Tag: ecclesiastical abuse

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The LDS Church Must Adopt a Zero-Tolerance Program for Abuse

In an official statement, the church claims to have a “long-standing policy of no tolerance for abuse.”  However, it routinely pays millions of dollars to victims of sexual abuse and has required victims to sign non-disclosure agreements. Too often it shames and blames many who report abuse. Some abuse survivors were grooming and abused in one-on-one bishop interviews. Others were physically or sexually abused by bishops or by their husbands who served as ecclesiastical leaders. Unless the church adopts policies and procedures that provide recourse and resources for abuse survivors, the abuse will continue and perpetrators will be drawn to the church, which allows them to easily target victims.

Critical changes must include:

• Eliminating regular one-on-one morality interviews with children and youth
• Removing from church curricula and talks anything that blames victims and removes responsibility from perpetrators
• Creating an independent, empowered agency with a helpline where victims can report abuse that has been ignored or committed by ecclesiastical leaders
• Implementing policies and procedures that help abuse victims and hold perpetrators accountable
• Stopping the blaming and shaming of victims by silencing them or marginalizing them.

These procedures not only help abuse survivors but church leaders as well. Both will be better safeguarded from situations that encourage abuse. The LDS church will be a safer place for people to worship and join. Sacred tithing monies will be better spent helping survivors heal from abuse rather than defending the church from lawsuits by victims who were ignored and shamed. From a corporate standpoint, it will improve the church’s image and increase its marketability and credibility.

The church has a moral and spiritual obligation to better protect its members from predators, including those who hold or have held positions of responsibility in the church, and to better assist and help those who have been abused.

If the church refuses to implement critical changes, it will continue to foster a rape culture, where perpetrators are allowed to serve in callings that give them access to victims, where victims are blamed, shamed and marginalized, and where members and survivors are sometimes wrongly taught that victims are somehow responsible for being abused.

The church needs to show the same courage and compassion that it expects of its members. It will have to admit that although most leaders are kind, caring men, some are rapists and abusers. It will have to eliminate systemic procedures where ecclesiastical leaders are empowered to shield their friends and colleagues from accountability for abusive behavior.

We call on church leaders to adopt a zero-tolerance program for abuse. We ask them to listen to abuse survivors and stop silencing them. We ask them to end their policies and procedures that protect and attract perpetrators and wound and silence abuse survivors. As they do so, the church will “shine forth fair as the moon, clear as the sun” [1] and become more like God intends it to be.

[1]Song of Solomon 1: 6, D&C 105:31

 

“Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.” –Hebrews 13:3 NIV

 

 

RESOURCES:

Angela C, “Holding an Abuser Accountable,” By Common Consent, 23 March 2018.

Podcast hosted by Doug Fabrizio, “Authority, Sexual Abuse, and the Mormon/LDS Church,” guests Lee Hale, Lindsay Hansen Park, Angela Clayton,  and Natasha Helfer Parker, KUER Mormon Trust Interviews, 31 March 2018.

Podcast hosted by April Bennett Young, “Stopping Sexual Abuse by Ecclesiastical Leaders with Mary Dispenza and Judy Larson,” Exponent II, 19 April 2018.

Podcast hosted by Dr. Gina Colvin, “A Feminist Response to Church Sexual ABuse: Staheli-Hanks & Brown Edmunds, ” A Thoughtful Faith, 27 March 2018.

 

 

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Reducing Ecclesiastical Sexual Abuse in the LDS Church

Most men who are called to positions of authority in the Church are kind, caring individuals. I have seen miracles performed by Church leaders who served members with love and compassion. Many bishops and branch presidents serve faithfully and tirelessly. They reach out to the elderly, sick, widowed, poor, and needy.   Faith-filled Church leaders—and members—become instruments in God’s hands when they serve others.

