I’d add that the concepts of ratification and civil conspiracy are very important in tort law.

Horsewhipping pedophiles might slow them done a bit! I realize you’re only getting one side of the story here. The fact that the church leader is now serving two 5-life sentences at the state prison (sequentially) I think speaks for itself on guilt part. You should be able to see page 116 of the GHI if you have a good relationship with your bishop or Stake Presidency member. Perhaps someone here who is currently serving could look it up and validate what I’m saying about not taking church action until after a conviction is obtained. The fact that I know by sad experience what the church’s 1-800 number thing is all about should show some creditability as well.

In fairness to the church, the MTC presidency thought they were acting in the best interest of the church as they were advised by the church attorney not to let our son speak with the police. Apparently they’ve had experience before in being required to fly missionaries back and forth from their fields of labor to testify at the different hearings, so they weren’t willing to get in the middle of that. Therefore the threat to my son, “If you give a statement to the police, then you’ll be sent home from the MTC”. I don’t think they realized how difficult it is for a victim to testify, so threatening him with being sent home was pretty strong inducement not to talk. (I personally think it was criminal to make him choose.)

I don’t know what else I can give you to show the other side of the story. Horrible things were done by several leaders who meant well, but caused great harm. As for the church’s attorney, I have no sympathy for him what-so-ever. If Oscar McConkie ends up in the Celestial Kingdom, then heaven will turn into ninth hell for many of us…

I’m on your side here. It is obvious to me that the Bishop’s handbook should be changed. It sounds like the Bishop should be considered a credible witness, and I can’t imagine why the perpetrator wouldn’t be disfellowshipped at minimum, pending trial. (I have to chuckle–apparently disfellowshipped tripped my spell-checker, and one of the suggestions was “horsewhipped”, which may be a more appropriate punishment.)

I’m trying to understand why the handbook would want to wait until the trial. I suppose that if a church member is falsely accused, then it may seem premature to impose church punishment. I suppose false accusations could be a problem, and we could end up with some sort of Salem Witch Hunt. But in your case, it sounds pretty convincing to me that the bishop and church attorney were probably convinced of a crime, and I would think that would be a pretty reliable witness in a church disciplinary council. I know I’m hearing only your side, and there are always 2 sides to every story. But, if we take your information as fact, it seems the bishop and church attorney acted inappropriately. It would seem that the church handbook should be updated to better protect children. The law needs to be changed–I can’t imagine church would want to be known as uncaring to children.

One other very disturbing part of this story was the church’s protection of the abuser. I served on a High Council for several years and therefore been involved in many disciplinary counsels. If say a sister confessed to her bishop that she had had an affair with neighbor “X”, then neighbor “X” would be called before the council in very short order. Depending on the attitude of Brother “X”, the Stake Presidency would either dis-fellowship or excommunicate him. Not so with child abusers. In our case, the Stake President was given the police reports detailing the abuse of this church leader from two different victims (both older teens). He proceeded to quote Book “1” of the General Handbook of Instruction (page 116) which states that if the member is involved in legal prosecution, then the church will wait until all legal recourses have been exhausted before holding a council. I asked the county prosecutor if they had a problem with the church taking action against one of their members before the trial started. I was told that they could care less what the church decided to do. When I pushed the President he said, “the policy is in-place incase the perpetrator gets found not guilty.” In other words, if you cheat on your wife and we find out from even one believable witness, you’ll be disciplined speedily and removed from fellowship with the saints. On the other hand, if you like to rape children, then not only will we not believe the witnesses against you, but we’ll leave you in full fellowship unless the state convicts you of a crime. Most of you are honest people. Who do you think is more of a threat to the church and its members, the child abuser or the one guilty of adultery?

Thanks for all your comments and kind regards for my family. It is appreciated…

From my experiences with trained ministers with graduate experience who then went on to become hospital chaplains, I would disagree with you about many things.

A good book to pick up at your library, for some perspective, is Ethical Dilemmas in Church Leadership by Milco.

Wish you well.

Thanks for sharing–I know it’s a tough thing to go through, and I can certainly understand why you feel the way you do. I agree with Ray–I think the laws absolutely need to be changed to protect children first. Mormon and Catholic churches both act in ways to protect the leadership, instead of protecting the most vulnerable, and I suspect they always will. I think the only real way to get them to change is through the law. If the 1-800 number is correct that there is no law about reporting, that absolutely should be changed. I’d heartily support your cause.

I don’t know if you live in Utah–if so, I’m sure there will be LDS lobbyists opposing efforts to change the law, but the law ABSOLUTELY must be changed to protect the victims, rather than ecclesiastical perpetrators. It is horrible what your family went through. A real miscarriage of justice has happened, and it is a shame that it took so long to uncover. Leaders acting in the church’s interest, rather than your sons’ interest should be ashamed of their actions, and I think should be disciplined by both the church and the state.

I know that I am not diplomatic all the time either, and I am endeavoring to improve.

My sympathies are with you and your family and I hope that your boys will be able to find peace and reconciliation.

I don’t hold any hard feelings toward you for the discussion. The blog medium is not a very good vehicle for open discussion and I know a face to face one would always be more civil.

Thanks for sharing your story, as hard it was.

Thanks for understanding and support, whether you realize it or not, you’ve both helped me. All the best!

Jeff and MH,

I could go back on this thread and copy all the statements you’ve directed at me. In fairness, I haven’t been the only one guilty of not being very diplomatic. Take a look, perhaps we all can do better in the future.

No hard feelings?

Please understand, your experience is one of the reasons I support much more intensive training for Bishops and Stake Presidents AND a change in all laws to make ecclesiastical leaders guilty of facilitation of CERTAIN criminal activity they do not report (especially sexual abuse and murder), as well as religious organizations that assist in that non-reporting of those specific activities, but I still don’t want a professional clergy. I want to maintain general ecclesiastical immunity, but I support FULLY exempting specifically delineated offenses – and what happened to your boys is a prime example. Those laws need to be changed, imo – and changed ASAP.

I fully acknowledge my less then tactful approach on certain subjects and MH is right, I certainly could be more diplomatic about many of my posts. In the past I have resisted the urge to talk about why I find myself on the outside looking in and being so critical of many LDS beliefs. As much as I hate to admit it here, I’m one of those who probably fit the model of being offended and then studying my way out of the church. I realize this point’s lots of fingers at my own weakness, but I can’t change the past.

My family, most unfortunately had to learn the hard way about child abuse. As the children involved are now adults, and with their permission, I can tell you a little about who I am and how I got here. Several years ago two of my boys were molested by the 2nd counselor in the bishopric. Unknown to their mother and I, the bishop knew of the abuse and decided to help his counselor rather then turn him in or let us know. The abuse continued and finally the younger of the boys worked up enough courage to tell us what was going on. At the time, his older brother was in the MTC and what followed was an unbelievable series of events where our young missionary son was threatened with being sent home if he decided to talk to the authorities about what happened. Only after the county prosecutor threatened the law firm who represents the church and the MTC leadership with witness tampering did they finally yield and let our son talk with the police. During this horrible time, the church refused to let us talk with our son and threatened us with being forcibly removed from the MTC campus if I tried to go get him. The detective for the police department (not LDS) called the MTC a cult compound and couldn’t believe what the church was doing to try and protect one of its leaders.

For my family and I, the next year was hell. We hired an attorney and sued the church, only to find out that the laws on our state make suing the church for the wrong deeds of one of its leaders nearly impossible. Despite a lifetime of paying tithes and offerings, our new bishop decided that helping our boys with counseling was not going to be done as we had hired a lawyer. In the end, the bishop’s counselor was sentenced and our attorney eventually dropped the lawsuit because the costs incurred would be too great in relation to the chance of beating the church in court.

I’m sorry if I’ve come across here has harsh and unbending with respect to a lay clergy and training. I fully realize that my children could have been molested in any religion, but with most of those my attorney would have been able to show that the minister violated his training and hold the religion itself financially liable for what happened. That’s the way positive changes occur in corporations and religions. If I and other like me could hold the church financially accountable for bishop misdeeds, I believe the days of calling untrained men would be over.

I also would love to see the church change its 1-800 service for bishops to get help. They are probably more responsible than the bishop, in our case, because they told him he didn’t need to report the abuse to anyone. It seems this service’s only mission is to keep the church out of legal trouble instead of guiding bishops to do the right thing. When children are involved, the church’s first priority should be to protect them, not itself.

I’m not asking for your sympathy here nor do I tell you my sad story to try and make a point on this thread. I do think that awareness may be the first step in seeing the church change. As I said before, even if we could help one child not go through what my guys have gone through, it would be worth the effort. Please forgive my personal story; I know this probably isn’t the right place for it…

Doug seems to be advocating that a paid clergy will get rid of abuse, and lead to better marriage counseling. Nice idea, but it doesn’t eliminate abuse, or bad advice. Doug’s made the implication that replacing lay clergy with paid clergy will fix the counseling and abuse problems in the church. “If they were a member of most any other Christian religion, their minister would have graduated from one of several very fine ecumenical universities which include at least three years of course work in counseling.” If that’s not what Doug’s saying, then Doug, please correct me.

Training is great, and I think the LDS should train bishops better. But Doug seems to prefer talking about where he disagrees, and doesn’t even try to talk about where we agree. LDS Bishops should be better trained–some do a bad job. Doug’s bishop probably should be in jail. I’m not disagreeing with Doug at all here.

