.

Joseph Smith: You don't mean that in a sexual sense but in an ethical sense?

JT: Just in the way he dealt with people.

Joseph Smith: Like making commitments that he didn't intend to keep, that sort of thing?

JT: Yes. And he would intentionally lie. On occasion, he would tell me something and then he would say, "if anybody asks me, if you don't keep this confidential, if someone comes back and asks me, I'll tell them I don't even know what they're talking about."

[_Dr. Shades]

So, . . . any idea of what was on Bishop's VHS tapes?

[_Craig Paxton]

Here is what I would like to know.

The Church in its official statement says they first heard the tape of this interview two months ago in January of 2018.

(Note they try to make the time a matter of "weeks" rather than "months.")

Apparently the content of the allegations caused the Church sufficient concern to pull all of Joseph Bishop's books from Deseret Book Stores, and now BYU Book Store.

But if it was merely the content of the taped interview that caused the Church such concern, why did the Church not pull the books in January of 2018?

Why did the Church wait until the taped interview went public to pull Joseph Bishop's books?

The matter resurfaced in 2016 when the same individual contacted a stake president in Pueblo, Colorado, and then again a few weeks ago in January 2018, when the Church was contacted by a lawyer representing her. He provided a copy of a recording that she had made of a conversation between her and 85-year-old Joseph Bishop in December 2017.

ding ding ding ding...we have a winner. This exactly. They have known about this for several months and yet only after the story was leaked did it rise to the level that they needed to remove Bishop's books. Where was their claimed moral indignity then? Why wasn't what they knew in January enough to warrant his books removal back when they first became aware of this situation? What has changed? The only thing that has changed is that the story is now public and the church has got to protect its most valuable asset...it's so called good name. God, they are so self serving. This story has exposed the thing they value the most...the public image of the church.

[_Water Dog]

So, from the news release, they've known about this recording for months. Puts the church's sneaky attempt to pass that bill for two party consent for audio recordings into a whole new context. Moves and counter moves.

He acknowledged on tape that the interview was being recorded, so I’d assume he consented. I suspect the attempt to change the consent statute was aimed more at secret recordings of disciplinary councils or speakers.

I tend to disagree. Couple reasons.

You really think the church would go after someone who recorded a disciplinary council, or a bishop's interview, or a speaker in a group setting? No way. Whatever they recorded would already be out in the wild, so what purpose would it even serve? Big mean church goes after disaffected whistleblower. That doesn't play out well in the media. Moreover, what could the church even "win" damages wise? It's a church, right? What are they going to do, sue someone for releasing an audio of some ecclesiastical leader? President Nelson said something embarrassing, therefore, we sue you for a million dollars? None of this makes any sense.

Plus, the church has been dealing with these types of recordings for several years now. If they wanted to change the law, why wait until 2018 instead of say 2014, or 15 or 16? When the online exmo community was a fraction of the size that it is now.

And these types of recordings also happen in places other than Utah.

I think you're overthinking this. I'm sure regardless of whether the law were changed or not, any recordings that pre-date the law change would still be grandfathered in, no? I'm not sure whether Bishop consented to this particular recording, but regardless, it wouldn't apply to this recording. Or maybe it would, which would be interesting. Regardless, I can easily see the two as being related. This is also in the wake of the Protect LDS Children movement, which started up in November 2017, and the #metoo stuff, so a sudden uptick in sexual accusations. In the wake of that, this audio landing on their desk in January would have been disconcerting. I'm sure they fear other, similar, audio recordings. What's so interesting about this recording is that it didn't happen in a conventional, ie predictable, setting. It didn't happen at church, at a DC, etc. This lady went in there under false pretenses and and got him. A secretary working in the COB could do the same thing. This type of audio is exactly what they want to prevent.

[_Craig Paxton]

Another thing: The degree of "OTHERING" used by the church in their news release is disgusting. Their use of words like "former member" and " briefly served as a missionary" are all code terms to diminish her in the eyes of active members so as not to take her accusations seriously.