Unfortunately, some leaders misuse the authority they receive. Some bully members into compliance. Others lure members into dishonest financial schemes. Some are physically or sexually abusive. Studies demonstrate that faith communities are even more vulnerable to abuse than secular environments since 93% of sex offenders describe themselves as “religious” and they tend to have more victims and younger victims.[1]

Studies indicate that up to 38% of women and 16% of men were molested before turning 18 years old.[2] In an extensive research study of many religious denominations that included Latter-day Saints, Dr. Diane R. Garland found that 32 members of congregations that average 400 members have experienced clergy sexual misconduct.[3]

Sexual predators often target churches because the church provides them with easy access to victims, because members tend to trust their leaders and to assume that the church is a safe place, and because perpetrators are often supported or quickly forgiven by the Church when victims report abuse.

Current LDS policies create a culture that encourages and protects ecclesiastical abusers. Some include:

  • Teaching members that they should trust their leaders explicitly
  • Dismissing reports of ecclesiastical sexual and physical abuse
  • Assuming that some abuse victims are responsible for being abused
  • Punishing those who report abuse by blaming, silencing or shaming them
  • Presuming that abusers are not guilty unless convicted in a court
  • Failing to adequately train leaders and members on abuse recognition, avoidance, reporting, and treatment.

When an abuser is called as a church leader—or when a church leader becomes an abuser— they can use their position to groom victims. Predators can target people of any age and tend to seek out those who are vulnerable, trusting, and naïve. Child, youth, and adults can be more easily abused since many believe that their leaders and teachers are trustworthy.

Some ways that some ecclesiastical predators groom victims include:

  • Paying special attempt to the victim and making him or her feel special
  • Convincing the victim that the predator can be trusted[4]
  • Asking the victim to share concerns, fears and even details of sexual trauma which should only be revealed in a professional counseling setting
  • Telling the victim that the predator has special insight into their needs and feelings which others lack
  • Isolating the victim by creating situations where they are alone together
  • Breaking down a victim’s natural defenses until he can coerce or manipulate the victim to do his/her bidding
  • Conditioning a child to become used to various degrees of physical touch and intimacy
  • Sharing secrets with the adult victim, ie., saying that they are unhappily married and would have married the victim if they had known them sooner; claiming that God would want them to share a sexual relationship; causing them to believe that the predator has received inspiration regarding them; convincing the victim that he or she is the love of predator’s life
  • Manipulating the victim to tell no one about the abuse, ie., telling the victim that no one would believe what she said or that she could be punished for disclosing what happened
  • Maintaining control by using threats or guilt to force continued participate and silence
  • Grooming friends and family of the victim by convincing them that the perpetrator is a charming, faithful, trustworthy person to make certain that a victim’s report of abuse is discounted or ignored

No organization can prevent all incidents of sexual abuse. However, organizations, especially churches, can and should implement policies and procedures that better protect its members and promote recovery for abuse victims.  The LDS Church can reduce the prevalence of serious abuse by:

  • Providing a help line for victims of ecclesiastical abuse with skilled trauma counselors who are authorized to provide survivors with needed medical and mental health care and to hold perpetrators accountable.
  • Training members on abuse recognition and avoidance.
  • Instructing leaders that perpetrators—not victims– are responsible for abuse.
  • Discontinuing practices or teachings that blame, shame or silence victims.[5]
  • Eliminating one-on-one interviews that discuss sexually explicit questions with children.
  • Teaching members to use discernment and caution in all of their interactions in and out of the Church.
  • Preventing known perpetrators from holding Church positions where they can abuse others.
  • Requiring a leader or parent to attend bishop interviews
  •  Requiring bishops to refer all members who need psychological counseling to skilled professionals.

Most Church members and leaders are compassionate and caring. However, some use their Church positions as a means to abuse others.  We pray that the Church will make essential procedural and policy changes to better protect its members from abuse and to ensure that its leaders help—and do not harm— survivors of ecclesiastical abuse.

