Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the News

[Jeff Lebowski]

Ah. I didn’t see that the way you saw it. I guess I just thought it pretty obvious why the fact that he rarely interacted with church leadership was relevant.

I think it is almost impossible for people to view this case objectively (myself included).

[Green Monstah]

I didn’t realize the POS committed suicide while in custody.

[Moliere]

Legally, I think he's within the law, but morally, he should have. But it's hard to hold a volunteer's feet to the fire like that. I'm sure he was doing his best, and if he knew the right thing was to report him, he would have. He should have known to report, but what if he didn't?

The helpline is in place to supplement the fact that these bishops aren’t professional clergy. This bishop was probably a podiatrist or farmer that juts wanted to get home to his family after a long Sunday. Bishops receive training on this but a lot of that training is to call the helpline. If the helpline doesn’t give correct advice, the. The whole thing is bound to fail, which appears to have happened here.

[Moliere]

Q. Did she explain why Paul Adams was excommunicated? A. she told us it was because he was having a sexual relationship with his mother, and that was not to Mormon church standards.

So I guess we can’t say he was exed for child sexual abuse. Now I’m even more confused.

[Paperback Writer]

So I guess we can’t say he was exed for child sexual abuse. Now I’m even more confused.

That is what the mom said to investigators (she lied) when they were trying to establish a timeline of the abuse of her daughters by her husband and trying to uncover any knowledge she may have had about the abuse. The topic of her husband's excommunication came up - if she replied that his excommunication was a result of his sexual abuse of her daughters she would have been arrested. She was arrested anyway, once investigators learned that she had knowledge of the abuse. I'm not certain but the discovery that she had prior knowledge may have come to light because of the bishop's counseling sessions with her and the abuser husband. Another possibility is that she confessed after denying knowledge to the investigator and other authorities.

While I don't want to absolve the bishop for a moral responsibility to inform the authorities, I think that others in the limited family social may have also known of the child abuse. Specifically, the border agent (BA) that befriended the wife around 2010 - 7 years before the husband's arrest. Wife confided in her (BA Warr) that she was in an abusive relationship and the BA offered to assist her and get her and her children removed from the situation. But wife didn't want to take action. Her knowledge could have been limited to only spousal abuse but later in the leaked document the BA is quoted as testifying at a previous court hearing that the mom knew back in 2010 of the child abuse, before any counseling sessions with the Bishop in 2011-2012. That leads me to think that the BA may have known of the sexual abuse of the daughter. Also, it is likely that the BA knew of the husband's excommunication in 2013 as a result of her friendship with the mom and because she was also LDS and may have been in the same ward.

Lastly, I wonder how investigators learned of the husband's excommunication in the first place. I think it may have well been this BA as the source of that information. She told the Bishop to expect a visit from the investigator per the investigator's testimony in the leaked document. During the investigator's interview with the Bishop, the counseling sessions came to light where it became obvious that the mom knew of her daughter's sexual abuse. At any rate, if the BA felt a duty to report this information during the post-arrest investigations of the husband and wife, didn't that same duty exist back in 2010 when she learned of the abusive relationship? If she didn't know of the child abuse then, did she know about it in 2013 when the husband was excommunicated? It is important because this person (BA Warr) is law enforcement - they have a duty to report.

[jay santos]

Something I don't really understand. A lot of people are saying something like "the Church advises (or advised--I'm hoping the bad publicity over the years has helped them improve) bishops not to report because they want to protect the good name of the Church". That doesn't just resonate with me. The Church knows that with 15M members, that a certain number of them will be murderers, child molesters, etc. I can see the motivation for suppressing it if a bishop or higher is the one who actually did the molesting, especially if done in church capacity like the Catholic scandal. But some random psychopath in Arizona, I see absolutely no motivation. The Church has got to know that not reporting is the higher risk move. So why was/is the Church advising bishops not to report in this kind of thing.

[Pelado]

Something I don't really understand. A lot of people are saying something like "the Church advises (or advised--I'm hoping the bad publicity over the years has helped them improve) bishops not to report because they want to protect the good name of the Church". That doesn't just resonate with me. The Church knows that with 15M members, that a certain number of them will be murderers, child molesters, etc. I can see the motivation for suppressing it if a bishop or higher is the one who actually did the molesting, especially if done in church capacity like the Catholic scandal. But some random psychopath in Arizona, I see absolutely no motivation. The Church has got to know that not reporting is the higher risk move. So why was/is the Church advising bishops not to report in this kind of thing.

I don't see any compelling reason why not to report in this kind of situation.

[Northwestcoug]

I don't see any compelling reason why not to report in this kind of situation.

Don’t forget the well-intentioned desire to help the sinner repent. If there is forgiveness available for something so horrendous as this, then a bishop may want to do all he can to keep the family together.

[Pelado]

Don’t forget the well-intentioned desire to help the sinner repent. If there is forgiveness available for something so horrendous as this, then a bishop may want to do all he can to keep the family together.

Let the sinner repent in prison.

[jay santos]

Don’t forget the well-intentioned desire to help the sinner repent. If there is forgiveness available for something so horrendous as this, then a bishop may want to do all he can to keep the family together.

I guess I could sort of understand that as an emotion for a bishop who has bonded somehow with the perpetrator and has some messed up perspectives. But taking the position that the institution is heartless and only cares about protecting itself, what could be the motivation. I thought of something. Maybe if the Church is worried they will get sued for not reporting something earlier. And so the safest option is to never report and always deny knowing anything? Is that the accusation?

