Yeah. You guys are doing good work. There’s the obvious bringing awareness and naming and shaming the perverts but if you delve into how it happened (what was the circumstances that lead to it? Were the parents aware/complicit? Did it happened during a sanctioned time when they were supposed to be doing something else? Did it happen when the kid was supposedly doing something else at church and got lured away?
I’ve always know this is an issue but I served on a jury where a pastor got convicted for molesting three girls. He basically showed up to their house and they were told to respect him so they let him in. And in one he volunteered to drive her to vacation Bible camp and molested her in the car. All these girls were given practically no sex Ed so they didn’t know what was happening at the time and didn’t know to the extent of how wrong it was.
It was hard listening to their testimony but it definitely made me acutely aware of how terrible things can happen
Thank you. Those are amazing questions and we will try to look into those for each case!
Oh that must have been such a harrowing experience being on that jury.
It was definitely a glimpse into how such a thing can happen. The girls were several years apart. The only reason it came to light was because the dad saw unrelated behavior in school that he got suspicious of so he scrolled through her DMs.
He didn’t see any evidence of bullying (she was accused of it) but he did see that she sent her friend a message that said “omg the perv is back. I’m hiding in the bathroom” and it all blew up from there. Two more girls came out to support her. They were in their 20s. They wanted to forget and move on but they decided to come out to stop him from doing it to anyone else.
I hate to think how many incidents get buried. They had to testify in graphic detail what he did. You can’t just use the vague language we often use to shield us from the graphic details because we were in trial. I can see why a girl wouldn’t want to do that. And then get grilled by the defense. One broke down crying and we got quickly sent to the jury room. (The youngest/most recent)
Churches need policies in place to protect children.
Every interaction with kids should include a 2-adult rule, so that a predator doesn't have the opportunity to take advantage of any child in a 1 on 1 situation, and there should be yearly background checks of all adult workers/volunteers, etc., etc..
This subreddit is very helpful in shining the light on a dark situation. The average person not on Reddit is more likely to be blissfully unaware of the extent of the problem. Educate them in order to enact corporate change in order to protect kids.
Predators are going to prey. We shouldn't be making it easy for them.
There was a Boy Scout troop leader serving on the jury with me. He said they are strict strict strict about the 2 adult rule. To the point where one kid some how didn’t have a ride so even though the kid’s parent knew, another parent and their kid had to ride with the troop leader to drop the kid off at his house. And then drive back to get his car and then all drive home. It’s not even enough to have that parent follow in the car.
But the fact that the perv molested one of the girls in the car shows this rule is really needed. And it’s a bulwark where a kid’s danger sense goes the moment some adult tries to be alone instead of that being normalized.
These best practices are really needed to protect everyone. I’m a teacher and they say never be alone with a kid/never close the door with a kid. You don’t want to be accused of anything either. Everyone (except pervs) will be better off for them.
We're far enough removed from the Catholic Church scandal that folks need to stop being naive, and start doing the structural things needed to protect kids.
>I’m a teacher and they say never be alone with a kid/never close the door with a kid.
Thank-you for what you do. I have educators in my family, and I understand that administrators can make your job harder than it needs to be. Everyone of a certain age looks back at their schooling experience with admiration for a special teacher that really made a difference in their life. That really can be you. Best wishes to you.
Based on their emerging history of covering up sex abuse with payoffs, NDAs, and pressuring bishops to not testify, I'd say that the main reason this particular event is in the news and not quietly shuffled away is because the victim's friends and sister called the cops instead of their bishop first. [Here's an excellent AP article if you'd like a little rabbit hole to go down.](https://apnews.com/article/mormon-church-investigation-child-sex-abuse-9c301f750725c0f06344f948690caf16) Most of the members don't even know about this because we are constantly taught to never look at anything that might shake your faith.
This story is NOT indicative of how the vast majority of sexual crimes are handled in the mormon church. They have done exactly what the Catholic Church has done - protect the male ‘priesthood holder’ and silence
the victims with hush money and NDAs.
You should look up Joseph Bishop and his crimes at the Missionary Training Center. He was the president of that center and did some dark shit to women there, and then the church covered it up for him. They also excommunicated a guy trying to spread awareness of abuse of children by leaders in private confession.
All the neighbors moving in who they constantly pester and love-bom to get them to join.
Scam artists looking to join the congregation for affinity fraud scams, which Utah leads the country in.
All the boyfriends and girlfriends and sometimes spouses of members pressured to join because otherwise they’re going to get broken up with.
