After reading the church's statement of response to the AP article, I think I have seen for the first time a church try to say that local law prevented them from reporting. Way to try to pass the buck, as if a mopologist wrote it.
Yeah. A couple of things are getting muddled. The priest-penitent privilege is about evidence. They contents of a confession or similar event cannot be used in court against the person confessing even if the religious official chooses to disclose it. Mandatory reporting laws impose duties to disclose, not duties to keep communications confidential. Some mandatory reporter laws have an exception for privileged communications. But that doesn’t mean the religious figure would be breaking the law to disclose even if there were an exception. They might be breaking policy or reasonable expectations of confidentiality, but I’m not aware of laws that prohibit disclosure.
All the hotline can really do is tell the leaders whether the law requires them to disclose. The rest is internal church policy. As Doc points out, the church gets to define what it will and will not keep confidential. It would not be breaking any law to set a policy that child anise will always be reported. No hotline needed.
he/him When a Religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support, so that its Professors are oblig’d to call for the help of the Civil Power, ’tis a Sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.
The church has responded:
The church posted a link to the statement on its Facebook page, but it turned off all comments.
not that I wanted this to be my inaugural / intro post (I'm a long-time lurker), but relevant to Tom's post is that I replied to the church today on Twitter before they shut down all replies. I (@JXBach) got the only reply in before they deleted and started over, but not before someone screenshotted it. was in a bit of a pissy mood from this AP story.
What's happening: The church repeatedly posted and deleted its statement on Twitter that "Abuse of a child or any other individual is inexcusable."
The church tweeted its entire statement in a thread and eventually blocked replies — but only after someone had responded to the first post, "You are full of s---."
The church deleted and reposted the first tweet with replies blocked, and shared the rest of the thread under it — which opened the original posts to a slew of comments criticizing their handling of sex abuse.
The church then deleted all of its tweets on the AP article and reposted its entire statement with replies blocked.
“But if you are told by your leader to do a thing, do it. None of your business whether it is right or wrong.” Heber C. Kimball, 8 Nov. 1857
It will take a very long time for the church to structurally reform into a leader in child safety. It will be very expensive.
But this cannot be the rainy day hinted at by so many variations on the patently baloney conversation stopper, “prudent savings for 7 years of famine”.
Biblical rainy days were prophesied natural disasters, not the church paying for structural failures of church leadership.
In the old model, imagine a massive wall built to secure the town. There is one gate and the wall is very high. Everyone must pass certain tests to enter the town, and afterward are free to move about the city. Bad actors still got in, and killed people. So, officials would pull up the gate photos and voice prints of known baddies, and then adjust the tests for entry.
As computational A.I. allowed bad guys to adjust their gate approaches in real time and through brute force, town officials realized the hopelessness of their methods. The walls may as well not be there at all. Radical change was needed.
Thus a new model. The wall remained, but only symbolic, if not to partly inhibit entry attempt rates. But the radical change was this: no citizen was allowed to freely interact with others or move throughout the town, ever. Interaction and movement became governed by “zero trust.”
Anyone entering now had to declare a credential and then behave at all times like someone with that credential. Failure to behave as expected resulted in guards dispatched and further restrictions. Anyone wishing to interact with others or move around too much had to provide fresh credential and pass a new test. Interactions between citizens were also closely watched so that any attempt to pull a knife, gun or other weapon would be swiftly terminated with wall mounted lasers.
Citizens initially complained about the inconvenience, voicing indignation at not being fully trusted. As time went on, the new routine became routine and everyone joyed in the collective good for so small a transactional cost. It was not perfect; some bad guys got in and managed to occasionally cause harm. But, the war shifted. Incident numbers moved lower and damage per incident also declined.
LDS systems are still trapped in the old antivirus days. They’re content with the gold standard of cybersecurity in 1990. They will lose and lose and lose, until a radical new approach to child safety and abuse prevention is adopted. It will be fundamentally more like a zero trust model.
There’s an unavoidable contradiction in implementing these measures though.
Didn’t you ever get a weird feeling seeing the lockers in the temple changing room? This was the House of the Lord, full of fellow good Mormons who passed the interview with their bishop and his power of discernment. What does the temple need with locked lockers? What does God need with a starship?
Why does the one true religion on earth need so many safeguards to protect children? They should be protected by the presence of the Holy Ghost and all those on the other side of the thin veil who are watching over them.
You want believing Mormons to act as if none of that exists.
There’s an unavoidable contradiction in implementing these measures though.
Didn’t you ever get a weird feeling seeing the lockers in the temple changing room? This was the House of the Lord, full of fellow good Mormons who passed the interview with their bishop and his power of discernment. What does the temple need with locked lockers? What does God need with a starship?
Why does the one true religion on earth need so many safeguards to protect children? They should be protected by the presence of the Holy Ghost and all those on the other side of the thin veil who are watching over them.
You want believing Mormons to act as if none of that exists.
Well thought and said. I have sometimes thought it was blasphemy to say the Holy Ghost is just not doing his job. But the evidence, based on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints teachings of what the Holy Ghost is and what the Holy Ghost does is directly and uncontestedly contradicted by the unfortunate evidences, and they are piling up. It has all the appearance of a teaching used to manipulate within the church. Trust has dropped to nil.
There’s an unavoidable contradiction in implementing these measures though.
Didn’t you ever get a weird feeling seeing the lockers in the temple changing room? This was the House of the Lord, full of fellow good Mormons who passed the interview with their bishop and his power of discernment. What does the temple need with locked lockers? What does God need with a starship?
Why does the one true religion on earth need so many safeguards to protect children? They should be protected by the presence of the Holy Ghost and all those on the other side of the thin veil who are watching over them.
You want believing Mormons to act as if none of that exists.
Well thought and said. I have sometimes thought it was blasphemy to say the Holy Ghost is just not doing his job. But the evidence, based on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints teachings of what the Holy Ghost is and what the Holy Ghost does is directly and uncontestedly contradicted by the unfortunate evidences, and they are piling up. It has all the appearance of a teaching used to manipulate within the church. Trust has dropped to nil.
Heretic!!
The HG is working his little Casper-like tail off providing discernment and inspiration to leaders of the church!
And that inspiration is every bit as definitive, powerful, and effective as praying for the sick!