 

1. Ann Salter, Ph.D., Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists, And Other Sex Offenders, 2004.

2. Nora Harlow, M.D., and Gene G. Abel, Stop Child Molestation Book, 2001.

3. Diane Garland, Ph.D., “The Prevalence of Clergy Sexual Misconduct with Adults: A Research Study,” Baylor University, 2008. https://www.baylor.edu/clergysexualmisconduct/index.php?id=67406

4. In the LDS Church, this is additional problematic, since members are taught that all local leaders have been called by God. For example, see President Henry B. Eyring’s October 2017, General Conference talk in which he quoted Elder James B. Faust, who said: “We … need to support and sustain our local leaders, because they … have been ‘called and chosen.’ Every member of this Church may receive counsel from a bishop or a branch president, a stake or a mission president, and the President of the Church and his associates.”

5. Examples include excommunicating victims or members who report or document ecclesiastical abuse, stating that victims are somehow responsible for the abuse they suffered, punishing the victim but not the perpetrator, forcing victims to sign non-disclosure agreements in order to receive help, and disclosing confidential Church information about victims.

RESOURCES:

Mark Scheffers, M.S.W.,  Child Trauma Assessment Center, Western Michigan University.

Joe E. Trull & James E. Carter, Ministerial Ethics: Being a Good Minister In A Not-So-Good World (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1993), 81.

Dr. Kris Helge and Bradley T. B. Toben, “Sexual Misconduct of Clergypersons with Congregants or Parishioners,” Clergy Sexual Misconduct and Prevention, Baylor University.

“Grooming Dynamic,” National Center for Prevention of Crime.

Rosemary Webb and Jennifer Mitchell, “A Profile of a Child Molester,” Child Lures Prevention, 2018.

Tim Challis, “Six Reasons Why Sexual Predators Target Churches,” 9 March 2015.

 

 

 

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Ministering

One of the Church’s strengths is ministering to others. Compassionate service is a great Mormon tradition. Members often assist those who are sick or bereaved, visit the widowed and lonely, feed the hungry and perform a host of other acts of Christ-like service.

Each week members serve toddlers, children, teens, and adults through music, lessons, and activities. Millions of members spend countless hours serving folks in their congregations and neighborhoods throughout the world. Most serve tirelessly and faithfully.

Although the Church can bless others, when its leaders are abusive, it can wound others. Too many LDS members have been abused by Church leaders who preyed on their innocence and trust. The effects of ecclesiastical sexual or physical abuse are devastating not only to victims but to those who love them.

Because abuse victims have nowhere in the Church to turn except to their LDS leaders, if the leaders are the abusers, they are silenced. Too often the Church shames and blames victims while it protects and aids abusers.

Some members who have attempted to chronicle ecclesiastical abuse have been excommunicated or threatened with excommunication if they speak up. Some who reported ecclesiastical abuse have lost their memberships in the Church. Instead of punishing the perpetrators, too often the Church punishes, gaslights, or silences the victims.*

When abuse occurs, the Church needs to listen to survivors and help them heal. To do this, the Church needs to authorize a team of crisis therapists, victim’s advocates, and other skilled professionals to listen to abuse victims who have been ignored or abused their ecclesiastical leaders.

This group would operate a 24-hour hotline and be empowered to hold perpetrators accountable and to make certain that survivors receive necessary help to recover. The group would also ensure that reported abusers are prevented from holding positions where they can further abuse others.

To follow Jesus’ example, the Church must minister to all abuse survivors, including those who were abused by people who hold—or have held—positions of trust in the Church. It must take necessary steps in order to follow its written policy: “When abuse occurs, the first and immediate responsibility of Church leaders is to help those who have been abused and to protect vulnerable persons from future abuse.”**

 

*One example of many with which I am personally acquainted includes this account: “When Black Eyes and Police Reports Don’t Matter,” Sisters Quorum, 22 February 2018.

**See LDS Newsroom, “First Presidency Directs Leaders to Prevent and Respond to Abuse,” 26 March 2018 (includes links to a First Presidency letter and the revised Handbook of Instructions “Preventing and Responding to Abuse”)

Other critical steps include eliminating one-on-one interviews with children and youth and providing Church leaders and members with training on ways to prevent abuse and how to recognize abuse symptoms.

 

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