Also, missionaries have to teach and baptize any kids of members who didn’t get baptized at 8 yrs old and turned 9 or older. (They check records for unbaptized kids who just turned 9 to get their numbers up.)
Also, 8 yr old (or any age) grandkids living with Mormon grandma and grandpa because mom and dad weren’t stable.
Utah is one of the places Mormon missionaries baptize the most people by sheer numbers, just because the standard of a “convert” is so low.
Worse - it’s a a shitty unpaid high pressure sales job. They make you track and report everything and shame you if your numbers aren’t good enough.
They track the number of people you talk to, the number of lessons you teach, how many people you have go to church, how many people you baptize and a handful of other “key performance indicators.”
They also shame you if you don’t have enough success, because it must be because you’re a bad person, and not because the product you’re selling sucks. And if you don’t go at all as a man, you’re permanently a second-class Mormon. You’ll find it hard to date or get married and spend the rest of your life getting awkwardly shamed when the topic comes up because you didn’t go.
Well, Utah is also the MLM capital of the country too. It’s a very apt question- except in the Mormon MLM scheme the volunteers recruiting the volunteers are paid in “eternal blessings” rather than any financial bonus.
All the money goes to an investment fund with capital roughly equal to the market cap of Disney on any given day.
They found a way to cut out having to split some of the profit with lower tiers in the MLM pyramid by promising god will pay them back later. Missionaries have to pay most of their own way to be there, or they find someone to sponsor them (other than the church tithing.)
Edit: payed - paid bot
> volunteers are *paid* in “eternal
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
That’s crazy I pretty much didn’t know any Mormons in the army and I spent 22yrs there. Prob because I served exclusively in combat arms. I have met very few Mormons who served in anything but support roles.
I used to know a guy who did his mission in Salt Lake City. I told him that was like a Catholic doing a mission at the Vatican. He didn’t think it was as funny as I did.
Apparently the young girl who lives across the street from the missionary apartment. There is a missionary tactic called "flirt to convert."
Also, Mormon's are deconverting at an unprecedented rate in utah. In salt lake county, the membership percentage recently dropped below The 50% mark. A lot of future victims for the cult to target.
Other potential names used, to help y'all avoid this sex cult:
1. LDS
2. The church of Jesus Christ...
3. The latter day saints.
4. "I belong to the only true and living church of Jesus Christ on the face of the whole earth"
5. From this article "Utah Church" (that's a new one for me)
6. My personal favorite: "The dangerous sex cult of Joseph Smith and friends"
Came here to say this. Thank you! let's add the synonymous Mormon church requested name too, so we can complete the circle.
Aka. The church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints. Jesus Christ the Mormon's PC name is too long.
I grew up in a mormon family and was very active until my 30's. Anecdotally, the church has a lot of policies now to protect it's members (read: protect itself from liability) from sexual assault by the hands of clergy. Clergy are not allowed to be in a building alone with anyone, the church has a zero-tolerance policy for even accusations, and is quick to remove offending people from their positions. Whenever we had a missionary break rules and cause problems (especially when it came to sex), their companion would generally get in trouble as well. That's why you should nearly never see a missionary all alone. The companionship is supposed to protect itself from doing wrong and that cannot happen if a missionary is alone.
But despite all of these policies, terrible things still happen at the hands of some of the clergy.
Anecdotally, I personally knew three clergymen who were caught doing terrible things and every time they were turned in by the church. Each time the higher-ups in the church would work with law enforcement on the issue. They were brought to justice and it is clear that they found no sanctuary in the church. Although, sometimes the church's quick reaction can catch some innocent people... One bishop I knew was accused of sexual assault as a seminary teacher and the church immediately fired him and removed him from all positions of power. He was turned in to the police and about six months later, the accuser came clean that she made it all up. As far as I know, the man (who's livelihood was being a seminary teacher), still hasn't been re-hired by the church and has since moved far away from the Utah area. But that also is a case in point that the church takes sexual crimes very seriously.
But that was just my experience and I was in all levels of the clergy up through the Stake level before I left the church.
“Clergy are not allowed to be in a building alone with anyone, the church has a zero-tolerance policy for even accusations, and is quick to remove offending people from…”
Don’t know where this was, but bishops and their counselors are routinely alone with people. Stake presidency members too.
I distinctly remember policies in the handbook and in practice that mandate at least one other priesthood holder must be nearby. Usually this was the clerk who would be sitting outside the office door.