I too have enjoyed some great theological discussions with jewish rabbi’s, and lutheran priests. They do have more theological training than LDS bishops, and can have wonderful insights. It would be great if LDS bishops could get more theological training. No disagreement here.

I’ve also endured dreadfully boring services from highly trained clergy, and found that some clergy speak over the heads of their congregation, precisely because they know so much, and can’t convey it properly.

Apparently Jeff and I aren’t engaging in “productive” dialogue, because we dispute some of his points. I don’t understand–he complains that I “failed to read [his] posts, and then says perhaps he “fail[ed] to put into words what I’m getting at.” So who’s really at fault here? I think Doug could have been much more diplomatic.

We’ve all been to good and bad doctors, good and bad counselors, good and bad bishops, and some of us have engaged good and bad professional clergy. Training certainly helps, and all of us agree here, but somebody still has to finish at the bottom of the class.

If this was a catholic website, I’m sure there would be plenty of people like Doug, complaining about the bad marriage advice of the catholic clergy or the catholic priests involved in sex abuse. Mormon bishops don’t hold a monopoly on goodness or badness, neither do catholic priests with all their training.

I attended a ward in Georgia with bishop who was a retired sheriff. He was a full-time minister, and it was wonderful. I don’t even think it would be a terrible thing if mormons did have a full-time paid bishop. But it’s not going to eliminate all the problems that he presented either.

I think Doug and I agree on most of his points. It seems to me that Doug didn’t like the fact that I took exception with his paid professional clergy endorsement, and prefers to emphasize that disagreement. I just think he could disagree more agreeably by acknowledging that someone might be able to honestly disagree. Resorting to “you didn’t read my post” seems inappropriate, IMO.

If you are saying that Bishops could benefit from further training, then yes, I would agree. That some Bishops do a less than good job, Yes, I am sure that is true. In fact, I know it is true.

But, What was at issue with Doug was this obsessive notion that those people “trained for the ministry” are light years more qualified than a LDS Bishop. And just because they had a gazillion year of school. That is my only point of disagreement.

Also, he does bring up some legitimate points in his comments. Even if we three don’t agree with his ultimate solution, it’s important to consider the truth in what he is saying – and there is a lot of that, imo.

I’ve given up. Another discussion by pummeling.

Yes, that might have something to do with it Doug.

You’re right, I’m wrong. Does that make you feel better? Is that the kind of productive discussion you’re looking for?

I also believe strongly that many of the same people who complain now would complain just as much if Bishops became full-time employees of the Church – and, in fact, probably complain and blame the Church even more when devastating issues didn’t disappear (or even go down all that much). For that reason and others, I favor a more aggressive training program within the current system – and the extensive use of outside professional counseling.

“I just don’t support ditching the entire system and replacing it with paid local clergy. (and I’m not sure most of the denizens here would celebrate the training being provided by CES or LDS Social Services)”

That made me smile, well said and point taken…

I think the only point I would make concerning your statement is that the church decided long ago to have a lay clergy and therefore won’t consider the alternative. I won’t buy the argument that they can’t afford to pay one, as Bookslinger seemed to be implying. If the church was not so well protected by laws governing who can be held responsible for misdeeds of its leaders, I think the whole lay clergy think would go right out the window. As it is, they have no reason to change…

Jeff,

Next time you need some surgery, give me a call! I’m told I have a natural ability to heal and my bedside manner is pretty good too. Don’t worry about my lack of education; I’ve known some real idiots with doctor credentials. I, on the other hand have never had a failed operation or lost a patient. I can save you a lot of money…

I would support (gladly and immediately) efforts to make it practical to provide more comprehensive and in-depth training. I just don’t support ditching the entire system and replacing it with paid local clergy. (and I’m not sure most of the denizens here would celebrate the training being provided by CES or LDS Social Services)

I thought about the Apostles as a better angle than Jesus Himself. Thanks for mentioning it.

“Has much as you don’t seem to want to hear it, education is key to success in all professional type careers. Do you really not get that? If you do, why don’t you think it should be applied to religion as well?”

Ok, last time here with this. Education is a toolkit, just like a set of tools for a mechanic, plummer or other tradespersons. How one uses that toolkit is the important thing. Not the education itself,. Some of the dumbest people I know from a common sense standpoint are Masters and PHd degree holders. And some of the smartest people I know are as well. And some of the most intelligent people I know have no degree. I’ve interviewed hundreds of advanced degreed people, some we have hired. some I wouldn’t trust taking out the trash.

Education is a toolkit, not an end-all, be-all for anything. Certainly not as a compassionate minister, trying to emulate Jesus.

That is my point. Your point seems to be that university/seminary-trained ministers are better than LDS Bishops just because they are university/seminary-trained.

I reject that notion.

I’m just saying he wasn’t a “Bishop” in any real sense of the word. He was a professional missionary. There’s a HUGE difference between those two.