The pope decided to make it clear that he was serious about sexual abuse so he defrocked a cardinal. That is like excommunicating an apostle in the LDS Church after they had been released from the quorum.
Now. We have clear statements and guidelines about having zero tolerance for abuse. See https://www.lds.org/get-help/abuse?cid=rdb_v_abuse&lang=eng
Abuse is the neglect or mistreatment of others (such as a child or spouse, the elderly, the disabled, or anyone else) in such a way that causes physical, emotional, or sexual harm. It goes against the teachings of the Savior. The Lord condemns abusive behavior in any form.
“The Church’s position is that abuse cannot be tolerated in any form” (Handbook 1: Stake Presidents and Bishops [2010], 17.3.2). Abuse violates the laws of God and may also be a violation of the laws of society. The Lord expects us to do all we can to prevent abuse and to protect and help those who have been victims of abuse. No one is expected to endure abusive behavior.
That is a very clear statement.
But.
But.
What happens to a woman who is physically abused and goes to her bishop and is told it is her fault and she needs to just accept the beatings until she has repented?
Who does she go to?
What happens if she complains to her stake president or writes Salt Lake?
What should happen?
I’d like to ask our readers?
- What can you do if a leader is abusing you or tells you the abuse is your fault?
- What church sources are available to someone who wants relief from a bishop who doesn’t follow the handbook?
- What does the church need to do next to signal it means what the handbook says?
- What do you think of the anti-abuse website generally?
- What other suggestions would you have?
Wheat & Tares 
The church needs an independent ombudsman’s office for ecclesiastical and sexual abuse and needs to publish the information about how to contact it widely. Nobody should not know that this office exists.
I’d nominate Mark Romney, an attorney in DFW who is currently a stake president.
When he did trainings on complying with mandatory reporting he would lead off with “do this or you will go to jail and I will make sure that happens.”
No one doubted his sincerity or that the church expected them to report immediately with no excuses.
Along the lines of Abu Casey’s comment, my company has a “Code of Conduct”. Everyone has to read the code and be trained on it annually. Then there’s a Code of Conduct hotline where anyone can call and give an anonymous tip about potential violations. The hotline follows up on every tip.
The Mormon church needs a code of conduct for all callings and they need an anonymous code of conduct hotline
LDS and ex-LDS women closed FB groups seem to have a constant and unending thread of questions about how to address an abusive relationship situation.
Themselves, their friend, their sister, their mother. All women in abusive relationships. All LDS. All trying to figure out how to move forward and escape. All being told by local church leaders that they should stay.
The common theme I see in each story of abuse: The wife married young, never finished her education or kept up her professional credentials. Each woman is home caring for young or disabled children. Each has no way to financially support themselves if they left. I have not seen financially-independent LDS women who are told to stay in that same dynamic.
I have wondered if many bishops push financially-dependent women to stay simply to avoid the financial ward-welfare burden.
Whatever the reasoning behind it, it needs to change.
One of the things I’m doing with my kids is teaching them from age 12 up about building their own boundaries with church leadership. They are allowed to say no to anything the church does that makes them uncomfortable (starting with Bishop interviews). They (hopefully) understand that there are limits to the things they should take to / discuss with the Bishop and that I will back them up 100% if they get uncomfortable and walk out.
I think an ombudsman is a great idea.
The Chuch tolerates abuse routinely, especially ecclesiastical abuse. I have observed this happen too many times. An independent ombudsman is clearly needed but I doubt that the Church will create one. It would first have to acknowledge that there is a problem, which it refuses to do.
I agree with ReTx. I have had great bishops. That being said, I am not going to leave it up to chance that my kids are going to have a positive experience. I have gone one step further and just told the bishop that he is not to ask any sex questions at all to my children, not even if they live the law of chastity. I have told him that it is none of his business and if that means they cannot advance or have a limited use recommend, then so be it.
That being said, predators are quite good at knowing who they can target. Obviously having another adult present is ideal, but it does not appear that it is going to become mandatory any time soon. How about we encourage kids to talk to their parents, and their parents sign the limited use recommend for them? One line for the mother to sign and another line for the father to sign.
Jan,
Evidence please. Legal cases brought against the Church typically involve the allegation that the Church failed to protect the abused in some manner, not that a bishop, stake president, etc. perpetrated the abuse. Of course it happens, and it’s truly awful and reprehensible when it does. But I have not uncovered evidence that this sort of thing is endemic.
That’s not to say an ombudsman is a bad idea. Rare events with catastrophic consequences are worth guarding against. Some sort of avenue for reporting misconduct or other serious concerns would have many benefits and relatively few costs (both in terms of finances and programmatic compromises). I just think it’s not worth making up facts in service of a worthy goal.
(Before anyone brings it up, yes, I am aware of Sam Young’s website, and even setting aside issues of verifiability of the accounts, the vast majority of those focused on negative consequences of personal questions, and not allegations that a bishop actually perpetrated the abuse.)
I too am warming up to an ombudsman. But I also find it hard to see where the top church leaders would support such an arrangement. If they did, then I would assume they really are getting serious about ending this instead of covering over much of it just to , “keep the good name of the church” (which I think is getting tarnished because of the cover ups)
Thanks for reminding us of this issue.
As the Church and BSA separate, I hear some LDS scouters cheering for “no more youth protection training”. It is interesting how I am not sure if no more YPT is a good thing or not. The cynic in me says that YPT was just a CYA move on the part of BSA, but another part of me was impressed with how seriously BSA took abuse prevention. I have sometimes wondered if the Church would or should come up with a similar training program (especially this most recent round of YPT videos that BSA published).
Thanks for this post Stephen. The institutional barriers to 1. Stop abuse happening in the first place, 2. Deal with it appropriately when it does and 3. Allow people to heal following abuse are many – and are unlikely to change.
The way the church handled the Sam Young thing was dismissive and ineffective – regardless of what anyone thinks of Sam himself.
DSC – here is a list that was released my Mormon Leaks in 2017. My feeling is that this is probably less than 1% of actual events.
Click to access INSTANCES_OF_CHILD_SEXUAL_ABUSE_ALLEGEDLY_PERPETRATED_BY_MEMBERS_OF_THE_CHURCH_OF_JESUS_CHRIST_OF_LATTER-DAY_SAINTS-2017-06.pdf
LDS Aussie, that Mormon leaks document is very disturbing. Thanks for posting.
GES65 – no probs. Should say to those who click the link that it contains pretty horrific details of sexual abuse. Sorry.
On a theoretical level, the church does not tolerate abuse, but on a practical level, it seems like they want to let Bishops have a lot of discretion about how to counsel people, even though Bishops very frequently mishandle abuse. I don’t understand it at all.
LDS Aussie,
That list was not “leaked”; it was compiled haphazardly by someone looking at news reports. It double counts incidents, includes incidents where the perpetrator was not even a member of the Church, much less a leader, and again, is mostly allegations that the Church failed to act to protect against abuse by one member against another, not allegations that a leader abused a member. It is a truly awful attempt at research. It is not a list of LDS leaders committing abuse, something that the MormonLeaks founder actually acknowledged to me privately, and yet it remains on the website and he has never retracted a statement introducing it as such.
DSC,
Your negative attitude towards the link LDS Aussie posted is exactly why the Mormon Church will continue to be less safe than it could be, than it should be if it is the true and living church of Christ. The first step towards healing is acknowledging shortcomings. If only 10% of this compilation’s contents are true, I want to believe our Heavenly Father is sickened by the attitude of those who deny the church had a problem and needs change.
MTodd,
Do you think being misleading about the problem helps? Deborah Deiner’s research is a poor excuse for legal research. The compiled information doesn’t provide context, is unreliable, makes no effort to categorize or otherwise make sense of the information and is frankly no better than a Google search. The document in fact contains plenty of stories of non-leaders (e.g. McKinney), counts some stories more than once (e.g. pages 7, 53, 243 are all the same case); contains numerous examples where the Church leaders acted promptly to investigate and report claims (e.g. Julio Marais, Brandon Scott Cordero), includes cases where it’s unclear whether the perpetrator was even a member of the church (e.g. Julio Morais again, Daniel Andrews), cases where the Church’s involvement is not clear (e.g. Susan Brock, Daniel Andrews, Christine Shreeve Hubbs). The notion that this is a 300+ page document seemed to be relevant, although the number of pages says nothing of the number of instances (due to some entries going on for pages and double counting), nor the actual involvement of the Church in the cases. Of course, this says nothing of the merits of the claims either way.
Abuse of any kind is a terrible thing. I’m always in support of ideas that will help reduce abuse. But do you really think that this kind of false or misleading information helps curb abuse? If anything, it feeds the narrative that critics of the Church are willing to deceive, which hinders rooting out actual abuse when it occurs. The first step towards solving any problem is identifying the true nature and scope of the problem. Attempts to muddy the water get in the way.