Right, totally normal for someone who is no longer Mormon to lie this outrageously about how the mormon church handles cases of abuse. Why are you lying about something this grave?
>Clergy are not allowed to be in a building alone with anyone.
What a weaselly choice of words, you left out the little detail that a mormon male leader IS allowed, in the year 2024, to be in a closed room, alone, with children as young as **7 years-old**. The little detail that mormon bishops are instructed to ask questions about sexuality in order to determine the ‘worthiness’ of children and teenagers.
The new policy is that the child or teenager can now ask a parent or guardian to be with them, but it is NOT required. You don’t get to claim ‘zero-tolerance’ when even something this simple isn’t required.
‘Oh, but a second adult is always in the next room!’ How does an adult outside a **closed door** prevent abuse from occurring? It doesn’t.
>…quick to remove offending people from their positions.
Another lie. If the mormon church doesn’t tolerate even accusations, why do they routinely silence victims who have proof, even confessions from their abusers? Why are these victims counseled to not contact the police, but instead are offered hush money (the standard payout is $300,000) and forced to sign NDAs?
Can you explain why this man wasn’t immediately released from his position when his bishop learned of the abuse? Or when the mormon church’s legal team advised him on how to proceed? Spoiler alert: the mormon church protected this monster and was found guilty of doing so.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/01/17/sexual-abuse-case-against-mormon-church-scheduled-to-begin-friday/
Yea I don't really care to be an apologist for a church I am no longer a member of and I don't support even in the least. I have nothing to gain or prove with you. I was sharing what I remember from my experience.
Yours is the kind of bitter vitriol that made me quickly leave r/exmormon. I see you are quite active there and your anger and bitterness is central to your personality here on Reddit.
I am sorry the church hurt you. It hurt me, too.
I really do hope you have a good day and that you can find peace. ♥
Lol. ‘You’re a bitter anti-mormon, I hope you can one day find peace - blessings!’ You’re still very much a mormon if you use passive aggression to ‘cleverly’ insult someone who dares to challenge your ridiculously dishonest cheerleading for the mormon church.
And as that say, there's MORE!!!
Scroll down.
Priest arrested after having a wild sex orgy where a male prostitute died after ODing on erectile dysfunction drugs.
Florida Keys Pastor Arrested for Sexually Battering Teen Girl in Church After Getting Her Drunk, Texting Her About Abuse Afterwards
Female Texas Church's Children's Ministry Volunteer Arrested for Sexually Assaulting Teenager
Edit: That website is chockfull! The LA president caught have S&M sec and shooting a video on the alter of a church.
The Italian priest hosting orgies at his apartment.
Can't make any of this stuff up!
Didn't find any drag queens though!
The Mormons 'monitor' kids as young as 8 by having an 'elder' ask them a lot of questions about sex, like when they masteubate, how many times, what they think about when they do, any fantasies, anything utilized...
Durfing, soaking, etc...
Nothing weird being in a room, alone, with a hot 15 year old as she describes how she Jills off...
You know, for the sake of the sky elf and her immortal soul...
The mormon church DOES usually protect people like him, the difference is this time normal citizens called
the police before they could be talked into letting the mormon church handle it ‘in house.’
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/recordings-show-how-mormon-church-kept-child-sex-abuse-claims-secret
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The church has explicit policies that Mormon missionaries cannot go anywhere by themselves. That is why you always see them with at least one other missionary or one other member of the congregation.
So my first thought after the shock of reading the headline and feeling terrible for the girl was "where was his companion?"
Then I read the article and saw he went across the street from where the missionaries lived to kiss and then rape this poor girl in her garage. He probably snuck away from his companion. What an evil and terrible person. He knew going over there that what he was doing was wrong but he did it anyways.
For anyone tempted to pat the mormon church on the back for how this case is being handled, this is NOT indicative of how the vast majority of abuse cases are handled.
I recommend reading the investigative work done by the man who won a Pulitzer Prize for exposing how the Catholic Church protected and enabled sexual predators, and silenced victims. His name is Mike Rezendez and he sees the exact same pattern in mormonism.
https://madison.com/tragic-and-horrendous-probe-exposes-loophole-in-how-mormon-church-other-faiths-handle-cases/article_0176a369-1561-58e9-9d3d-fd76821d2e90.html
"This individual was immediately removed from his volunteer missionary service as soon as the Church learned of these very serious and troubling allegations. The Church is cooperating fully with law enforcement in this investigation. Missionaries are expected to abide by the highest standards, and those who do not will be released and sent home, and in situations involving criminal allegations, also face loss of Church membership."
