and if so who would it be ?
Enquiring minds like mine want to know.

As far as I know, they don't. No formal training, no ordination, nothing like that. And somehow, they pride themselves on this utter lack of qualifications.

the 'volunteer' status tends to shield ... not absolutely ... ChurchCo from BP & SP mistakes & other liabilities.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2022 03:48AM by GNPE.

I have always considered the seminary teachers a paid clergy.

"professionalism" costs, and that would detract from the corporate bottom line - er, blessed objective

It's all about the money, maan.
Quality/service/humanitarianism is optional

It's telling that we know they have businessmen, lawyers, PR and investment advisers, but we can't tell if they have actual clergy. This is a religion?

Why aren’t current apostles adding books to the New Testament?

Are martyrdoms no longer in style?

>Why aren’t current apostles adding books to the New Testament?

Because all the mean stupid stuff is already in there.

I say there are new, bold ways to piss people off and so the church is really missing the boat!

I would love the church to start a weekly DN Church News column wherein they declare, boldly, what we’re all doing wrong.

Maybe it could be a sort of ‘Dear Abby’ feature, but geared toward condemnation!

Like I could write in, ostensibly to ask for an opinion about something Gladys Lot wrote here, and then one or another apostle could go off on her and condemn her to Hell . . . or Orem.

You're just salty because I told everyone about your tramp stamp.

Bishops are clergy in the eyes of the law, which are pretty much the only eyes that actually count. You may be brilliant and insightful and clever, but nobody cares whether you think the local bish qualifies as clergy.

I suppose that MPs and GAs also qualify legally as clergy. Come to thing of it, a more interesting question is who in LDS-dom does not qualify as clergy. When I went of a mission (during Vietnam War), my draft deferment at the time was a clergy deferment.

1-A
4-D
2-S
1-A
Drafted
Appealed
Draft Lottery
Draft lottery winner!!
You win, draft board… Call me when you get to 365.

There is a HUGE difference in legal liability between paid & non-paid personnel.

Paid workers in any field are often held responsible to the extent of their training & scope of responsibilities, volunteers 'Not So Much'


As we know, Bps & SPs receive little or no training regardless of the scope of their responsibilities.

Law school 101

I don't think you can back that up.

The question is not whether people have been trained but whether they are represented by the church as religious authorities whom members should trust and obey. If the latter, those clergy--for such they are under the law--are fully responsible for any failure to meet their legal responsibilities. The question then becomes a matter of the precise AZ law and what duties it imposes on clergy.

If you can document a different perspective, I'd be eager to see it.

The existence of the ‘secret’ church handbook for bishops-only suggests guidance, and that an expectation that a standard existed was real.


“Law School 101”??

Alas, the courts don't care what churches adopt as internal training and guidance. They focus on what the law says.

Another relevant datum is that I have a very close relative in his late 40s or early 50s who is both an attorney and a former bishop. He has used the helpline; he says it is only guidance and that bishops and SPs are not bound by the hotline advice. But church officials almost always just do as they are told, not what they know to be right. Indeed, I don't think courts would look favorably on a bishop who took the advice of the "social workers" (so described in the press release) who manned the phones in SLC since social workers are not attorneys.

If one were cynical--not I, of course--she might read the press release as saying that the bishop consulted the hotline's social workers and not the church's attorneys and therefore that the church itself is not culpable. Silly bishop should have demanded to talk to the attorneys or have retained one himself. Thus the church puts distance between itself and the hapless dentist, who may well have committed heinous crimes on his own.

“Law School 101”??

Reese Witherspoon made a refresher course, "Legally Blonde". Watch it for the chihuahua.

LW;

in addition, there's a tacit shield for hierarchal churches which we all know that LDS is.

case law is mostly the source of my statement, but since I don't have Nexis or Westlaw... prolly won't be able to document it.


LDS's cadre of lawyers sure knows about how to duck liability However sexual abuse law is in a somewhat early stage of development.

some areas are slightly different such as motor vehicle laws, no shield or immunity there at least I'm aware of.

Clergy misfeasance or malfeasance case against ChurchCo? highly unlikely case for plaintiffs especially for any counseling they may have provided;

sexual abuse by a minister / clergy / rabbi, etc. would be different.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2022 11:47PM by GNPE.

All this and yet they call the male missionaries "Elder".

Isn't an elder one that has many years of study and training, fully emerged in the history and philosophy of the religion?

Yet no formal training for their "clergy".

It gets weird when pimples are a reference point for defining “Elder”.