DSC,
I stand by my comment that is 10% of this compilation is true, our Heavenly Father is not happy with the Mormon Church.
I agree that a thorough, systematic analysis detailing abuse by church leaders and teachers (including misguided attempts by leaders to get victims to not report abuse to authorities) would be a great first step in solving this problem. This analysis should be made public to all church members along with proposed changes to address these issues. Is the Mormon hierarchy undertaking such a thoughtful endeavor? Would they be willing to be that transparent or will they continue hiding behind the bonkers belief that they are the gold standard for protecting their flock from abuse?
Dsc, actually yes it does help. I point to the documentary The Silent War which was about sexual assault in the military. It was, among other things, a a hatchet job on military jurisprudence and had a whole bunch of inaccuracies and made connections
and assertions that don’t hold up. That being said, I know for a fact that it got a lot of attention at a high level within the services and helped spur several changes in how the military tackles sexual assault (a debate about the merits of those changes is not appropriate here). Whether accurate or not, it brought attention and action to a real problem. So yes, making mountains out of slightly smaller mountains does work.
Not a Cougar,
Meanwhile, making larger mountains out MS-13 and voter fraud has led to gridlock on immigration and actual voter fraud by those claiming to fight it, making both problems worse.
A theme I have seen on this blog is that people feel betrayed and distrust when they find out that a person or institution has misrepresented or withheld information. Perhaps there are some cases where careless fact gathering and reporting have nonetheless led to positive results, but I think it’s an unacceptable risk to be careless when careful fact gathering would yield results. I don’t see why the following argument would not also be effective without risking distrust in those advocating for certain changes:
“While there is no clear evidence that abuse occurs more frequently among Latter-day Saints than among the general population, we should hold ourselves to the highest standards and do what we can to eradicate this evil from among our members. X,Y, and Z changes would reduce the incidence of abuse and help protect all of our Heavenly Father’s children.”
Bishops are generally not trained in counseling or how to help people who are in abusive relationships. It would be interesting to know if manuals or instructions to bishops say something like we never counsel couples to get divorced. I believe that some bishops have felt their hands were tied, that they could not recommend that spouses separate, because of guidance or manuals, but I have no evidence for it.
An ombudsman sounds like a great idea; anyone outside of the normal longer of authority to report abuse by leaders. But just as important is finding or training leaders to appropriately help members who seek help in dealing with abusive family.
DSC,
What will it take to get the current leadership to commission the serious, “careful fact-gathering necessary [that] would yield results”? If they have already done this and found that there is not an issue, they should publish the findings. If they have already done this and found an issue, they should let everyone know they are working to address these issues and they should make hanged quickly. If they haven’t done this analysis, they should and they should let everyone know it’s underway and then make the results public once it’s finished.
What the church leadership should not do is say they are the gold standard for abuse protection without publishing benchmarking to substantiate this claim.
*Hanged=changes
Stupid autocorrect
MTodd,
I don’t necessarily disagree with what you’re saying. But I don’t know how my demanding that people who make claims about the Church and abuse make accurate, fact-based claims is somehow inhibiting our ability to prevent abuse.
I’m currently going through the entire Diener document and systematically classifying the accounts. So far, I’m a tenth of the way through, and I have noticed that Scouting in the middle of the 20th Century was the biggest source of abuse cases, which may be due to many of those cases coming from a single source. The BSA has since taken extra precautions, which the Church has followed. The biggest lesson from that, for me, is the importance of two-deep youth leadership. However, also in the process, I have uncovered a number of duplicate entries, incidents where there was no logical nexus between the abuse and a church calling (that is, the only connection is that the abuser happened to be Mormon), and even two cases where the alleged abuser was not even a member of the Church. I pointed out the failings of this document to Ryan McKnight, who refused to do anything with it. When people like LDS Aussie cite this source, they cite it for its existence, not for its content. Garbage research doesn’t help anybody.
It is exactly this response that people see in the church. Dismissive and minimising. It’s why people don’t come forward (in part).
“What church sources are available to someone who wants relief from a bishop who doesn’t follow the handbook?”
Lay members don’t have access to the handbook. So how can they know if a Bishop doesn’t follow the handbook? And what, specific actions is a bishop supposed to take?
LDS Aussie,
I have attempted to demonstrate exactly why the Diener document is unreliable by pointing to its specific failings. If you think I’m wrong, I would imagine you would have to point to specific errors in fact or reasoning. Otherwise, you’re just being “dismissive and minimising.”