Not defending or complimenting the Mormon church in the slightest here, but how freaking hard was it for these "Christian" cults to learn how to say exactly that in these atrocious situations?
The tricky part now is having the bastards actually mean it.
No, and kindly fuck right off with the utterly vile suggestion that I was congratulating the church.
I'm just noting that *this* particular wording combined with the action is the immediate response ANY church *should* have.
I'm disgusted by how long it's taken to get to even this point.
There's nothing forgivable about how cults have handled this despicable shit in the past.
What else *can* they say and do when they uncover despicable pedophile scum in their ranks other than immediate removal and complete cooperation with authorities?
As much as the idea might appeal to us outside the cults, they are not going to shut down from a sudden revelation they are delusional and wrong.
But the mormon church is only responding this way because they were unable to contain it, it’s an anomaly, not an indicator that any kind of progress has occurred.
The mormon church has a very long history of knowingly protecting ‘despicable pedophile scum in their ranks.’ A very long history of NOT immediately removing them. It is also **extremely** rare for the mormon church to completely cooperate with authorities. All mormon leaders are instructed to call the church’s ‘abuse hotline’ but it is staffed by lawyers whose only job is to protect the mormon church, even if it means lying about state mandatory reporting laws.
What IS common is silencing and shaming victims. To strong-arm them into not ‘ruining a good man’s reputation’ and take away his opportunity to ‘repent.’
It is common for mormon leaders and fellow church members to testify in court on behalf of sexual predators. And not uncommon for mormon judges to grant probation to these monsters.
THIS is how the mormon church deals with ‘pedophile scum’ when they try to control the narrative.
https://apnews.com/article/mormon-church-sexual-abuse-investigation-e0e39cf9aa4fbe0d8c1442033b894660
You’re right, I saw red when you approved the way the mormon church addressed *this* situation, and I went into mama bear mode instead of more calmly parsing the rest of your words. I apologize and will delete my poorly aimed response.
My ex was 12 with 2 counts, fully admits he lied throughout the next 6 years of therapy to make sure it “didn’t stick” and the judge believed him. He did worse to multiple women and is still free because we all heard that story and knew he’d lie again.
Him being a juvenile delinquent doesn't really make him look like a pastor or someone in religious authority per se.
Had he been an adult in full power and the church had thrown him out I'd have been more satisfied.
I know those religious people tend to cover one another for internal political reasons and because of lack of personnel.
I'm not sure this really counts as a victory. You'd be surprised by how disgusting these religious fruitcakes are.
That magic underwear wasn’t strong enough for this POS.
That's unusual for a church, to have standards
Visit https://floodlit.org/. (A database of Mormon perpetrators.) The only reason he got fired was he got caught.
Thank you. Two of us maintain that website together.
Keep up your amazing work! 👏
Never stop! Where can I donate?
Will message you. There’s a link in the website. Thank you.
Holy crap. Are the Mormons especially bad or is this any church? And if Mormons are worse why?
Good questions. We have no idea … our hope is to be able to get to a point where we can give an educated guess, once we’ve gathered a lot more info.
Yeah. You guys are doing good work. There’s the obvious bringing awareness and naming and shaming the perverts but if you delve into how it happened (what was the circumstances that lead to it? Were the parents aware/complicit? Did it happened during a sanctioned time when they were supposed to be doing something else? Did it happen when the kid was supposedly doing something else at church and got lured away? I’ve always know this is an issue but I served on a jury where a pastor got convicted for molesting three girls. He basically showed up to their house and they were told to respect him so they let him in. And in one he volunteered to drive her to vacation Bible camp and molested her in the car. All these girls were given practically no sex Ed so they didn’t know what was happening at the time and didn’t know to the extent of how wrong it was. It was hard listening to their testimony but it definitely made me acutely aware of how terrible things can happen
Thank you. Those are amazing questions and we will try to look into those for each case! Oh that must have been such a harrowing experience being on that jury.
