[SPEAKER_01]: Today, I'm going to be talking a little bit about the Mormon Church.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, those of you that listen to the show often know that I come from the Independent Fundamental Baptist Movement.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that now is a former fundamentalist.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm shedding light on the dark side of the church from the pulpits to the pews.
[SPEAKER_01]: And typically, I stay within my realm of experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've talked about the Independent Fundamental Baptist Movement.
[SPEAKER_01]: Primarily, I've also talked about things like the Southern Baptist Convention or Strange Offshoots, like the new Independent Fundamental Baptist Movement.
[SPEAKER_01]: But today, I need to talk about the Mormon Church because there is crossover between this story and so many stories that I've covered on this show.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, if you're a regular listener, you know that there's nothing that makes me more upset than when there are legal loopholes that allow predators to go free for longer than they should.
[SPEAKER_01]: Especially when those loopholes are related to the clergy's need to report child sexual abuse.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's exactly what today's story is about.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go to give some context really quickly about the Mormon Church.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Mormon Church is a multi-billion dollar organization.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's essentially a gigantic business.
[SPEAKER_01]: And because of that, one of the big priorities of the Mormon Church is to protect its assets.
[SPEAKER_01]: This desire is so strong that the Mormon Church has a twenty four seven hotline that is manned by attorneys.
[SPEAKER_01]: Its purpose is for bishops to be able to call for advice with situations inside their churches.
[SPEAKER_01]: Associated Press reported in twenty-twenty that the hotline received a call from Bishop John Herod.
[SPEAKER_01]: Herod was counseling a man in his church, a father of a five-year-old little girl.
[SPEAKER_01]: The man was a self-proclaimed pornography addict and told the bishop he was abusing his daughter.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Bishop Herod called the hotline and the lawyers gave clear advice.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can do absolutely nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Herod told a second bishop who was also instructed by church officials that, quote, Bishop's work skews from reporting the abuse to police under the state so-called clergy penitent privilege.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just want to drop a quick note here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm in the middle of editing the video and I didn't mention this to the recording because I didn't know the clip I'm about to show you existed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, as I was prepping this episode, I reached out to Shalice and Sola.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's a former Mormon and the host of the Colts to Consciousness YouTube channel, which seriously feels similar to the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: You should go check out.
[SPEAKER_01]: She has an amazing job creating content around both the Mormon Church, but also just Colts in general.
[SPEAKER_01]: So definitely go check out her content.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I sent her an article and asked her some questions about the Bishop hotline and things like that in the Mormon Church.
[SPEAKER_01]: which she had heard about and she informed me that she did a live stream about this very topic.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is a forty-five minute episode that she did with an attorney about the Mormon Church and the way that they're operating surrounding this specific case and it's very detailed and comes from an expert perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: So please go check out that full episode if you care about this story.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm just going to share one quick snippet that talks about exactly what advice was given
[SPEAKER_01]: To the bishop, when he called the hotline, and again, he didn't get more context by going and checking out Shalice's full episode over on the cults to consciousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Podcast Shalice, thanks so much for giving me permission to use this clip.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: The children sued the church and sued the bishops on the theory that they failed to report the abuse as required by the mandated reporter statute.
[SPEAKER_02]: The church, then one, at the trail court level, by arguing that all the information they had was, again, fell within the scope of this optional mandatory reporting exemption.
[SPEAKER_02]: I highlight that because one of the failures along the way in this case is that the bishop himself, this first bishop, who's admitted that the church's lawyer, told him that the law did not give him the option of reporting.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, and I'm going to quote,
[SPEAKER_02]: quote that he could be sued if he reported and the instruction by Council not to report Paul to the authorities was the law in Arizona and had nothing to do with the church's doctrine.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was a lawyer that works for the church's handing glove law firm Curtin McCunkey.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he was also a sitting Utah state legislator at the time that he would have given this abuse.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's the bishop reporting the abuse, or I'm sorry, reporting the advice that he received from the Church's legal counsel on this issue.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the bottom line is that was absolutely not true.
[SPEAKER_02]: Arizona law provided an optional mandatory reporting exemption.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as far as I've searched, there is absolutely no state in which that advice would have been correct.
[SPEAKER_02]: What I mean by that is, there are often these optional mandatory reporting exemptions, but there's no state that I'm aware of that says clergy cannot report instances of abuse.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just that it becomes optional and then falls back on the church's doctrine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only should you not report it, but he's saying you would be sued if you reported it and that's where it's crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're actively protecting these predators and what breaks my heart the most is that at the time of the first confession or the confession, he was abusing his one daughter.