One other interesting tidbit uncovered by actually analyzing Diener’s sloppy research: one of the entries is for a man who was placed on the BSA’s Confidential File for being a bisexual. Not a single allegation that he abused kids. This is the kind of document that you are citing.
DSC – if you don’t think there is a massive problem here, I can’t help you.
As an aside, as someone who has worked in law enforcement for the past 20 years, I have personally taken numerous reports of sexual assault from victims. Of those who were assaulted in an institutional setting, everyone of them – without exception – expressed concern that ultimately had to do with the power imbalance between them and the institution. Would they be believed? It had been so long? They have lots of money and lawyers?
A good percentage didn’t go through with the matter as they weighed up these issues. Sexual assault in an institutional context raises additional barriers that are not in existence in personal sexual assault matters.
Erring on the side of victim protection – even if it makes it hard for the church – is always a good policy position beginning. That is still true, even if the information to support that setting is not 100% verifiable.
Nit picking, minimisation and seeking rock solid information in this space provides fertile ground – personally and institutionally – for abuse in all its forms to flourish and remain undetected.
My feeling about the scriptures where Jesus is quoted as referring to children don’t seem to require an error free brief of evidence.
A current example.
https://www.ksl.com/article/46495111/former-utah-vice-squad-lieutenant-arrested-in-prostitution-sting?fbclid=IwAR2YzPd1KKzptOnOoS5UWtuBxF3orPwk4geJeGrqGBNRgE-i0zyYwqmgQEw
LDS Aussie,
“Massive problem” is a big accusation. It requires at least some evidence. I’m
“Erring on the side of victim protection – even if it makes it hard for the church – is always a good policy position beginning.” I have no argument with that statement. But doing that doesn’t require citing bad information or misrepresenting the scope of the problem.
“Nit picking” Do you really think I’m picking nits? I’m talking about fundamental flaws in methodology that yield misleading information. Did you even read the Diener paper? Did you make any attempt to make sense out of the information? I think you just did what I’ve seen a lot of people do, which is point to that paper and its 316 pages and say it’s a massive problem without any context whatsoever. For my part, I’m not satisfied that a handful of anecdotes can tell me what is or what isn’t a “massive problem”. Based on the first 55 incidents, the paper is on pace to have 300 entries (why they weren’t numbered to begin with is beyond me, but I suspect that it was intentional to obscure real analysis). Of those 300, roughly 60 will need to be discarded as duplicates, accounts of non-members, and entries related to non-abuse (e.g. the BSA barring a leader for being bisexual). Of the remaining 240, some are quite shocking and demonstrate a failure on the part of the Church to take action. But many others represent tragic circumstances that the Church as an institution has little power to directly combat. Someone with no prior history abuses a child, is discovered, and is referred for criminal prosecution and church discipline. Someone with a prior history uses a pseudonym. Very few of these 240 are bishops, stake presidents, or other “high ranking” leaders . Most are either Scouting/YM leaders or members of the ward without any noteworthy calling. And to put those 240 into context, there are currently 14,225 wards and branches in the United States, and the Diener paper covers a period of nearly 60 years. Undoubtedly there are more incidents than these, and even if these were all of them, it is horrific to think about the evil it represents. But if you ignore the real evidence in favor of a darker picture of reality, you ignore what’s working, which is, in my opinion, at least as important, if not more important than knowing what’s not working. Basing policy on an unsupported narrative risks all kinds of negative results, including “provid[ing] fertile ground – personally and institutionally – for abuse in all its forms to flourish and remain undetected.”
I assume by the name that you’re not in the United States. Around these parts we have a clown of a president who likes to point to Mexican drug cartels, which are a very real danger and commit truly horrifying, brutal crimes. But when said clown inflates the problem and points to solutions that likely won’t have any effect (e.g. the wall), he risks not only failing to solve the problem, but making the problem worse. I see no reason to believe that hyperbole will lead to better solutions than accurate information.
Another link to the “current example:”
“https://www.google.com/amp/s/fox13now.com/2019/02/20/former-vice-squad-cop-arrested-in-valentines-day-prostitution-sting-in-lehi/amp/
Who or what was the source of “inspiration” to select this guy as bishop?
Hard to have trust/faith in a male-leadership only organization (where obedience to authority is emphasized) to properly confront and handle these situations. Congregants should be specifically taught/informed as to what they should expect from leaders.
Reports of criminal abuse should be made to the local constabulary, not to the bishop.