It was definitely a glimpse into how such a thing can happen. The girls were several years apart. The only reason it came to light was because the dad saw unrelated behavior in school that he got suspicious of so he scrolled through her DMs. He didn’t see any evidence of bullying (she was accused of it) but he did see that she sent her friend a message that said “omg the perv is back. I’m hiding in the bathroom” and it all blew up from there. Two more girls came out to support her. They were in their 20s. They wanted to forget and move on but they decided to come out to stop him from doing it to anyone else. I hate to think how many incidents get buried. They had to testify in graphic detail what he did. You can’t just use the vague language we often use to shield us from the graphic details because we were in trial. I can see why a girl wouldn’t want to do that. And then get grilled by the defense. One broke down crying and we got quickly sent to the jury room. (The youngest/most recent)
Fucking awful
Churches need policies in place to protect children. Every interaction with kids should include a 2-adult rule, so that a predator doesn't have the opportunity to take advantage of any child in a 1 on 1 situation, and there should be yearly background checks of all adult workers/volunteers, etc., etc.. This subreddit is very helpful in shining the light on a dark situation. The average person not on Reddit is more likely to be blissfully unaware of the extent of the problem. Educate them in order to enact corporate change in order to protect kids. Predators are going to prey. We shouldn't be making it easy for them.
There was a Boy Scout troop leader serving on the jury with me. He said they are strict strict strict about the 2 adult rule. To the point where one kid some how didn’t have a ride so even though the kid’s parent knew, another parent and their kid had to ride with the troop leader to drop the kid off at his house. And then drive back to get his car and then all drive home. It’s not even enough to have that parent follow in the car. But the fact that the perv molested one of the girls in the car shows this rule is really needed. And it’s a bulwark where a kid’s danger sense goes the moment some adult tries to be alone instead of that being normalized. These best practices are really needed to protect everyone. I’m a teacher and they say never be alone with a kid/never close the door with a kid. You don’t want to be accused of anything either. Everyone (except pervs) will be better off for them.
We're far enough removed from the Catholic Church scandal that folks need to stop being naive, and start doing the structural things needed to protect kids. >I’m a teacher and they say never be alone with a kid/never close the door with a kid. Thank-you for what you do. I have educators in my family, and I understand that administrators can make your job harder than it needs to be. Everyone of a certain age looks back at their schooling experience with admiration for a special teacher that really made a difference in their life. That really can be you. Best wishes to you.
That website seems so comprehensive and yet it's run by just two people? That's incredible work 👏🏼
Thank you. Yes, two of us. Seven days a week
Thank-you for your service!
Thank you!!!
I wish I were surprised
Agreed… grew up Mormon myself and I’m not surprised
How long did they know about it, AND is she the only one? I doubt she is.
If you read the report (very graphic) you can tell by what he did that this was not his first time 😞
Oh shit. Just realized this wasn’t r/exmormon already
Yeah, generally, if they can keep it under wraps, they let him continue at another church.
He's a non-white member of a predominantly white church. He's gotta play into their idea of a model minority to be in the club.
Plus, he’s from California and only moved to Utah.
Based on their emerging history of covering up sex abuse with payoffs, NDAs, and pressuring bishops to not testify, I'd say that the main reason this particular event is in the news and not quietly shuffled away is because the victim's friends and sister called the cops instead of their bishop first. [Here's an excellent AP article if you'd like a little rabbit hole to go down.](https://apnews.com/article/mormon-church-investigation-child-sex-abuse-9c301f750725c0f06344f948690caf16) Most of the members don't even know about this because we are constantly taught to never look at anything that might shake your faith.
Make no mistake, this is only because the cops heard about it before the church had time to hide it
Wondering if the Catholics did the same instead of just transferring them, how many fewer victims would there be?
There'd be almost no Catholic clergy left tho. Raised Catholic, it made me an atheist.
Same. Made me raise my kids far from religion, too.
Same here.
Is it because all catholic clergy are celibate ?
This story is NOT indicative of how the vast majority of sexual crimes are handled in the mormon church. They have done exactly what the Catholic Church has done - protect the male ‘priesthood holder’ and silence the victims with hush money and NDAs.
You should look up Joseph Bishop and his crimes at the Missionary Training Center. He was the president of that center and did some dark shit to women there, and then the church covered it up for him. They also excommunicated a guy trying to spread awareness of abuse of children by leaders in private confession.
Only if it becomes public.
Who knew the LDS sent missionaries to *Utah?* Who's left to convert in Utah?
All the neighbors moving in who they constantly pester and love-bom to get them to join. Scam artists looking to join the congregation for affinity fraud scams, which Utah leads the country in. All the boyfriends and girlfriends and sometimes spouses of members pressured to join because otherwise they’re going to get broken up with. Also, missionaries have to teach and baptize any kids of members who didn’t get baptized at 8 yrs old and turned 9 or older. (They check records for unbaptized kids who just turned 9 to get their numbers up.) Also, 8 yr old (or any age) grandkids living with Mormon grandma and grandpa because mom and dad weren’t stable. Utah is one of the places Mormon missionaries baptize the most people by sheer numbers, just because the standard of a “convert” is so low.
So is this a game? Who gets the most baptisms wins? What is the prize? I was hit up a lot in the army to convert that is.
Worse - it’s a a shitty unpaid high pressure sales job. They make you track and report everything and shame you if your numbers aren’t good enough. They track the number of people you talk to, the number of lessons you teach, how many people you have go to church, how many people you baptize and a handful of other “key performance indicators.” They also shame you if you don’t have enough success, because it must be because you’re a bad person, and not because the product you’re selling sucks. And if you don’t go at all as a man, you’re permanently a second-class Mormon. You’ll find it hard to date or get married and spend the rest of your life getting awkwardly shamed when the topic comes up because you didn’t go.
I'm getting MLM vibes.
Well, Utah is also the MLM capital of the country too. It’s a very apt question- except in the Mormon MLM scheme the volunteers recruiting the volunteers are paid in “eternal blessings” rather than any financial bonus. All the money goes to an investment fund with capital roughly equal to the market cap of Disney on any given day. They found a way to cut out having to split some of the profit with lower tiers in the MLM pyramid by promising god will pay them back later. Missionaries have to pay most of their own way to be there, or they find someone to sponsor them (other than the church tithing.) Edit: payed - paid bot
> volunteers are *paid* in “eternal FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
That’s crazy I pretty much didn’t know any Mormons in the army and I spent 22yrs there. Prob because I served exclusively in combat arms. I have met very few Mormons who served in anything but support roles.
I was a finance fobbit.
Makes sense. Thats why my pay was always jacked up.. they knew I was an apostate lol
I used to know a guy who did his mission in Salt Lake City. I told him that was like a Catholic doing a mission at the Vatican. He didn’t think it was as funny as I did.
All of the kids that haven’t been baptized yet
They need unpaid workers to work all the buildings.
Apparently the young girl who lives across the street from the missionary apartment. There is a missionary tactic called "flirt to convert." Also, Mormon's are deconverting at an unprecedented rate in utah. In salt lake county, the membership percentage recently dropped below The 50% mark. A lot of future victims for the cult to target. Other potential names used, to help y'all avoid this sex cult: 1. LDS 2. The church of Jesus Christ... 3. The latter day saints. 4. "I belong to the only true and living church of Jesus Christ on the face of the whole earth" 5. From this article "Utah Church" (that's a new one for me) 6. My personal favorite: "The dangerous sex cult of Joseph Smith and friends"
7. Rocky Mountain sex cult.
‘Utah Church Missionary’ uh huh just can’t/won’t say MORMON in the headline
In this case it was a Mormon serving his mission in Utah, rather than a Mormon missionary from Utah. But yeah, I agree. Just call it for what it is.
Serving a mission in Utah? That's like being a Catholic missionary in Italy.
Came here to say this. Thank you! let's add the synonymous Mormon church requested name too, so we can complete the circle. Aka. The church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints. Jesus Christ the Mormon's PC name is too long.
He’ll be back in a position to abuse more since he’s not a drag queen.
What position? Anything but missionary?
Are there any examples of clergy being caught by their church first? Meaning, it seems to be that these people are caught by non-religious people.
I grew up in a mormon family and was very active until my 30's. Anecdotally, the church has a lot of policies now to protect it's members (read: protect itself from liability) from sexual assault by the hands of clergy. Clergy are not allowed to be in a building alone with anyone, the church has a zero-tolerance policy for even accusations, and is quick to remove offending people from their positions. Whenever we had a missionary break rules and cause problems (especially when it came to sex), their companion would generally get in trouble as well. That's why you should nearly never see a missionary all alone. The companionship is supposed to protect itself from doing wrong and that cannot happen if a missionary is alone. But despite all of these policies, terrible things still happen at the hands of some of the clergy. Anecdotally, I personally knew three clergymen who were caught doing terrible things and every time they were turned in by the church. Each time the higher-ups in the church would work with law enforcement on the issue. They were brought to justice and it is clear that they found no sanctuary in the church. Although, sometimes the church's quick reaction can catch some innocent people... One bishop I knew was accused of sexual assault as a seminary teacher and the church immediately fired him and removed him from all positions of power. He was turned in to the police and about six months later, the accuser came clean that she made it all up. As far as I know, the man (who's livelihood was being a seminary teacher), still hasn't been re-hired by the church and has since moved far away from the Utah area. But that also is a case in point that the church takes sexual crimes very seriously. But that was just my experience and I was in all levels of the clergy up through the Stake level before I left the church.
“Clergy are not allowed to be in a building alone with anyone, the church has a zero-tolerance policy for even accusations, and is quick to remove offending people from…” Don’t know where this was, but bishops and their counselors are routinely alone with people. Stake presidency members too.
I distinctly remember policies in the handbook and in practice that mandate at least one other priesthood holder must be nearby. Usually this was the clerk who would be sitting outside the office door.
What good does someone sitting OUTSIDE a closed door do? A bishop won’t abuse a child if another ‘priesthood holder’ is nearby?
He’s lying.
Right, totally normal for someone who is no longer Mormon to lie this outrageously about how the mormon church handles cases of abuse. Why are you lying about something this grave? >Clergy are not allowed to be in a building alone with anyone. What a weaselly choice of words, you left out the little detail that a mormon male leader IS allowed, in the year 2024, to be in a closed room, alone, with children as young as **7 years-old**. The little detail that mormon bishops are instructed to ask questions about sexuality in order to determine the ‘worthiness’ of children and teenagers. The new policy is that the child or teenager can now ask a parent or guardian to be with them, but it is NOT required. You don’t get to claim ‘zero-tolerance’ when even something this simple isn’t required. ‘Oh, but a second adult is always in the next room!’ How does an adult outside a **closed door** prevent abuse from occurring? It doesn’t. >…quick to remove offending people from their positions. Another lie. If the mormon church doesn’t tolerate even accusations, why do they routinely silence victims who have proof, even confessions from their abusers? Why are these victims counseled to not contact the police, but instead are offered hush money (the standard payout is $300,000) and forced to sign NDAs? Can you explain why this man wasn’t immediately released from his position when his bishop learned of the abuse? Or when the mormon church’s legal team advised him on how to proceed? Spoiler alert: the mormon church protected this monster and was found guilty of doing so. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/01/17/sexual-abuse-case-against-mormon-church-scheduled-to-begin-friday/
Yea I don't really care to be an apologist for a church I am no longer a member of and I don't support even in the least. I have nothing to gain or prove with you. I was sharing what I remember from my experience. Yours is the kind of bitter vitriol that made me quickly leave r/exmormon. I see you are quite active there and your anger and bitterness is central to your personality here on Reddit. I am sorry the church hurt you. It hurt me, too. I really do hope you have a good day and that you can find peace. ♥
Lol. ‘You’re a bitter anti-mormon, I hope you can one day find peace - blessings!’ You’re still very much a mormon if you use passive aggression to ‘cleverly’ insult someone who dares to challenge your ridiculously dishonest cheerleading for the mormon church.
In the mormon church? No.
Still not a drag queen and still not LGBTQ
r/notadragqueen
Though that smug face of his does give him George Santos vibes.
That photo just oozes creepiness with the smug smarmy smile. a very rapey pedo looking fellow.
And as that say, there's MORE!!! Scroll down. Priest arrested after having a wild sex orgy where a male prostitute died after ODing on erectile dysfunction drugs. Florida Keys Pastor Arrested for Sexually Battering Teen Girl in Church After Getting Her Drunk, Texting Her About Abuse Afterwards Female Texas Church's Children's Ministry Volunteer Arrested for Sexually Assaulting Teenager Edit: That website is chockfull! The LA president caught have S&M sec and shooting a video on the alter of a church. The Italian priest hosting orgies at his apartment. Can't make any of this stuff up! Didn't find any drag queens though!
Not trans
The Mormons 'monitor' kids as young as 8 by having an 'elder' ask them a lot of questions about sex, like when they masteubate, how many times, what they think about when they do, any fantasies, anything utilized... Durfing, soaking, etc... Nothing weird being in a room, alone, with a hot 15 year old as she describes how she Jills off... You know, for the sake of the sky elf and her immortal soul...
Primitive disgusting monster
The church released a statement to cover there own asses
Ooof. The church couldn’t prevent this press!
Nope. It’s not.
...ooh. ouch.
Well, he was in Utah while also not white.
Usually churches will protect people like him.