[SPEAKER_00]: After that, another daughter was born and he went on to abuse that dot four more years of this abuse that could have been stopped that could have been prevented trauma that you cannot undo with these children and it's I mean, I'm personally angry about this because that's basically my story and it's just it's so infuriating that this could have been stopped and they could have been spared, but the church actively chose to not protect these children.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't understand it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I think just to reiterate again, the way the church was involved, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a first bishop that was counseling the family and did not report the abuse to authorities.
[SPEAKER_02]: We then have a change in bishops basically a year down the road.
[SPEAKER_02]: So in in twelve, when we have this replacement, second bishop come in.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the abuse would have continued or they would have known about it for about a year or over a year before that second bishop decided, I'm going to convene a disciplinary counsel that
[SPEAKER_02]: about Paul's behavior.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that does not happen until, two thousand and thirteen.
[SPEAKER_02]: The one point of compassion I do feel for these bishops.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's not to excuse their failures because I've been very clear about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that they did receive this advice from the Church's lawyer that told them
[SPEAKER_02]: the exact opposite situation said that they could not report when the reality is that the law just said and actually the appeals court said that may not be the case we need to have a trial to determine if that actually was accurate, but even if you were right, it just would have allowed the church not to report it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not the opposite.
[SPEAKER_02]: It wouldn't have said that the church cannot report it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's where that misrepresentation of the way the law works really gets me grumpy because like you said, it did allow for a completely separate daughter to then be victimized by Paul.
[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, now that you've heard that, let's get back into the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: The only reason they abused stopped was not because the church intervened.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not because the church reported, which they didn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: He stopped because he uploaded video of his abuse online, where it was discovered by law enforcement.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was arrested and killed himself a few months later.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now this case is already disturbing as is.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of things were mishandled along the way that we could spend a lot of time talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: But an added layer came into the story in twenty twenty three when as Axios reported
[SPEAKER_01]: A judge ruled that the man's children couldn't sue the church for how they handled this because clergy are not required to report abuse they learned about in a spiritual confession.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that happened in twenty twenty three, the ability for the children, the victims of this man to pursue a lawsuit was taken away.
[SPEAKER_01]: But on July thirty, twenty-five, just a couple of days ago, USA today reported that in a unanimous decision, an Arizona appeals court reversed that ruling.
[SPEAKER_01]: The court based this decision on two key points.
[SPEAKER_01]: First, the man had later admitted the abuse to his wife during a meeting with a bishop, and a jury could recently decide that the meeting was not a religious confession.
[SPEAKER_01]: The second thing the court basis decision on was that he also confessed in a church disciplinary hearing, which may not amount to quote unquote spiritual counsel that's exempt from reporting requirements.
[SPEAKER_01]: The spokesperson for the Mormon Church told Axios that they plan to appeal the decision.
[SPEAKER_01]: stating in part that, in this tragic case involving abuse perpetrated by the children's father, the church and its clergy acted in accordance with Arizona law.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now to reiterate, in this instance, it appears to me that the exemption the church is claiming does not exist in Arizona law.
[SPEAKER_01]: The law clearly defines that the only exemption involves what shared in confession
[SPEAKER_01]: if it violates the concept of the religion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the detail of the law.
[SPEAKER_01]: Any person who recently believes that a minor is or has been the victim of physical entry, abuse, child abuse, a reportable offense, or neglect that appears to have been inflicted on the minor by other than accidental means, or that is not explained by the available medical history as being accidental in nature, or who recently said there has been a denial or deprivation of necessary medical treatment or surgical care,
[SPEAKER_01]: or nourishment with the intent to cause or allow the death of an infant who is protected under section thirty six twenty two eighty one child and immediately report or cause reports being made of this information to a peace officer to the Department of Child Safety or to a tribal law enforcement or social services agency for Indian and minor who resides on an Indian reservation except if the report concerns a person who does not have care, custody or control of the minor the report should be made to a peace officer only.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the loophole.
[SPEAKER_01]: A member of the clergy, a Christian science practitioner, or a priest who has received a confidential communication, or a confession in that person's role as a member of the clergy, as a Christian science practitioner, or as a priest in the course of the discipline enjoyed by the church, to which the member of the clergy, the Christian science practitioner, or the priest belongs, may withhold reporting of the communication
[SPEAKER_01]: or confession if the member of the clergy, the Christian science practitioner, or the priest, determines that it is reasonable and necessary within the concepts of the religion.