No one needs a bishop’s permission to divorce his or her spouse.
I’m not sure that the problem is not patriachy. And that therefore the solution is equality. A lot of abuse is about power, and the lack of awareness of priveledge. I have not been sexually abused, but have experienced the abuse of power. I am 70 my bishop is early 30s, last time I went for a TR he refused to ask the questions just kept fishing. At the time I thought if he treats me like this what might he do to a young person. Since then I referred to the new endowment as less sexist in a comment on the ward facebook page. He had me into his office and told me it was not OK to use words like that about the church. And that I could not be trusted to use apropriate language, so could not give talks at church.
This feels like an abuse of power to me. In another setting it would warrant a review of that person being in a position of power, not the church.
With some exceptions, I agree with both Ji’s statements, yet I think my original comment is still true. Many people will still discuss abuse with their bishops, many bishops will still encourage people to stay in abusive relationships, and people will follow that advice as long as The Church of Jesus Christ of (pause to take a breath) Latter-Day Saints does not make a concerted effort to change the system.
How long have we had a tithing procedure that is two-deep? We don’t let our leaders handle tithing money on their own, yet we don’t take the same precautions with our youth and other vulnerable congregants? What does that say about us?
We don’t know how many leaders or members have abused others, but we do know people aren’t perfect. Therefore, our policies should do the best they can to account for a fallen human nature and protect individuals. There is no reason to not study this issue seriously and make necessary changes. If these things are already in the works, then that information should be disseminated widely.
Certainly we want to be informed with reliable evidence. But the fact that there is always potential for abuse in situations where one person has power or authority over another is a tale as old as time. Why would we not have better policies to prevent abuse we know will at some point occur and already has?
Mary,
I’m not quite sure who you’re arguing with. I never said we shouldn’t have better policies. I’ve long said that other people should be allowed in Bishop’s interviews at the option of the interviewer and that another person should be in an adjacent room with a view through a window in all cases.
Dsc,
I was trying to bring the discussion back to the point that we know abuse happens to some degree, and we should have better safeguards against it. I’m not making any claims about what you said. It’s great that we all agree having another person in interviews is a good step. The question is what else can be done.
Raising awareness about abuse is tricky for the church. However, it is very disheartening to consistently see the church in a reactive position to problems like this. Why is it only after negative publicity that leaders make statements or highlight efforts publicly to change or improve procedures? If the church has already been working on these things, and something negative comes to light, that we be the perfect time for leaders to showcase efforts that were ongoing. Of course there would be some who wouldn’t believe the church was already engaged in these concerns. But when the church only reacts, leaders give the impression they aren’t aware of or don’t care enough about these problems. This creates a trust gap, and it lends more credence to stereotypes about leaders being out of touch or not as informed as they should be. I just wish there were more transparency about what problems leaders are working on and how they come to their solutions.
Well, I know that one Ward member made some comments that worried me that said member was physically abusive to his children. I reported it to my Bishop, who pooh-poohed my concern. Until said member made such a comment in front of said Bishop. Oops. After this experience, if I suspect a member of physical, or sexual, abuse of other family members, I will notify the Police, not local LDS Leadership. Too great a chance that Leaders will not do the right thing. There’s still Bishops who give graphic interviews, asking about every sexual sin possible, much more that a simple “Do you live the Law of Chastity?” Some Bishops will just slap your hands for fondling, but, other Bishops will give you a near Disfellowshipment for masturbation. Leadership roulette again.
I have one LDS FB friend, where she was told by her Bishop to marry her rapist. Needless to say, that marriage didn’t end well. It might say to marry a rapist in the Old Testament, but, the Old Testament also said not charge interest on Loans.
There’s a cousin of mine, who raped my sister, when both were teens. He went on a Mission, got married in the Temple, & later was a Counselor in a Bishopric. Did he ever abuse his own children, or, youth in his Ward? Can’t tell now, he’s dead. We’ve had at least 2 Mission Presidents sexually abuse Sister missionaries in recent years. Yet, if a missionary has *any* complaint about their Mission President, that is sent in by a missionary to a General Authority, that complaint is sent right back to their MP. So, we could find that a MP was sexually abusing his missionaries from a Public Arrest Report in the news, well before someone in Salt Lake looks into it, not good PR. The hopefully former Bishop involved in the recent Prostitution sting should have been flagged earlier, for on the job conduct that got him kicked out of the Vice Squad & Police. But, I bet the BYU football player that was caught in a strip club a few years ago, has his membership records flagged for that incident.