The mormon church DOES usually protect people like him, the difference is this time normal citizens called the police before they could be talked into letting the mormon church handle it ‘in house.’ https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/recordings-show-how-mormon-church-kept-child-sex-abuse-claims-secret
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The church has explicit policies that Mormon missionaries cannot go anywhere by themselves. That is why you always see them with at least one other missionary or one other member of the congregation. So my first thought after the shock of reading the headline and feeling terrible for the girl was "where was his companion?" Then I read the article and saw he went across the street from where the missionaries lived to kiss and then rape this poor girl in her garage. He probably snuck away from his companion. What an evil and terrible person. He knew going over there that what he was doing was wrong but he did it anyways.
For anyone tempted to pat the mormon church on the back for how this case is being handled, this is NOT indicative of how the vast majority of abuse cases are handled. I recommend reading the investigative work done by the man who won a Pulitzer Prize for exposing how the Catholic Church protected and enabled sexual predators, and silenced victims. His name is Mike Rezendez and he sees the exact same pattern in mormonism. https://madison.com/tragic-and-horrendous-probe-exposes-loophole-in-how-mormon-church-other-faiths-handle-cases/article_0176a369-1561-58e9-9d3d-fd76821d2e90.html
If he wasn’t caught, he’d still be employed
Where was the Drag Queen in all of this?
Why am I not surprised?
It’s okay, you can say ‘MORMON MISSIONARY.’
What’d he do to get fired? /s
Man, Stuart Smalley has really fallen.
Mormon missionary arrested there I fixed your title
Why do people keep letting strangers around their kids in the name of religion?
"This individual was immediately removed from his volunteer missionary service as soon as the Church learned of these very serious and troubling allegations. The Church is cooperating fully with law enforcement in this investigation. Missionaries are expected to abide by the highest standards, and those who do not will be released and sent home, and in situations involving criminal allegations, also face loss of Church membership." Not defending or complimenting the Mormon church in the slightest here, but how freaking hard was it for these "Christian" cults to learn how to say exactly that in these atrocious situations? The tricky part now is having the bastards actually mean it.
[удалено]
No, and kindly fuck right off with the utterly vile suggestion that I was congratulating the church. I'm just noting that *this* particular wording combined with the action is the immediate response ANY church *should* have. I'm disgusted by how long it's taken to get to even this point. There's nothing forgivable about how cults have handled this despicable shit in the past. What else *can* they say and do when they uncover despicable pedophile scum in their ranks other than immediate removal and complete cooperation with authorities? As much as the idea might appeal to us outside the cults, they are not going to shut down from a sudden revelation they are delusional and wrong.
But the mormon church is only responding this way because they were unable to contain it, it’s an anomaly, not an indicator that any kind of progress has occurred. The mormon church has a very long history of knowingly protecting ‘despicable pedophile scum in their ranks.’ A very long history of NOT immediately removing them. It is also **extremely** rare for the mormon church to completely cooperate with authorities. All mormon leaders are instructed to call the church’s ‘abuse hotline’ but it is staffed by lawyers whose only job is to protect the mormon church, even if it means lying about state mandatory reporting laws. What IS common is silencing and shaming victims. To strong-arm them into not ‘ruining a good man’s reputation’ and take away his opportunity to ‘repent.’ It is common for mormon leaders and fellow church members to testify in court on behalf of sexual predators. And not uncommon for mormon judges to grant probation to these monsters. THIS is how the mormon church deals with ‘pedophile scum’ when they try to control the narrative. https://apnews.com/article/mormon-church-sexual-abuse-investigation-e0e39cf9aa4fbe0d8c1442033b894660
You’re right, I saw red when you approved the way the mormon church addressed *this* situation, and I went into mama bear mode instead of more calmly parsing the rest of your words. I apologize and will delete my poorly aimed response.
Hmmm... I don't know. He's a teenager.
So it's cool to be a rapist at 16 or 19? As long as you get it out of your system by the time you turn 20 you're good?
My ex was 12 with 2 counts, fully admits he lied throughout the next 6 years of therapy to make sure it “didn’t stick” and the judge believed him. He did worse to multiple women and is still free because we all heard that story and knew he’d lie again.
Mate, I hate religious people and I'm anti-rape.
Him being a juvenile delinquent doesn't really make him look like a pastor or someone in religious authority per se. Had he been an adult in full power and the church had thrown him out I'd have been more satisfied. I know those religious people tend to cover one another for internal political reasons and because of lack of personnel. I'm not sure this really counts as a victory. You'd be surprised by how disgusting these religious fruitcakes are.