This is disgusting!!!!

https://www.ksl.com/article/50782370/judge-dismisses-lawsuit-against-church-in-arizona-sex-abuse-case-citing-clergy-penitent-exception

Grrrrrrr. Religion is complicit in a lot child abuse. I suspect it always has been. I'm tired of religions having special protection.

The sex abuse continued for seven years and another child was abused during that time.

The church should be very proud of their victory.

I'm tempted to entertain feelings of loathing regarding this ruling, but no doubt these jurists took into account the years and years of study that mormon bishops and SPs must put in before being called to their sacred offices, not to mention the yearly reviews they undergo...

And of course, to err is human, to forgive is often remunerative!

This is what the church said in it press statement.

"We are pleased with the Arizona Superior Court's decision granting summary judgment for the church and its clergy and dismissing the plantiffs' claims. Contrary to some news reports and exaggerated allegations, the court found that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its clergy handled this matter consistent with Arizona law."

Is there any info about who the judge was and was she/he a mormon? or ultra conservative leaning?

The church may have "won" this one on behalf of their bank account but this trial will be back over and over online and in the news.


In a way this is just the beginning for the Mormon church on this issue. At least the catholics admitted to their failure and didn't shred documents. The catholics admitted and apologized.

When will the mormon church do that?

this 'law', written or unwritten, needs to be Changed asap;

this outcome is a case of ChurchCo & abuser 100 X 100, victim 0

GNPE wrote in part:

"this 'law', written or unwritten, needs to be Changed asap;"

Yes, I agree. If memory serves, it is a written law on the books and it was primarily the Roman Catholic church who sought it. I learned about it when I was in parochial high school during the late 1970s, meaning that the law was in place long before the controversial issues about the Catholic church's role in sexual abuse became public. Unfortunately, I doubt that many of Arizona's religious-leaning legislators are inclined to change it.

How about a more judicious definition of "clergy"?

Asking civil authorities to refuse to accept supposed heavenly-inspired revelation regarding calling dentists, lawyers, and successful car dealership owners to serve as clergy, rather than rely on an education-based system, would serve to rule out mormonism's supposed "clergy".

Or so I would hope...

How long ago were the first laws regarding 'mandatory reporters' (of sexual abuse) enacted?

as I casually recall, it wasn't more than 20? years ago, I think that's when 'clergy' were exempted

The privilege goes back many centuries in Europe. The first US case acknowledging the principle was tried in New York in 1813.

thanks, LW; I was asking about U.S. mandatory reporting laws (now that we acknowledge the seriousness & extent of sexual abuse; to me that's relatively recent.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/10/2023 12:14AM by GNPE.

The mandatory reporting laws are recent but have been around for over fifty years. "By 1967, all fifty states had passed some form of mandatory reporting law."*

At first roughly half the states limited the requirement to physicians. That has started to change. In 2003 Massachusetts amended the law to cover "[P]riest[s], rabbi[s], ordained or licensed minister[s] of any church, religious society, or faith, or an accredited Christian Science practitioner, or any person or layperson in any church, religious society or faith acting in a capacity as a leader, official, delegate or other designated function on behalf of any church, religious society or
faith."*

But much of the country resisted, and resists, the expansion of mandatory reporting because they feel the priest-penitent privilege has almost a "sacred" status. Some experts think there won't be clarity on the extent of the privilege and the appropriate limitations until the Supremes rule on the matter.

Any bets on which way Thomas, Alito, and Coney Barrett would vote? Perhaps it would be best not to appeal the issue to SCOTUS for another decade or so. . .


*https://avemarialaw.libguides.com/c.php?g=1324572&p=9814939

The court obviously doesn’t know LDS ward dynamics.

If the bishop’s wife was aware of the abuse, and the stake High council knew of the abuse because of the excommunication trial, then a pretty good slice of the stake probably knew of the abuse.

To call that private protected clergy/penitent communication is a joke.

Nailed it!

Brother Of Jerry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The court obviously doesn’t know LDS ward
> dynamics.
>
> If the bishop’s wife was aware of the abuse, and
> the stake High council knew of the abuse because
> of the excommunication trial, then a pretty good
> slice of the stake probably knew of the abuse.
>
> To call that private protected clergy/penitent
> communication is a joke.

Yes. The excommunication response to a confession of child abuse, while at the same time avoiding reporting of the abuse, is telling. Not only because it eliminates the privacy component as you note (at least in LDS contexts), but also it terminates or severely undermines the ecclesiastical connection and relationship that under the clergy-penitent exception is supposed to provide a vehicle for rehabilitation.