[All-American]

Something I don't really understand. A lot of people are saying something like "the Church advises (or advised--I'm hoping the bad publicity over the years has helped them improve) bishops not to report because they want to protect the good name of the Church". That doesn't just resonate with me. The Church knows that with 15M members, that a certain number of them will be murderers, child molesters, etc. I can see the motivation for suppressing it if a bishop or higher is the one who actually did the molesting, especially if done in church capacity like the Catholic scandal. But some random psychopath in Arizona, I see absolutely no motivation. The Church has got to know that not reporting is the higher risk move. So why was/is the Church advising bishops not to report in this kind of thing.

The stated reason is that a person coming in to talk with the bishop has an expectation that what he says to the bishop will remain in confidence. But for that expectation of confidence, the confessor may well not approach the bishop at all. Once a bishop becomes aware of an issue, then he can work with the confessor to take necessary steps to address and rectify the issue even without breaching confidence. (As this bishop did, for example, when he not only told the perpetrator to report himself, but also had him tell others, who then also had a duty to report.) But if the person never comes in because there is no expectation that what he says will remain confidential, then the issue remains hidden.

To be clear, this is not about weighing the interests of the confessor against those of the victim. I'm taking for granted that the interests of the victim will always outweigh the interests of the confessor. The idea is that if you keep an open channel of communication it creates opportunities for bishops to help bring these issues to light and redress them, and that is ultimately better for victims.

Now, I don't know how well that argument holds up. I don't know whether any data exists to support or refute that idea, or if it does exist which direction it point. But when I've brought this story up to some ex-bishops, that was their immediate reaction.

[jay santos]

The stated reason is that a person coming in to talk with the bishop has an expectation that what he says to the bishop will remain in confidence. But for that expectation of confidence, the confessor may well not approach the bishop at all. Once a bishop becomes aware of an issue, then he can work with the confessor to take necessary steps to address and rectify the issue even without breaching confidence. (As this bishop did, for example, when he not only told the perpetrator to report himself, but also had him tell others, who then also had a duty to report.) But if the person never comes in because there is no expectation that what he says will remain confidential, then the issue remains hidden.

To be clear, this is not about weighing the interests of the confessor against those of the victim. I'm taking for granted that the interests of the victim will always outweigh the interests of the confessor. The idea is that if you keep an open channel of communication it creates opportunities for bishops to help bring these issues to light and redress them, and that is ultimately better for victims.

Now, I don't know how well that argument holds up. I don't know whether any data exists to support or refute that idea, or if it does exist which direction it point. But when I've brought this story up to some ex-bishops, that was their immediate reaction.

Yes, I understand that. I think that logic is coherent. I'm actually pretty sympathetic to that logic. I've actually argued for that in some of the Progmo-Exmo forums I participate in. In this case, it seems obvious to report, but as a general idea, I think it's compelling. At a minimum, it puts the ethics of the Church into an area that's at least understandable.

But what I hear people accusing the Church over and over is that their motivation is to "protect the good name of the Church". I don't understand that criticism because I can't imagine "the Church" (whatever that actually means) acting to cover up the actions of a psychopathic member non-leader in a way that actually does risk its "good name".

[beefytee]

The stated reason is that a person coming in to talk with the bishop has an expectation that what he says to the bishop will remain in confidence. But for that expectation of confidence, the confessor may well not approach the bishop at all. Once a bishop becomes aware of an issue, then he can work with the confessor to take necessary steps to address and rectify the issue even without breaching confidence. (As this bishop did, for example, when he not only told the perpetrator to report himself, but also had him tell others, who then also had a duty to report.) But if the person never comes in because there is no expectation that what he says will remain confidential, then the issue remains hidden.

To be clear, this is not about weighing the interests of the confessor against those of the victim. I'm taking for granted that the interests of the victim will always outweigh the interests of the confessor. The idea is that if you keep an open channel of communication it creates opportunities for bishops to help bring these issues to light and redress them, and that is ultimately better for victims.

Now, I don't know how well that argument holds up. I don't know whether any data exists to support or refute that idea, or if it does exist which direction it point. But when I've brought this story up to some ex-bishops, that was their immediate reaction.

It's probably why a lot of women stick with abusive relationships. They think they can help the perpetrator get better. The other train of thought is that breaking up a family by throwing a parent in jail makes the situation worse and therefore being lenient in these situations is best. I understand the arguments but don't agree with them.

The bishop definitely needs the trust of the congregation. As alluded to above in AA's argument, IMO not protecting the vulnerable is as much a violation of trust to the whole as disclosing what might be considered confidential conversations.

[All-American]

Yes, I understand that. I think that logic is coherent. I'm actually pretty sympathetic to that logic. I've actually argued for that in some of the Progmo-Exmo forums I participate in. In this case, it seems obvious to report, but as a general idea, I think it's compelling. At a minimum, it puts the ethics of the Church into an area that's at least understandable.

But what I hear people accusing the Church over and over is that their motivation is to "protect the good name of the Church". I don't understand that criticism because I can't imagine "the Church" (whatever that actually means) acting to cover up the actions of a psychopathic member non-leader in a way that actually does risk its "good name".

I think the argument is that the Church has made a decision, in instances where it had the right to decide whether or not to report, to respect the confidentiality interest of the confessor over the protection interest of the victim, perhaps being more afraid of a lawsuit from the confessor than that the victim might suffer continued harm.

[MartyFunkhouser]

I think it is almost impossible for people to view this case objectively (myself included).

I agree with you. I'd put myself in that group as well.