[SPEAKER_01]: This exemption applies only to the communication or confession and not to personal observations the member of the clergy, the Christian science practitioner, or the priest may otherwise make of the minor.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now again, if you're going to ask me my personal opinion on this loophole, it shouldn't exist.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's absolutely no reason that a child safety should be put after the privacy of the individual who is committing this crime.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's worth noting that this exemption still exists in the majority of states.
[SPEAKER_01]: Currently, the only US states that have entirely eliminated clergy exemptions for reporting suspected child abuse are New Hampshire, North Carolina,
[SPEAKER_01]: Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Texas, West Virginia, and most recently, Washington.
[SPEAKER_01]: That law came into effect in twenty twenty five, but is currently being attacked by the Department of Justice as being an anti-catholic law.
[SPEAKER_01]: I cover that in detail in a previous episode of the show, and I've linked to it in the show notes of this episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's another interesting wrinkle to the Church's argument.
[SPEAKER_01]: The LDS handbook, at least on paper, says that Bishops must report, quote, when disclosure is necessary to prevent life-threatening harm or serious injury.
[SPEAKER_01]: In such cases, the duty to protect others is more important than the duty of confidentiality, reads the handbook, as quoted by the Church's decision.
[SPEAKER_01]: So not only is there a moral and ethical responsibility to report this crime,
[SPEAKER_01]: The Church's own doctrine, which is the thing that would allow them to have a loophole here, encourages Bishops to report child abuse.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a difference between what's on paper and what advice is being given to Bishops from this helpline that is running with attorneys at the wheel.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, why am I talking about this?
[SPEAKER_01]: The reason I'm talking about this is because the decisions that are made surrounding this case could set important precedents for future cases like it in other denominations across the state of Arizona, and I'm hopeful that the victims in this particular case will receive some semblance of justice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Meanwhile, I encourage everyone to push for their state leaders to close any and all of these clergy reporting loopholes that might exist by them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Currently, these following U.S.
[SPEAKER_01]: states have legal loopholes that allow clergy to withhold reporting a child abuse.
[SPEAKER_01]: Take a listen for your state and if it's something that you find out through this episode and every time talk about clergy loopholes, someone says, I didn't know that was a thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Listen for your state.
[SPEAKER_01]: If it is something that's happening in your state, see if there's any active legislation being pushed to change this and contact your state representatives to see what you can do to support removing loopholes like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are the current states that have those legal loopholes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, which I'm covering right now, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin,
[SPEAKER_01]: and Wyoming.
[SPEAKER_01]: as always with these episodes where they are more informational and it's talking about something that's really important.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's frustrating to me like when I talked about Washington that these seem to be the episodes that get the lowest amount of traction when it's something that I think citizens in these states should take notice and should be spreading the news about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So please share this episode, find the articles that I linked in to USA today or Axios, share those to your feed like get the word out whether you're in Arizona or not.
[SPEAKER_01]: The more people that are aware that these insidious loopholes exist, the better.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I just want to encourage you, please share this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why these episodes always seem to linger.
[SPEAKER_01]: And don't seem to get as much attention when there's something that just like, again, when I read this story, like, my blood boils for these stories.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, these are the things that I think people should be up in arms about.
[SPEAKER_01]: and just going after viciously on social media, going aggressively and contacting their state representatives to see what they can do to change these laws.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I gotta tell you, the Mormon Church is fighting hard for the right to keep loopholes like this in place.
[SPEAKER_01]: Other churches, other clergy are actively fighting.
[SPEAKER_01]: The story just covered in Washington, the Catholic Church in Washington.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's particularly in spoken in Washington.
[SPEAKER_01]: are aggressively fighting for this bill to be removed.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're saying it violates their Catholic religion.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, if people in their states don't fight for the kids within their states, nobody's going to do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And unfortunately, these organizations are throwing tons of money, tons of time and tons of effort lobbying to keep loopholes like this in place.
[SPEAKER_01]: So please, please, please.
[SPEAKER_01]: Share this episode, share the articles in the show notes of this episode, and please get involved in your local cities and states to try to push for better situations for children in your area.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, wait, that's it for today's episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: My name is Eric Schwarzinski.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the Prejoy's podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you on a future episode.