At the very least (and assuming that the clergy-penitent relationship is actually effective, which I doubt) the clergy should be held to account to the court as to what meaningful and persistent efforts were made towards rehabilitation or securing consent to involve third-party experts and/or law enforcement. Knee-jerk excommunication, coupled with reliance upon the clergy-penitent exception is inconsistent and demonstrates that the Church's real interest was not the perpetrator, not the victim, and not the protection of future victims. Its sole interest was in protecting itself from liability exposure.

I listened to a podcast on this today and then came here to hear more about it and share an event that caused me some pause. I was in a bishopric when I was still a part of TSCC and was waiting for a meeting with the stake president on a Saturday. He was meeting with a young couple from another Ward who had several young kids. The building was empty. The acoustics did not provide much privacy and I could not help hearing parts of the conversation. What I gleaned. Young couple. One of their kids had been abused by the father and the child had been removed from the house by child protective services. Father promised that things were not going to happen again. The stake president offered help both financially (assume from a local church account) and would be an advocate to get the child back for them. No words about the material changes the father needed to make. It felt just like this story. All about the offender and nothing about the victim(s). I might have misunderstood. But when I had my meeting with the stake president I mentioned that I could not help overhearing things. I reminded him that in our state, since both of us were university professors, we are mandatory reporters, and in our state, the law extended beyond our employment and that as lay clergy in our state were not exempt. He did not suggest I misunderstood the situation with the family or our responsibility. I don’t know what happened. The stake president was always the good soldier type. He is now in the quorum of the 70.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I am sick of hearing stories about the church putting itself over the victims. They may think they are helping, but they are not qualified, sometimes ignore laws, and value the "repentance" process of adults over the safety of the victims.

Going to clergy to repent and get their help is never a substitute for going to law enforcement. It enables the abuse of children as much as anything else in our society, IMO.

Agreed. I don't consider bishops clergy. they have zero training in anything regarding running a church.

Deeply disturbing.

Exclusions only apply, when it is conveniently $uperb!

Ohh ohh oh, you of such little faith..

Oh my, if we're soon giving out nicknames your's should be mustardseed.

states in the United States, I guess due to the interpretations of the U.S. Constitution, give far too much power to religion and to religious organizations.

In addition to state laws, the granting of too much protection to religion and religious organizations needs to change.
Don't you agree?

Religion and politicians use each other to keep power. If you want to win elections, you have to cater to religion or the religious leaders won't influence their sheep to vote for you.
There is no way politicians will touch religion or everyone gets all offended.

I wish there was something we could do about it, but Kings and Priests have been scratching each other's backs for centuries.

Freedom of religion is part of being a civilized country. The ones that take it away are even worse than the USA. The state isn't even innocent here. How many abusers are government employees? Police. Public school teachers. Juvie Hall. State homes. The military. Do they report it any better than religion? No they don't. They cover it up.

The public schools do yearly trainings concerning child abuse, and I'm going to assume that other state agencies that deal with juveniles do as well. Reporting suspected abuse is mandatory for all school system employees. Failure to do so can result in a loss of your professional license and loss of employment. It's not a perfect system -- no system can be -- but it does keep abuse by staff members to a minimum.

If churches had similar standards, it would cut way, way back on abuse cases. Instead, churches like the Mormon church and the Roman Catholic church are far more interested in protecting their priesthood holders and institutions than they are in protecting children.

Summer my TBM mom said that everyone who has a calling witch children or youth in the lds church is required to watch a training video about child abuse. When I resinged in 2013 there was no training video and I was in the nursery.

But there is no consequence with teeth for those who do not report. And there is no church mandate to turn in any member who is suspected of child abuse. Training is a good start, but it can't be the entire strategy.

I found a training video

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/media/video/2013-08-4000-protect-the-child?lang=eng

The video says first contact the bishop. The bishop is supposed to call the helpline.

Mormon Stories got in trouble.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8wx7Dog/

Mormon Stories got in trouble for taking about the trouble teen camps.

Well, MS isn't really in trouble. The company Dehlin et al., criticized sent them a nasty letter but that's just a threat to perhaps file a suit . . . if they feel like it. . . at some point in the future.

MS is covered by the First Amendment and it would take a LOT to overcome the legal presumption in Dehlin's favor. I sincerely doubt this will ever get near a trial.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/16/2024 08:15PM by Lot's Wife.

Here is another video of LDS cover up.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRvvAWpB/