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 |
 |  Blame the Victim: Hushing Mormon Sexual Abuse
 |  April 10, 1996
 |  By Marion Smith
 |
 |  Marion Smith, founder of the Intermountain Specialized Abuse
 |  Treatment Center, and a longtime chronicler of child sexual
 |  abuse, in the shadow of the LDS Church Office Building.
 |  Answers to her questions about abuse cover-up are not
 |  forthcoming.
 |
 |  With terror, James Adams confessed sexually abusing his two
 |  young children to his LDS bishop, stake president and other
 |  men in his Beckley, W. V. ward. The children's mother was in
 |  Alaska; he had custody of the children. His bishop did not
 |  report Adams' abuse to law enforcement. Nothing was done to
 |  help or protect the children.
 |
 |  The abuse was sadistic and frequent, and it continued for
 |  five more years until the children's mother and state police
 |  learned of a 55-minute video tape that Adams made of his
 |  molestation of his own children.
 |
 |  A $750 million lawsuit was filed on Jan. 16, 1996 in West
 |  Virginia, charging the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
 |  Saints with negligence in reporting child sexual abuse in
 |  this case. The lawsuit names as defendants five church
 |  officials in Salt Lake City, including President Gordon B.
 |  Hinckley. Adams pleaded guilty to 37 counts of child sexual
 |  abuse and was sentenced to serve 75 years in prison.
 |
 |  As the highest profile case of child sexual abuse and the
 |  largest claim for monetary damages brought against the LDS
 |  Church, the resulting court battle could have far reaching
 |  ramifications for church officials and for how such abusive
 |  situations are handled in the future. While abuse has
 |  recently been condemned from the pulpit by some church
 |  authorities, individual cases are often hushed up, as
 |  officials act instinctively to protect the church's
 |  reputation first and victims only as an after-thought,
 |  resulting in a new round of secondary abuse.
 |
 |  The case brings national focus to an issue that only
 |  recently has been acknowledged and previously minimized or
 |  dismissed among Mormons. Child advocates say that child
 |  sexual abuse exists in LDS congregations in Utah and across
 |  the country. A year and a half ago, Lisa Davis, a Phoenix
 |  newspaper reporter noted "at least thirty-five recent
 |  instances of molestation involving the Mormon Church,"
 |  recorded in "national news and legal databases" ("Latter-
 |  day Sinners," New Times, December, 1994).
 |
 |
 |  Case Study in Coverup
 |
 |  A high profile incident in Oklahoma is a case study in
 |  cover-up. For Merradyth McCallister and Mary Plourde of
 |  Oklahoma City, Okla., their efforts to expose the child
 |  sexual abuse problem in their local Mormon congregation not
 |  only resulted in cover-up, they were ecclesiastically
 |  punished for their pains.
 |
 |  In September 1993, Merradyth and Jack McCallister and their
 |  son Scott of Yukon, Okla. told their stake president that
 |  Scott had been sexually abused by their bishop, Ronald
 |  Phelps. The stake president discounted and minimized Scott's
 |  abuse which had occurred over a two year period. Having
 |  learned from speaking with other families that Phelps had
 |  also abused other children in the ward, the McCallisters
 |  formed a support group for survivors of sexual abuse.
 |
 |  The McCallisters told "The Event" that the stake president
 |  then informed them they had "crucified an innocent man and
 |  destroyed his family," had "slandered Phelps," and that the
 |  children's word could not be believed over that of a
 |  priesthood leader." They were advised not to pursue the
 |  issue.
 |
 |
 |  Public Indecency
 |
 |  The McCallisters did a background check on Phelps and found
 |  that he had been arrested for indecent exposure prior to
 |  being called as bishop in 1980. He had also been charged
 |  with sexual abuse but not prosecuted; this charge was known
 |  to the stake leadership when Phelps was called to serve as
 |  bishop. On March 8, 1994, Phelps was again arrested in a
 |  men's rest room at Oklahoma University for investigation of
 |  public indecency and soliciting to commit an act of
 |  lewdness. The stake president then informed the McCallisters
 |  that the arrest had nothing to do with sexual abuse
 |  allegations. Phelps continued to serve in church positions.
 |
 |  The McCallisters continued to warn others that Phelps was a
 |  predator. They wrote to President Gordon B. Hinckley (a
 |  First Presidency counselor at that time), detailing these
 |  events and asking him to intervene. They heard nothing. When
 |  they went to the local media with the problem they were
 |  punished by their church leaders. In August 1994, Merradyth
 |  was excommunicated from the LDS Church for "conduct
 |  unbecoming a member of the Church" and for "actions which
 |  have not only affected the good name of the Church but also
 |  the good names, lives and testimonies of the members."
 |
 |  Jack resigned his Church membership in protest. Mary
 |  Plourde, a family friend who worked on this case with the
 |  McCallisters was also excommunicated that same month, for
 |  the same reasons. Plourde and Merradyth reported they were
 |  refused copies of their excommunication notices, after being
 |  allowed to briefly see them and hear them read aloud by the
 |  bishop. They said the documents were signed by Gordon B.
 |  Hinckley. They have since taken their crusade to Oklahoma
 |  City detectives and prosecutors.
 |
 |
 |  Pervasiveness of Abuse
 |
 |  Statistics from the Boy Scouts of America and the National
 |  Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse indicate one in
 |  four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused
 |  before they reach the age of 18. These statistics apply to
 |  all large populations. Despite public emphasis on family
 |  values, child abuse still invades Mormon families; one in
 |  four Mormon girls and one in six Mormon boys will be
 |  sexually abused by age 18.
 |
 |  Child abuse is disruptive to the individual and society. Its
 |  primary effect is shame and self-blame in the child's mind.
 |  A child is physically helpless and emotionally dependent. So
 |  the child's effort to gain control becomes a central issue.
 |  A child abuse victim seeks control in one of two ways:
 |  through self-blame, becoming a victim and re-enacting self
 |  abuse through multiple symptoms; or, by identifying with the
 |  abuser's power and reenacting  the abuse upon someone else.
 |  There is no way to assess the full cost of child abuse to
 |  the individual and society.
 |
 |  It is typical for abuse survivors to be in their 30s or 40s
 |  before they finally are able to start to deal with past
 |  abuse. Usually a survivor requires therapy for four to five
 |  years. The costs of therapy vary greatly, but $75 per hour
 |  is an average fee.
 |
 |  Sometimes, one generation of abuse shows up in particularly
 |  egregious violence in the next. Among the most notorious
 |  historical villains of the 20th century, Adolf Hitler,
 |  Saddam Hussein, and Romanian dictator Ceausescu were all
 |  brutally abused as children.
 |
 |  With the LDS Church awash in negative publicity regarding
 |  child sexual abuse in the past decade, church leaders have
 |  begun to speak publicly about the problem, General
 |  Conference speeches have condemned it, educational materials
 |  have been prepared, training sessions have been held, Boy
 |  Scout leaders are instructed now to send more than on adult
 |  chaperon with children on outings.
 |
 |  The "Bishop's Handbook" -- a resource available only to male
 |  leadership -- now states that a bishop must report abuse,
 |  unless the information came from a perpetrator during a
 |  confessional interview. Some bishops are more conscientious
 |  than others, child advocates observe.  There are those
 |  willing to walk victims through the fallout of abuse. Others
 |  describe bishops who hinder the process.
 |
 |
 |  Survival & Betrayal
 |
 |  Fourteen years ago, when I began practicing as a therapist
 |  in the field of child sexual abuse, I met adult victims of
 |  abuse who literally might not have survived if it had not
 |  been for the extraordinary support of compassionate bishops.
 |  At its best, the church system can work to help heal and
 |  improve individuals. However, when support is not given, and
 |  victims are disbelieved, blamed or are counseled not to
 |  pursue the matter, the individual is betrayed by his or her
 |  extended religious family in whom trust has been invested as
 |  freely as protective and nurturing parents.
 |
 |  From clients whose identities remain anonymous, I listened
 |  to stories of how their abuse was intertwined with their
 |  religious life and church leaders. John, a young man in his
 |  20s, says "I was abused by my scout leader when I was 10. I
 |  tried to tell the bishop about it once. He asked me if I was
 |  gay. I never approached him again. I am no longer active in
 |  the church."
 |
 |  Jane is in her mid-40s. While working in the travel industry
 |  for many years, she was in therapy for abuse she suffered
 |  from her father and grandfather for years when she was
 |  young. While her father was abusing her [he] was also her
 |  bishop and was widely respected in the ward. "I used to look
 |  up at him when he stood at the pulpit and I thought he was
 |  God. It's still hard for me not to associate God and my
 |  father as one person, even after all these years of
 |  therapy."
 |  A Provo woman, Elaine, reported that after years of
 |  struggling alone, telling no one about being sexually abused
 |  by her father, she finally went to the stake president, with
 |  whom her father had served on the regional high council. His
 |  response was that he did not see how he could possibly judge
 |  events between her and her father. He therefore had to
 |  assume that her father was "an honorable man" because he
 |  held a high church office. She must be wrong, she was told.
 |
 |  Jamie had suffered guilt and self-hatred all her life.
 |  Intensely religious, she says for years she tried to tell
 |  bishops and others in the church of her abuse but she was
 |  always told to forgive and get on with her life. "I would go
 |  to church and feel different from everyone else and totally
 |  unworthy. I couldn't ask for a temple recommend. I tried to
 |  fade into the background." Recently she has finally found
 |  ways to express and process her feelings about the abuse
 |  through the help of her current bishop whom she says is
 |  supportive and understanding of her needs.
 |
 |  Kate who grew up in Salt Lake City, was repeatedly abused by
 |  a ward member between ages 7 and 9. Her sisters were also
 |  abused by this man. No one came to their aid. Years later,
 |  Kate and her sisters entered therapy to deal with their
 |  abuse. One day when Kate's sister attended an LDS temple
 |  session, she was horrified to see their abuser serving as a
 |  temple worker.
 |
 |  She also learned that this man was serving as a volunteer
 |  with children at a local hospital. She called the hospital
 |  and reported him to personnel there. He was discontinued as
 |  a volunteer at the hospital. Kate and her sister wrote to
 |  this man's bishop and explained the situation. They were
 |  told that they should forgive and forget; the bishop took no
 |  action against the man.
 |
 |
 |  Blame the Victim
 |
 |  In spite of current instructions in the "Bishop's Handbook"
 |  telling bishops to report sexual abuse, many Mormon clergy
 |  do not appear to understand the legal imperative for
 |  reporting. A member of a 13-year-old Holladay girl's family
 |  told me that the girl was sexually abused by a ward member
 |  in his 30s.
 |
 |  A church disciplinary court was called against the girl,
 |  accusing her of sexual activity, describing it as an
 |  "affair" with this man. Subsequently, she behaved
 |  promiscuously with boys her own age. Called to church court,
 |  the girl made a serious suicide attempt. This did not deter
 |  the stake president from proceeding with her church
 |  discipline.
 |
 |  Only when the girl's grandfather intervened by contacting
 |  child advocates who threatened public exposure of the case,
 |  did the stake president drop the church action against the
 |  girl. Unfortunately, by then the girl had been deeply
 |  damaged by both sexual and ecclesiastical abuse. Without the
 |  threat of public exposure, the girl would possibly have been
 |  excommunicated while her abuser went unpunished.
 |
 |
 |  In Your Neighborhood
 |
 |  "From statistics available on child sexual abuse we know
 |  that it can and does happen in all neighborhoods, crossing
 |  all social, economic, ethnic and religious backgrounds," say
 |  Andrea Moore Emmett, Midvale, who encountered abuse in her
 |  neighborhood in the summer of 1993.
 |
 |  "If it hasn't already, it will happen in your neighborhood,
 |  to someone you know and care about; it may occur down the
 |  street or right under your own roof. Never mind the faceless
 |  statistics that say it's someone else's problem -- now it's
 |  yours."
 |
 |  A young man in Emmett's LDS ward sexually abused
 |  neighborhood children in his mother's unlicensed day care.
 |  Knowledge of this abuse emerged later while he was serving
 |  an LDS mission; he was sent home. Emmett's children did not
 |  visit the day care and escaped the abuse, but other children
 |  were not so lucky. More than 14 neighborhood children were
 |  interviewed by a detective and found to have been abused by
 |  the young man at the day care over a period of several
 |  years. Charges were filed, but plea bargaining lowered time
 |  served to two weeks in the county jail since his case was
 |  considered "a first offense." He was then placed on one
 |  year's probation by the court.
 |
 |  A friend living across the street from Emmett discovered
 |  that her child had been abused. When this mother pressed the
 |  bishop for help and therapy for her child, she was denied
 |  response or assistance from the church. She and her family
 |  soon moved from the neighborhood. "The bishop showed no
 |  concern for the children's plight; and he treated my friend
 |  as if she was a troublemaker," Emmett says. The young man
 |  was "disfellowshipped" (a punishment short of
 |  excommunication), but given support, therapy, a job and
 |  other assistance from the church.
 |
 |  Emmett resigned her church membership shortly afterward,
 |  saying "I was already disillusioned with the way the church
 |  treats women, but after this, I could no longer support the
 |  church as a member."
 |
 |
 |  Abuse Helpline
 |
 |  In May 1995, under pressure from increased publicity and
 |  mounting legal problems, the LDS Church announced a
 |  toll-free phone number for reporting child abuse directly to
 |  church headquarters, 1-800- 453-3860, ext. 1911. Some church
 |  members are encouraged by the helpline and express
 |  enthusiasm about having access to church headquarters for
 |  reporting child abuse problems. Others are less optimistic.
 |  The number is not for general use. Calls are accepted only
 |  from bishops or stake presidents.
 |
 |  "The impression [given from Mormon members here] is to refer
 |  problems to the bishop and let him call the 800 number,"
 |  says an anonymous Midwest Mormon woman. "We have learned
 |  first hand that it is foolish to leave this matter to be
 |  dealt with internally --  more often than not the accused is
 |  afforded more concern and protection than the person abused.
 |
 |  "[Those of us] in stake Primary, Relief Society and Young
 |  Women's presidencies wanted to find aggressive ways to
 |  provide support for victims and others, beyond the 800
 |  number. We got permission to put together a stake training
 |  meeting for women leaders of Primary, Young Women and Relief
 |  Society concerning child abuse. With many of the men in the
 |  ward and stake leadership, we must battle the assumption
 |  that the story ends when abuse is reported. We contend that
 |  the reporting (and the 800 number) is only one chapter in
 |  the middle of a very long book."
 |
 |  Some Utah Mormons assert that the helpline diverts
 |  information to church headquarters, where it is more
 |  effectively buried or covered-up.
 |
 |
 |  Speaking Out
 |
 |  When children are sexually abused by church members, then
 |  abused again with acts of denial and cover-up by their
 |  ecclesiastical leaders, it creates a double betrayal. Some
 |  Mormons who've experienced both sexual and ecclesiastical
 |  abuse have come to believe that only by speaking out and
 |  making their stories publicly known can such abuses be
 |  avoided in the future.
 |
 |  The Mormon Alliance -- an independent organization that
 |  identifies and documents cases of ecclesiastical abuse in
 |  the LDS Church -- will  publish in May its "Case Reports" of
 |  abuse (including sexual). Ecclesiastical abuse is defined as
 |  any type of coercion, repression or silencing of church
 |  members by church leaders. The Alliance has collected dozens
 |  of child sexual abuse cases in which ecclesiastical leaders
 |  have been negligent in reporting abuse or punitive to those
 |  who point it out.
 |
 |  For example, a Calgary woman reported that in 1993, "An LDS
 |  psychologist specializing in treatment of LDS women who had
 |  experienced sexual abuse was excommunicated for "destroying
 |  families and disobeying the priesthood [i.e., taking his
 |  patients' stories seriously]. Several women under his care
 |  now no longer pursue church channels to have their cases
 |  dealt with."
 |
 |  Mormon Alliance trustee Lavina Fielding Anderson, editor of
 |  the forthcoming "Case Reports," documents 23 cases of
 |  criminal prosecution for child sexual abuse by Mormons.
 |  "Nothing in church policy or doctrine provides the slightest
 |  justification for child sexual abuse," she says. "That's why
 |  it is such a shattering betrayal of trust when an
 |  ecclesiastical officer chooses to put the well-being of the
 |  perpetrator ahead of the well-being of a child."
 |
 |  In addition to documenting abuses, "the Mormon Alliance
 |  works to promote healing and closure for abuse survivors, to
 |  build more sensitive church leadership, to empower LDS
 |  members, and to foster a healthier religious community,"
 |  Anderson adds.  The Alliance believes that when child sexual
 |  abuse occurs among members of a church congregation, the
 |  result is enormous personal and legal problems. It damages
 |  individuals, families, the institutional church, as well as
 |  the Mormon community and surrounding communities.
 |
 |
 |  More Hard Cases
 |
 |  Take the case of LDS attorney Michael Shean in Santa Maria,
 |  Calif., and LDS seminary teacher convicted of sexually
 |  abusing young boys. Court records in a civil suit against
 |  the LDS Church allege gross negligence on the part of ward
 |  leaders who knew Shean had problems -- as a counselor in his
 |  ward bishopric, he had been excommunicated for abuse of two
 |  young boys that surfaced years later when they were on LDS
 |  missions. He was excommunicated, re- baptized and assigned
 |  to work with youths.
 |
 |  Or the case in Magnolia, Texas, where Charles Hohn Blome, a
 |  66- year old Mormon high priest, was charged and found
 |  guilty of aggravated sexual assault and indecency with a
 |  child. Legal charges allege that his church leaders knew of
 |  Blome's pedophilia and covered-up critical evidence about
 |  his sexual abuse of children in the ward.
 |
 |  In 1995, a Salt Lake child advocate reported to me that a
 |  15-year old boy was sent by LDS Social Services to live in
 |  the home of a southern Utah bishop. Not long after moving
 |  in, the boy sexually abused the bishop's children. Social
 |  Services personnel knew that the boy had a history of
 |  sexually abusing children, but they did not warn the bishop
 |  of this problem. They simply said the boy was "troubled" and
 |  "needed a good environment." By accepting this call to care
 |  for a church member in need, the bishop and his family were
 |  devastated.
 |
 |
 |  Follow the Leader
 |
 |  Or take Kris Morton's story. Morton was raised in a devoted
 |  Mormon family with a strong pioneer heritage. Her father was
 |  a high priest and their lives were centered around the
 |  church. She was sexually abused at various times during her
 |  childhood by family members. One was her great uncle, who
 |  served as a branch president in Utah. At night he would come
 |  to her room and sexually abuse her, telling her that he was
 |  "helping her," doing her "a favor." She says, "I tried to
 |  defend myself but I was no match for him in that situation
 |  and he knew it." Morton suffered alone, never telling
 |  anyone.
 |
 |  "In church they told us young women to be morally pure; they
 |  warned us about young men our age trying to take sexual
 |  advantage of us, but they didn't warn us about our
 |  priesthood leaders or family members trying to do the same
 |  thing. They told us to honor male priesthood holders because
 |  they act for God on earth. They told us to follow our
 |  leaders and do what we were told and everything would be all
 |  right. Well, it wasn't all right, and I'm angry about that."
 |
 |  Finally, when Morton was 36 years old, she began to admit to
 |  herself the full realization of her abuse. She entered
 |  therapy and confronted her aunt with abuse by her uncle who
 |  had since died. Neither confirming nor denying the abuse,
 |  Morton's aunt said her uncle "was only human" and he "gave
 |  devoted service for so many years the Lord had forgiven him
 |  his sins." She blamed Morton for bringing the abuse upon
 |  herself, and she accused her of trying to tear apart the
 |  family.
 |
 |  "My aunt was so supportive of her husband, she was
 |  compromised into denying the impact of sexual abuse," Morton
 |  says. "I needed her support, not her blame."
 |
 |
 |  Loyalty vs. the Courts
 |
 |  The first lawsuit filed against an American clergyman for
 |  sexual abuse of a child occurred in 1984 ["Insurers Help
 |  Churches in Abuse Suits," Salt Lake Tribune, Oct. 15, 1994].
 |  Loyalty to leaders may prevent most Mormons from seeking
 |  legal redress for child abuse. But continued lack of
 |  response to abuse, followed by denial or cover-up, are
 |  forcing some to seek action in civil courts.
 |
 |  Sometimes a lawsuit may be the only way to create
 |  responsibility. "I think we will see the Church change over
 |  time, largely because the lawsuits have forced the issue,"
 |  says Sue McMurray, a Texas Mormon. Lisa Davis' "New Times"
 |  piece reported that child sexual abuse "has cost the [LDS]
 |  church millions of dollars -- perhaps tens of millions -- in
 |  liability lawsuits across the nation." And these were just
 |  the cases "that made it into the legal system."
 |
 |  The problem of increasing legal action against the church
 |  was reportedly addressed at a September, 1994 LDS Regional
 |  Priesthood Leadership meeting in Calgary, Canada. Two men
 |  who attended the meeting but asked not to be identified
 |  reported that Pres. Hinckley responded to questions about
 |  child sexual abuse, warning leaders that if they had "the
 |  least inkling that people have a problem with this . . .
 |  then they should be left out of church positions."
 |
 |  Hinckley instructed leaders to watch for and take action on
 |  cases of sexual abuse since these cases were "costing the
 |  church millions of dollars in lawyer's fees and
 |  settlements." Hinckley said, "It costs the church time and
 |  money to fight these things," and added that "the church is
 |  being sued for millions . . . we have more lawyers than we
 |  know what to do with."
 |
 |
 |  The Catholic Model
 |
 |  Like the Catholic Church, the LDS Church may soon be up to
 |  its neck in negative publicity in mishandling of child
 |  sexual abuse in its congregations, and in responding to
 |  civil suits. The Catholic Church has paid hundreds of
 |  millions of dollars in settling such suites. One of the
 |  largest of these is the case of Father Porter who abused
 |  over 300 boys in his parish. Father Porter is now in jail
 |  after being criminally prosecuted in two states. Over 130
 |  adults sued the Catholic church in several states for their
 |  childhood abuse by him.
 |
 |  In the Fall of 1995, the Catholic Church petitioned the
 |  Supreme Court of Texas to hold that the First Amendment to
 |  the United States Constitution (guaranteeing freedom of
 |  religion) requires that the church be granted immunity
 |  against any civil suit involving the sexual abuse of
 |  children by Catholic priests.
 |
 |  In December 1995, an Amicus Curiae Brief (Friend of the
 |  Court) was submitted in support of the Catholic petition in
 |  the Texas Supreme Court by nine other churches including the
 |  LDS Church. The Catholic Church in this case is denying any
 |  liability for abuse committed by its priests even if the
 |  abuse has been reported to church hierarchy and continues to
 |  occur. These churches claim that the First Amendment right
 |  to religious freedom exempts them from liability even though
 |  case law holds them and their agents responsible for
 |  criminal acts.
 |
 |
 |  Who's Responsible?
 |
 |  By attempting to avoid responsibility for their agents'
 |  actions, the LDS Church appears to disclaim responsibility
 |  for decisions made by bishops or stake presidents even when
 |  they are aware of abuse and are legally mandated to report
 |  it.
 |
 |  The protection of children from sexual abuse is of
 |  compelling state interest. In many cases, civil action is
 |  the only available legal recourse for abuse victims.
 |  Churches which preach family values send a highly
 |  contradictory message when they spend long hours and big
 |  bucks to hide a danger that destroys children.
 |
 |  Many victims of abuse have pleaded with their church leaders
 |  to use church resources for therapy of victims instead of
 |  using the money to fight legal battles against the victims.
 |  Some church claims for First Amendment exemption have been
 |  rejected in Minnesota, Colorado, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
 |
 |
 |  Gagging Public Disclosure
 |
 |  In most settlements of civil cases of child abuse involving
 |  religious organizations, a so-called "gag order" is invoked,
 |  which means that the parties in the settlement promise not
 |  to disclose publicly any of the terms of settlement.
 |
 |  Gag orders make it difficult to ascertain how many millions
 |  of dollars churches like the Catholic and LDS church have
 |  paid in civil settlements. Some victim rights' advocates are
 |  asserting that gag orders may not be legal and that
 |  eventually they will be tested in court. But so far, this
 |  has not occurred. Some states, however, are currently
 |  considering legislation which would ban gag orders in any
 |  civil actions, not only in cases of child abuse.
 |
 |  Another problem with gag orders is that churches use them to
 |  deflect public scrutiny of a specific case where the church
 |  has behaved negligently or in a way that is protective of
 |  abuse perpetrators. Gag orders suppress information about a
 |  suit that might discredit the public image of the church.
 |
 |  Such was the case of Richard Kenneth Ray of Mesa Ariz., who
 |  confessed to three separate Mormon bishops in 1968 that he
 |  was molesting children. They failed to report him for 16
 |  years. In 1984, when the case came to court, the church was
 |  charged with failure to report to the police and with
 |  negligence in counseling Ray; he was sentenced to 61 years
 |  in prison for molesting five girls. A civil action suit was
 |  brought against the LDS Church which argued in vain for
 |  clergy confidentiality and lost; the Church then paid the
 |  victim an "undisclosed settlement" in 1990.
 |
 |
 |  Getting Abuse on the Record
 |
 |  State law requires citizens to report child abuse, but the
 |  reporting laws vary from state to state. Utah Law requires
 |  any person who is aware a child has been abused to notify
 |  the Division of Family Services or police.
 |
 |  Martha Pierce, an attorney for Utah's Guardian Ad Litem,
 |  which provides legal representation for children, says "We
 |  are legally obligated to report child abuse. There is only
 |  one exception and that is for clergy receiving a confession
 |  from a perpetrator."
 |
 |  The child abuse reporting law does not apply to clergy, if
 |  they meet five narrowly defined conditions: 1) Clergy must
 |  be acting in their professional capacity at the time they
 |  receive the information. 2) The information must be received
 |  during a confession. 3) The information must be obtained in
 |  the proper course of discipline set forth by the church to
 |  which that person belongs. 4) Information must come only
 |  from a perpetrator. (Thus if a witness or victim tells the
 |  bishop, the bishop must report it.) 5) The clergy has an
 |  official responsibility or duty to keep confessional
 |  information confidential.
 |
 |  If all five conditions aren't met, a religious leader must
 |  report the abuse. If later a victim or witness comes to the
 |  bishop and reports the abuse, then exemption is lost and the
 |  bishop must report it. A bishop can encourage an abuser to
 |  confess; he can also talk to the family and if any member
 |  reports the abuse, the bishop can then report it.
 |
 |  "This is the way it's supposed to work, but that's not
 |  necessarily what happens," Pierce says.
 |
 |
 |  Nurturing Naivete
 |
 |  Three women from different regions of the country have
 |  reported to me that in their LDS stakes, seminars for
 |  priesthood leaders actually discussed ways to avoid rather
 |  than comply with child abuse reporting laws. "I think that
 |  most Mormons are incredibly naive about the church's
 |  position on this issue -- which is to protect the church and
 |  its interests, even at the expense of the victims," Kristy
 |  Sumner told me.
 |
 |  "My father is a bishop and when mandatory [child abuse]
 |  reporting laws were passed in the state in which he resides,
 |  the church held seminars for all local leaders. The purpose
 |  of these seminars was to instruct bishops, stake presidents
 |  and other leaders on ways to get around the new reporting
 |  laws. There were no seminars instructing these same leaders
 |  on what to do for the victims of abuse."
 |
 |  Pierce says that often bishops assume the responsibility to
 |  "fix" behavior problems themselves instead of referring
 |  members to appropriate professionals. "Abuse cannot be
 |  solved in a simple interview -- it needs a
 |  multi-disciplinary approach. A bishop's calling does not
 |  train him to counsel members other than in spiritual
 |  matters," she notes.
 |
 |  "While many bishops do report child abuse, it is surprising
 |  how many bishops testify as character witnesses on behalf of
 |  the perpetrator. Bishops try to negotiate with attorneys to
 |  get lesser sentences and keep people's records clean so they
 |  can serve in church callings, go on missions, etc. In my
 |  experience, too often church leaders tend to align
 |  themselves with the abuser instead of the victim."
 |
 |  A California lawyer recently told me, "I had a stake
 |  president who wanted to testify in a sexual abuse case that
 |  had gone on for many years and involved many victims. He had
 |  been very careful not to talk to the perpetrator alone and
 |  not in a priest-penitent relationship and felt the privilege
 |  did not apply.
 |
 |  "The day he was going to sign the affidavit we had prepared
 |  together, he called and said that a "church attorney" told
 |  him he couldn't testify. He gave me the phone number and
 |  asked me to call the attorney.
 |
 |  "When I did, he said he believed the privilege belonged to
 |  the priest and the penitent. I disagreed and said that even
 |  if the privilege did apply in this case, the stake
 |  president/priest had waived the privilege. The church
 |  attorney said, No, I've instructed him not to do so.' I
 |  asked, You mean you have veto power over a stake president's
 |  inspiration and calling?' He said he didn't think of it
 |  quite that way. I replied, `I don't doubt that one bit.'"
 |
 |
 |  Backlash in Bountiful
 |
 |  During the mid-1980's, information emerged about a child
 |  sexual abuse and pornography ring run by two counselors in a
 |  Bountiful bishopric and other adults in the ward. Eight
 |  children independently told their parents, police
 |  investigators and therapists how they were sexually abused
 |  by these ward members. Only one of the ward members named by
 |  the children, Brett Bullock, was prosecuted and is now in
 |  prison. Police records show that other ward members were not
 |  prosecuted, largely due to the fact that some parents
 |  considered their children too young and vulnerable and
 |  refused to let them testify in court.
 |
 |  However, in private, the children independently named the
 |  same adults and same events. Later, one child who had been
 |  abused pulled every hair out of her head, her eyelashes and
 |  eyebrows.
 |
 |  Parents of abused children in the ward were horrified by the
 |  abuse and sought response from their ward and stake church
 |  leaders but nothing happened. A few parents went further, to
 |  LDS general authorities. One father went to two general
 |  authorities on two occasions to plead that something be done
 |  to protect other children from more abuse by the named
 |  perpetrators. But no action was take against the
 |  perpetrators who continued to hold church leadership
 |  positions.
 |
 |  "Their lack of response has been the most disillusioning and
 |  faith destroying experience of my life," this father told
 |  me.
 |
 |
 |  Disbelieving Children
 |
 |  The wife of one man who was a perpetrator of the abuse later
 |  told me, "When my children described the horrific sexual
 |  abuse by their own father, the bishop counseled me to
 |  believe my husband over my children because he holds the
 |  priesthood. I have not been active in the church since he
 |  told me that."
 |
 |  Another mother said, "We could not afford to move from the
 |  ward. I had to sit in church with adults who had sexually
 |  molested our children, and who had in no way been
 |  disciplined. I could not comprehend such betrayal." Several
 |  parents moved from the neighborhood.
 |
 |  The perpetrator in the bishopric, divorced by his wife,
 |  moved to another ward and acquired a new wife with new
 |  children. Others tried to warn both his new wife and his new
 |  bishop about his past abuses of children.
 |
 |  This man abused at least 30 children over many years -- from
 |  his teenage years into his forties. Nine children and four
 |  adult women independently reported to church leaders, their
 |  experience of sexual abuse by the man. No church or legal
 |  action was ever taken against him; instead, church leaders
 |  supported him and even paid his house mortgage.
 |
 |
 |  Ruined Lives
 |
 |  Parents of children he abused believe that he was protected
 |  because of his close association with the daughter and
 |  son-in-law of a church apostle. When his second wife
 |  discovered he was abusing their children, she divorced him
 |  and threatened to take him to court for abuse. She said, "My
 |  children would never have been abused if he had been
 |  excommunicated or the bishop had told me of his problems. I
 |  would never have married him. Now my children can't function
 |  and it feels like our lives are ruined."
 |
 |  One father in the ward, Mark Burton, approached LDS Church
 |  public relations, and then approached the regional
 |  representative of the church, pressing for action regarding
 |  safety of the children in the ward. He was advised they'd
 |  get back to him. They never did. Burton then talked to a
 |  member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, who promised to
 |  look into the matter. Burton never heard back from any
 |  church leader about any of the abuse in the ward. He
 |  speculates "This case was red-flagged by someone in the
 |  church hierarchy -- it was just too hot to handle."
 |
 |
 |  Hope for Change?
 |
 |  Can the LDS Church do better? I believe that it can and
 |  should. There are concrete ways of addressing abuse in any
 |  community and in the courts.
 |
 |  Gag orders in civil suits should be discontinued. Bishops
 |  and stake presidents should be required to report child
 |  abuse in compliance with the law. Prevention and education
 |  programs could [be] offered in church settings.
 |
 |  Bishops and stake presidents should realize that the needs
 |  of victims are equally important and take precedence over
 |  the needs of the offender. Victims should not be told to
 |  "forgive and forget" until it is in their therapeutic
 |  interest and capacity to do so.
 |
 |  The pervasive system of denial that says child abuse does
 |  not occur in good Mormon families must be radically changed.
 |  Perpetrators cannot be assumed innocent simply because they
 |  are "good members" of the church.
 |
 |
 |  A Personal Dilemma
 |
 |  If child abuse is truly the scourge that the experts report
 |  it to be -- a main cause of broken homes, drug and alcohol
 |  abuse, crime, mental and physical illness, sexual
 |  dysfunction, eating disorders and more -- then it is as
 |  important a social problem as any facing us today. If the
 |  statistics on child abuse are correct, on average there are
 |  80 victims and five perpetrators sitting with you on church
 |  benches on any given Sunday morning.
 |
 |  Rather than appearing as fanged monsters hiding in the
 |  parking lot, perpetrators may be your neighbor, your ward
 |  clerk, your visiting teacher, your dentist or your attorney.
 |  This explains why all the documented stories in this article
 |  are representative of many Mormon wards and in a variety of
 |  churches and social institutions.
 |
 |  In every case of child abuse, someone is faced with the
 |  dilemma to speak out or not to speak. If we minimize abuse
 |  or try to justify it we only make matters worse. If we
 |  confront or name abusers there are risks. We will always be
 |  faced with the cost of speaking out, or the cost of not
 |  speaking out, but either way there is a price.
 |
 |  The bishop and stake president in West Virginia made a
 |  choice not to report James Adams' abuse of his children.
 |  Those two children's lives have been destroyed by this
 |  abuse. Hopefully, the tragedy of this West Virginia case
 |  will not be repeated again and again.
 |
 |
 |  The LDS Church Replies
 |
 |  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was asked to
 |  comment on the failure of bishops, stake presidents and
 |  other church officials to report and take action on
 |  egregious cases of child sexual abuse detailed in this
 |  story. In addition, "The Event" sought comment or response
 |  to the charges against the church in the $750 million
 |  lawsuit filed in West Virginia in January.
 |
 |  Don LeFevre of the Public Affairs Department of the church
 |  did not respond to either request, but faxed the following
 |  statement:
 |
 |  "Children are precious in the sight of the Lord and the
 |  Church. For this reason and also because child abuse is
 |  increasing in frequency and intensity in today's permissive
 |  society, the Church in recent years has been among those in
 |  the forefront of the battle against such vile conduct.
 |
 |  "The Church produces public affairs radio programs on the
 |  subject and distributes them widely. Members of the Church
 |  are taught to obey the laws of the land wherever they
 |  reside. This, of course applies to child abuse reporting
 |  laws. If local leaders of the Church have any questions
 |  about local reporting requirements, they are encouraged to
 |  call the Church's 800-number "Help Line" for counsel."      
 |
 |
 |  © Copyright 1996, The Event [March 20 - April 10, 1996],
 |  Salt Lake City, UT.  [ Source: 
 |  http://affirmation.org/news/1996_05.asp ]
 |
 |
 |  (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this
 |  material is distributed without profit to those who have
 |  expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
 |  information for research and educational purposes.)
 |
 |  ____________________________________________________________
 |
 |
 |  HERE FOLLOWS THE DETAILS OF A SINGLE CASE as reported by
 |  Mormon Alliance trustee Lavina Fielding Anderson, editor of
 |  "Case Reports" that documents 23 cases of criminal
 |  prosecution for child sexual abuse by Mormons, as mentioned
 |  in the above article:
 |
 |
 |  RAPE AND SODOMIZATION BY DIAGNOSED PEDOPHILE IGNORED BY
 |  CHURCH -- AFTERMATH  (The story begins further down!)
 |
 |  Writing under the pseudonyms of April Daniels and Carol
 |  Scott, two women a generation apart recorded their
 |  devastating discovery of the havoc abuse had wreaked in
 |  their families. Their story appeared in Paperdolls: Healing
 |  from Sexual Abuse in Mormon Neighborhoods (Salt Lake City:
 |  Palingenesia Press, 1990). All of the names in this account
 |  are pseudonyms. Since its publication, there have been
 |  additional developments, which are we will begin with:
 |
 |  In the summer of 1992, Carol's two youngest daughters and
 |  one of their husbands met with Hank's current bishop and his
 |  stake president. They sought this meeting with these
 |  ecclesiastical leaders as part of their own healing. They
 |  pled with Hank's priesthood leaders to take action to right
 |  the wrong that had been done and to protect children to whom
 |  Hank still had access. Carol reports: "These authorities
 |  told us they were worried Hank might kill himself if they
 |  took action against him, but they said they believed us.
 |  They said they would have to check with their legal
 |  department and get back to us. We heard no further response
 |  from them." Carol's son-in-law wrote to the stake president
 |  later:
 |
 |          We met with you, as spiritual leaders, with the hope
 |  that something could be done to protect against more abuse,
 |  to better facilitate the long and difficult healing process,
 |  and to appeal to your sense of morality that [Hank] finally
 |  might be called to repentance. No thanks to you or any other
 |  Church leader and as you can see by the enclosed Verified
 |  Complaint; our objectives will no longer be ignored.
 |
 |          President, I cannot begin to tell you how crushed I
 |  felt to look you, a fellow priesthood holder, in the eye and
 |  tell you that a diagnosed pedophile, who had returned from a
 |  mission and who had married in the temple, raped and
 |  sodomized my wife and many others when they were but small
 |  and innocent children, only to have you tell me that you
 |  would have to check with your legal department and get back
 |  to me, which you have not bothered to do. I do not believe
 |  that Christ would care more about a lawsuit from one that is
 |  "better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck,
 |  and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea:" than he
 |  would care about the lives of God's children. Because we
 |  cannot get any support from our Church, we are forced to
 |  resort to a civil court of law.
 |
 |          I realize that no person or courtroom in the world
 |  can render anything close to justice for what [Hank] has
 |  done to so many children and their loved ones. I firmly
 |  believe, however, that despite your ineffectiveness and
 |  inaction, [Hank] will some day be called to a just
 |  repentance and [my wife] will be healed by a power much
 |  greater than yours. In many ways I am grateful that I do not
 |  have the holy calling that you have. I pray for you, as well
 |  as the children.[5]
 |
 |  [ ENDNOTE 5:  Photocopy in my possession. ]
 |
 |  A copy went to Elder Loren C. Dunn, then area president. Two
 |  of the women initiated a civil suit against Hank for damages
 |  from his abuse when they were children. Criminal action was
 |  not possible because the statute of limitation had run out.
 |  Even though Hank was an attorney and a member of the Utah
 |  Bar, he did not contest the suit, and the women were awarded
 |  a default judgment for $5 million. Their "damages" consisted
 |  of a token $100 a month, as Hank had sought protection from
 |  previous creditors by declaring bankruptcy. He also had
 |  never paid any child support for his four children.
 |
 |  In 1992 an adult woman who had read Paperdolls called Carol
 |  and said, "I know who Hank is. I lived in that same East
 |  Bench neighborhood in Salt Lake. He abused me for four years
 |  when I was a child, right up until he left on his mission."
 |  She had gone to Hank's current bishop and stake president
 |  and told her own story of Hank's abuse of her, hoping they
 |  might warn families in his present ward. But nothing ever
 |  happened.
 |
 |  In fall 1993, Hank was fired from his position with the
 |  State Tax Commission, allegedly for sexually harassing a
 |  teenage female employee. Carol and her daughters were amazed
 |  to be told later that Hank's mortgage was paid from ward
 |  welfare funds for many months, a payment authorized by
 |  Hank's bishop, who apparently felt that Hank's financial
 |  needs took precedence over his victims' claims.
 |
 |  After the agony of years, Carol, reported to me in the
 |  spring of 1996 the ending of this story for Hank -- though
 |  not the end of his bitter legacy for his victims. She had
 |  learned these details when Hank's second wife, Elaine,
 |  called her. A year before in the spring of 1995, Hank and
 |  Elaine separated, due to a number of stresses on their
 |  marriage. Hank left the state for another job. When Elaine
 |  told her two daughters by her first marriage and the son she
 |  had borne to Hank that she planned to divorce him, the three
 |  children told their mother of their years of sexual and
 |  physical abuse at his hands. "He did it to us when we were
 |  bad," they said. "He wasn't always mean, just sometimes. He
 |  said he was teaching us to mind and be good." Elaine called
 |  Hank, told him that the children were in therapy, and that
 |  she was going to see him "rot in jail for what he'd done."
 |
 |  Hank disappeared from his job. Elaine later learned that he
 |  had returned to his mother's home in Salt Lake City. The
 |  morning after his return, his mother found him dead from an
 |  overdose of prescription and nonprescription drugs. A
 |  suicide note addressed to his stepdaughters said he loved
 |  them and would never do anything to hurt them but also said
 |  that he knew God would forgive and understand his death
 |  because he could not continue the destruction of more lives.
 |  Carol comments, "Like the rest of his life, it was a double
 |  and confusing message." The ultimate irony for Carol is that
 |  he died in a bed in his mother's house, where his own abuse
 |  had begun.
 |
 |  Although Elaine had earlier rejected attempts to warn her
 |  that her children would be in danger if she married Hank,
 |  she now told Carol, "I know I never listened to all of you,"
 |  she said. "But if a church leader had told me what they knew
 |  about him, I would have listened. And if he had been
 |  excommunicated when his other children first told, I never
 |  would have married him." She added, "The bishop and others
 |  in the ward have helped me a lot, but I wish I could have
 |  been directly warned."
 |
 |  Carol summarizes bleakly, "I know of at least thirty people
 |  Hank molested when they were children. There were many
 |  adults along his path who knew of his behavior. One of us
 |  should have been able to stop him and maybe to help him.
 |  Hank was never called to a disciplinary council, and we have
 |  never been given an explanation for this lack of Church
 |  action against him. We believe that Church officers shielded
 |  Hank from ecclesiastical action and even paid his bills
 |  because of his connection to an apostle's family."[6]
 |
 |  [ ENDNOTE 6:  Carol Daniels statement to Lavina Fielding
 |  Anderson on April 16, 1996. ]
 |
 |
 |
 |  THE STORY BEGINS HERE.  THE ABOVE IS THE AFTERMATH:
 |
 |
 |  PAPERDOLLS: APRIL DANIELS AND CAROL SCOTT
 |
 |  Writing under the pseudonyms of April Daniels and Carol
 |  Scott, two women a generation apart recorded their
 |  devastating discovery of the havoc abuse had wreaked in
 |  their families. Their story appears in Paperdolls: Healing
 |  from Sexual Abuse in Mormon Neighborhoods (Salt Lake City:
 |  Palingenesia Press, 1990). All of the names in this account
 |  are pseudonyms. Since its publication, there have been
 |  additional developments, which are prepended to this
 |  summary.
 |
 |  The story begins with April, who as a child between the ages
 |  of about five and her early teens, was fondled, sodomized,
 |  vaginally penetrated with fingers, lighted candles, and
 |  other objects, including a loaded pistol. The perpetrators
 |  were teenage boys in her Salt Lake City neighborhood,
 |  including her older brother, Tom, her father, cousins, and
 |  at least two adult men in the neighborhood, at least three
 |  college-age men, and neighborhood teenagers. "Counting my
 |  brothers and their friends, there are close to twenty. We
 |  didn't count kids my age. The others were about seven years
 |  older." (65). They also urinated on her, forced her to clean
 |  their penises with her tongue after their ejaculation,
 |  locked her naked in a rabbit cage, and posed her for nude
 |  pornography drawings with other children. One of them anally
 |  raped her just after her baptism, despite her pleas that she
 |  didn't want to be "nasty" any more. He told her, "`We can do
 |  it because I'm a priest."' Another brother, Byron, witnessed
 |  the abuse and was also sodomized; he later married a woman
 |  who had been sexually abused as a child and was a
 |  rageaholic.
 |
 |  April's family was, on the surface, impeccably Mormon. The
 |  parents were almost compulsively religious, temple-goers,
 |  active, and pillars of the ward. Both brothers went on
 |  fulltime proselytizing missions and married in the temple.
 |  April's oldest sister also married in the temple. Her
 |  parents had an equally solid social position as owners of a
 |  financial institution in which she had a responsible
 |  position as an adult. But beneath the surface brightness was
 |  sickness. April's parents were secret alcoholics who took
 |  pornographic photographs of each other with the family
 |  Polaroid. When April was seven, her father, whom she
 |  suspects was also abused as a child, orally raped her so
 |  hard that her front teeth were loose for six months. Her
 |  mother had a nervous breakdown when April was born. She
 |  never commented on the smell of urine on April's clothes,
 |  never noticed the blood and semen on her panties, and never
 |  heard her when she sobbed for hours at night. She made jokes
 |  about how April wasn't a "morning person" because she was
 |  always exhausted in the mornings and couldn't eat without
 |  getting sick. April developed at least one multiple
 |  personality, fantasized that she could become a boy, became
 |  a compulsive runner, finally went into therapy for her
 |  bulimia, and began recovering memories of her abuse when she
 |  was in her early thirties.
 |
 |  April's and Carol's families were linked by friendship.
 |  Carol Scott, April's co-author, whose children grew up in
 |  April's neighborhood, commented that of the children in
 |  April's peer group, six are dead, three by suicide. "Three
 |  in and out of institutions. Five with eating disorders or
 |  drug abuse. Every single one of those kids was involved in
 |  the atrocity April is remembering" (52).
 |
 |  Carol Scott was close to the age of April's mother. April
 |  was good friends with Carol's younger daughters. An older
 |  daughter, Loraine, married Tom's best friend, Hank, a
 |  returned missionary, in the temple. They had four children:
 |  Timothy, age eight, Isabel, five, Courtney, three, and a new
 |  baby. Carol's son Jake and his wife, Sara, lived in the same
 |  ward as Loraine and Hank. Jake and Sara had two children:
 |  five-year-old Cynthia and three-year-old Claire.
 |
 |  Carol wrote:
 |
 |          It is February 14, 1986.... A few months ago a
 |  psychologist in Loraine's LDS ward gave a lesson to the
 |  Relief Society about symptoms of child sexual abuse.
 |  Afterwards a mother of a little boy who plays with Timothy
 |  took her child to the psychologist because she caught him
 |  sticking marbles up his little sister's bottom.... One
 |  victim led to another -- and another -- and another. To an
 |  older teenage sister, to another teenager, to a father, etc.
 |  More children were taken to therapists. More babysitters
 |  were named . . . . The bishop of the ward said he didn't
 |  know what to do. These were good and righteous families
 |  being named. Hank's in the bishopric with him. Hank said the
 |  bishop was calling in higher authorities.
 |
 |          Every day Loraine called me and cried. Two of the
 |  girls were in her Young Women's church class. Then one of
 |  the children named Loraine's baby sitter, Geraldine.... Jake
 |  and Sara have used Geraldine too . . . . Therapists... have
 |  interviewed my five oldest grandchildren ranging in age from
 |  three to seven.... Separately, with no knowledge of what
 |  their siblings and cousins were saying, they told what
 |  Geraldine and her boy friend did to them.
 |
 |           . . . When Sara had her gallbladder out the mother
 |  of the family [two houses down] volunteered to tend her
 |  children all day for three days. We couldn't believe how
 |  nice she was. It meant I didn't have to take time off work.
 |  The mother has two little girls of her own, and she said
 |  they all had so much fun playing together that they weren't
 |  any trouble at all. This mother, this neighbor of Loraine's,
 |  is a daughter of... one of the Twelve Apostles. Her husband
 |  is in the bishopric with Hank.
 |
 |          Our children told about the "touching parties" at
 |  her house. About what the dad did to his two little girls
 |  and ours while the mom gave out Popsicle's and cookies and
 |  took videos. About how she used some of the [Primary -- the
 |  auxiliary for children ages three to twelve] visual aids for
 |  backgrounds in the videos. She's [Primary] chorister. She
 |  got double use out of the Easter bunnies and posters she
 |  made.
 |
 |          At first I wanted desperately to believe my
 |  grandchildren were making it up, but none of them have had
 |  access to the sexual information they're giving. Their
 |  mothers don't even let them watch TV except on Sesame Street
 |  level, and no TV show contains the things they are
 |  describing.
 |
 |  The detail from each matched what the others have said.
 |  Cynthia said, "He showed us deer antlers and said he'd poke
 |  them up us if we told." Isabel said, "We were scared he'd
 |  hurt us with the deer horns." There is no way they are not
 |  telling the truth, and there is no way my mind can believe
 |  it.
 |
 |           . . . We had a Heroes' Party: Norton [Carol's
 |  husband], and I, Loraine and Hank, Jake and Sara, the five
 |  children, and the baby asleep in my bedroom. We all drew
 |  pictures of ugly baby sitters hurting children and tore them
 |  up and burned them in our fireplace. We gave the children
 |  Hero Medals and told them they were protecting other
 |  children by talking. Hank pounded an old slipper and said he
 |  was pretending it was Geraldine....
 |
 |          Loraine and Sara looked dreadful. They weren't
 |  sleeping, their houses were in chaos, their children had
 |  started waking with screaming dreams....
 |
 |          Yesterday the kids were getting ice cream cones for
 |  the good work they'd done in therapy, and Isabel casually
 |  asked her mother, "Why are the things the baby sitters and
 |  the bad people do to us bad and the lessons Daddy gives us
 |  are okay?" . . .
 |
 |          The therapist and I are sitting on the floor with
 |  Isabel.... The therapist asks Isabel about the lessons Daddy
 |  gave . . . . . (She] asks her two or three times.
 |
 |          "We learn how our bodies are made. Where babies come
 |  from and stuff like that"
 |
 |          Of course, I think. Loraine and Hank have always
 |  believed in being open about sex education. She's just all
 |  mixed up because everything has been so confusing. Of
 |  course. Dear God, please.
 |
 |          . . . For two hours we listen to Isabel. She is
 |  tired. She's crying. The therapist quietly says, "Isabel,...
 |  you've done so well. You've worked so hard and told us lots
 |  of important things...."
 |
 |          Isabel  . . .  runs around the room throwing toys
 |  everywhere. She kicks the dollhouse over, and then she
 |  stamps and stamps on the anatomical doll that is the Daddy.
 |  I hold her on the floor and rock her for a long, long
 |  time....
 |
 |          Norton brought Hank into the office.... I told Hank
 |  what Isabel and Timothy had said. I couldn't concentrate on
 |  Hank's words, but he kept saying he couldn't remember any of
 |  it. He also said his children didn't lie. He was shaking....
 |  Loraine had bitten her hands, and they were bleeding.
 |  (55-59)
 |
 |  The abuse had no Satanic elements, Carol believes, but the
 |  "touching parties" followed a ritualized format: first they
 |  would show pornographic videos of children, the children
 |  would undress, masturbate each other, have oral sex and anal
 |  sex with everyone by turns
 |
 |          as though they were performing at a recital. This
 |  part would be filmed and then played back. Then everyone
 |  would dress, and they would have refreshments. The whole
 |  `party' took less than an hour. Usually about seven
 |  children, a couple of teenagers, and three or four adults
 |  were there. Sometimes there were costumes and props, and
 |  sometimes the children were given injections, "especially if
 |  it was going to hurt." We gathered this meant if partial
 |  penetration was attempted.
 |
 |  Hank would "dance" wearing only the top half of his
 |  garments. Geraldine would hold the girls' vaginas open while
 |  "`the boys put something tickly up there."' The children
 |  were forced to drink urine mixed with feces. "Treats" would
 |  be taped to the baby's penis "so the kids would like to suck
 |  them off." (108)
 |
 |  The abuse took other forms as well. They put ice cubes in
 |  three-year-old Courtney's vagina, told Isabel they were
 |  going to put an ice pick in her vagina "to see how far it
 |  could go without bleeding." (88)
 |
 |  At Hank's mother's house
 |
 |          a couple of her lady friends and sometimes some of
 |  the cousins . . . would all sit in a circle on the floor and
 |  go around, and they'd tell us what to do . . . .The ladies
 |  liked us to suck on their boobs..... They liked us to tickle
 |  each other. Then Daddy would do things to the ladies,
 |  especially Grandma. Sometimes he would lie on her and put
 |  his big thing up her. Mostly the ladies kept their clothes
 |  on, but we were naked. They always had good treats. On the
 |  way home, Daddy would say, "Wasn't that fun? You did real
 |  good. You're learning the lessons real well, but you mustn't
 |  tell Mommy."
 |
 |          Loraine took the sobbing Timothy into her bedroom,
 |  and I called Isabel into mine.... Same story, same details.
 |  Identical. Even three-year-old Courtney told it, uncoached,
 |  described her Daddy having sex with his mother. (90-91)
 |
 |  Once these horrors had spilled out, Timothy came sobbing
 |  into Carol's room in the middle of the same night. Something
 |  else had happened, something too awful to tell, something
 |  they had made him do. Carol had to promise not to tell his
 |  mother. Finally he could write it down in his second-grade
 |  printing: "`They made us drink kofey."'
 |
 |          Then he started to cry.... "They said if we told
 |  anyone about the parties, they'd tell how we drank coffee."
 |  While I held Timothy and tried to explain about coffee,
 |  something way deep and from way long ago inside me snapped.
 |  It has still not come back together. My old, old issues
 |  about hypocrisy, priorities, and claims to exclusive truth.
 |  I wanted to burn every Primary manual I'd ever taught from
 |  about evil coffee-drinking people.... I think of all the
 |  horrors the children told, that one broke my heart the most.
 |  (92)
 |
 |  All this information was immediately given to the police,
 |  the bishop, and the stake president. The children also
 |  alleged that two teenaged boys performed sexual acts on the
 |  children in their own homes, as girlfriends of these boys
 |  were tending them. Although these boys did not live in the
 |  ward and the children did not know their names, Timothy and
 |  Courtney identified the same boys when the police showed
 |  them yearbook pictures. Each of these identifications
 |  occurred in two isolated interviews.
 |
 |  Five-year-old Cynthia also identified the two teenage boys
 |  from a high school yearbook. "Sure enough they were friends
 |  of Geraldine. The police apparently were not impressed"
 |  (107). Cynthia said the apostle's son-in-law strangled a
 |  kitten and made the children help bury it. "We can do this
 |  to [three-year-old] Claire," they told Cynthia. "We'll bury
 |  her right here by the kitty if you ever tell." The apostle's
 |  daughter threatened to drop Claire in the road so she'd be
 |  run over.
 |
 |  The bishop told Loraine that she should believe Hank, not
 |  her children, because he was a "worthy priesthood holder."
 |  The stake president said he believed the children and he
 |  would try to initiate Church action. He later told the
 |  family that he could not get approval from higher Church
 |  authorities.
 |
 |  Meanwhile, in 1986, Hank voluntarily entered the sexual
 |  offenders' treatment program at Johns Hopkins Hospital in
 |  Baltimore. He acknowledged to medical personnel there that
 |  he remembered abusing his children, his nieces, and other
 |  neighborhood children, reported details of the "sex parties"
 |  at the home of the apostle's daughter and son-in-law, and
 |  remembered his mother sexually abusing him during his own
 |  childhood. His intent was to plea bargain upon release from
 |  Johns Hopkins. When he learned that his former wife would
 |  not let the children appear in court,[4] he recanted on all
 |  of these admissions but he relinquished all visitation
 |  rights when the divorce became final in the summer of 1986.
 |  Loraine applied to the First Presidency for a cancellation
 |  of sealing. It was granted.
 |
 |  [ ENDNOTE 4:  Carol, a therapist, advised her daughter not
 |  to have the children testify in court, because of the
 |  retraumatization of the children during a case in Lehi,
 |  Utah, in which a number of children named several men
 |  prominent in the community, including their bishop, as
 |  perpetrators. The children were discredited as witnesses. ]
 |
 |  The reaction of Church officials ranged from noncommittal to
 |  cold. In early spring 1987, at the stake president's
 |  invitation, Loraine wrote:
 |
 |  Dear President ____:
 |
 |  You have asked me to advise you of my current circumstances
 |  surrounding my divorce...
 |
 |          I married Hank ___ in the Salt Lake City Temple in
 |  1976. I believed at that time that Hank was a righteous man
 |  and for ten years I tried to make a celestial marriage. I
 |  had four children, who, after virtually living in true hell,
 |  finally "told", in January and February 1986, the actual
 |  nightmare that our "perfect;" temple-going, family-night;
 |  daily family-prayers family was living: their father was a
 |  child abuser who had been sexually molesting them for years.
 |  The case was immediately reported to the police who
 |  eventually said they could not prosecute without my
 |  children's in-person testimony. A major reason for the
 |  inaction of the criminal system has been my unwillingness to
 |  make media celebrities of my children.
 |
 |          Ecclesiastical inaction is more difficult to
 |  understand in view of the Lord's teachings on sexual
 |  morality and His clear warning to those who teach evil to
 |  the innocent. My children remain available to you for
 |  questioning as do other child witnesses, including my
 |  brother's children, if corroboration of these facts is
 |  necessary.
 |
 |          There is not a way to describe the agony my children
 |  and I have traversed.... My children have seen five doctors,
 |  who have all said they would be willing to testify . . .
 |  .There is evidence of scarring on the hymen on one child and
 |  vaginal stretching of the hymen on another child.
 |
 |          My children have told how Hank took them and one of
 |  my nieces to his mother's home and let her and other
 |  relatives molest these little children in many obscene ways.
 |  They forced them to have oral sex with each other and to
 |  watch as Hank had sexual intercourse with others including
 |  his own mother.
 |
 |          Hank also networked with a child abuse ring in our
 |  neighborhood. They had orgies of abuse, which they
 |  videotaped. I assume the tapes were traded to other
 |  pedophiles or sold for money.
 |
 |          In addition to incest Hank stands accused of
 |  cunnilingus, fondling, digital penetration of vagina and
 |  anus, sodomy, object rape, enforced fellatio, and the making
 |  and showing of pornographic children's videos of his own
 |  children and others.
 |
 |          The abusers tortured and killed animals in front of
 |  children and told them this would happen to them if they
 |  told. They gave them injections of drugs (the children say
 |  so it wouldn't hurt so much and to make them sleepy), showed
 |  them films of all sorts of sadism. Finally my children
 |  reached the point where what they actually were experiencing
 |  became as frightening as the threats of what would happen if
 |  they told.
 |
 |          Hank has been examined by several therapists and
 |  admitted himself to an out-of-state sexual offenders'
 |  program, He was in this residential program for
 |  approximately six weeks. The records of this hospital can
 |  only be obtained at the request of Hank, as can the results
 |  of psychological and polygraph evaluation performed... in
 |  Salt Lake. If Hank is not a pedophile and is not a threat to
 |  children, he should volunteer these unedited records to
 |  clear his name.
 |
 |          Hank mailed an invitation to my children for his
 |  remarriage, which took place last month. The children have
 |  not seen him since February 1986. He originally voluntarily
 |  agreed to no visitation with them unless their psychiatrist
 |  deemed it to be in their best interests. As soon as he
 |  realized he wasn't being prosecuted, he initiated legal
 |  action requesting not only visitation, but joint custody. It
 |  has taken incredible effort and legal costs to keep my
 |  children safe from him. When the children were told of his
 |  marriage and the fact that he now has two little
 |  step-daughters, they cried and told me I had to stop him now
 |  or he would have more kids to abuse. The fact that he is
 |  active in the Church may have been a factor in his ability
 |  to find another wife. They were married in the temple. The
 |  purity of unborn children, and for that matter any available
 |  children, is in the hands of those of us who know the truth.
 |  If we are silent we betray them. I hope for Hank's
 |  excommunication, mainly as a warning to others Hank may
 |  contact but also because my children's souls are in a
 |  fragile place.
 |
 |          When our new Primary president told the story of
 |  Daniel ... [and stated that] God would help them when they
 |  were in trouble, my eight-year-old raised his hand and
 |  angrily informed the sister that this was not true. My
 |  seven-year-old refuses to pray. She describes . . .  how
 |  she'd pray and pray, begging that if the abuse had to
 |  continue that at least Heavenly Father would make it so it
 |  didn't hurt so bad. But it always hurt just as bad. My
 |  four-year-old is still confused over right and wrong. She
 |  was consistently told Jesus wanted her to do these things
 |  and that I wanted her to have these "marriage lessons." For
 |  weeks after she'd told, she kept expressing her
 |  astonishment; "They didn't kill me yet, Mommy. But Heavenly
 |  Father wants me to be killed for telling."
 |
 |          When Hank left the hospital, his therapist told my
 |  mother and myself in Hank's presence that his prognosis was
 |  entirely up to him.... He was aware of the results of the
 |  sodium penathal interview and the lie detector test as well
 |  as hypnosis administered at the hospital; . . . These tests
 |  would give him objective evidence to remember what he has
 |  done. Since that time Hank has recanted on his past
 |  statements and is now asserting his complete innocence.
 |  There is no reason to believe that his old patterns will not
 |  reassert themselves entirely.
 |
 |          The Church records should reflect that Hank is a
 |  pedophile. If allowed access to children in the Church, not
 |  only will further lives be destroyed but the Church may be
 |  held morally and legally responsible for its failure to take
 |  action to protect innocent victims from an extremely
 |  disturbed child abuser.... (84, 86)
 |
 |  Carol continues:
 |
 |          Nothing ever happened... The bishop did come and
 |  talk to Loraine one night. He said that if his own wife had
 |  to choose between believing him or their children, he knew
 |  she would believe him. The bishop advised Loraine that she
 |  should think very carefully before breaking up her family.
 |  Loraine moved. She did not see him again.
 |
 |          No one interviewed the children or asked more
 |  questions, except the stake president who talked with one of
 |  the children's therapists. The stake president told us he
 |  believed it. There has never been an excommunication trial.
 |  We think we know why, but there is no way to be sure.
 |  Loraine's neighbors, the ones who had the "touching
 |  parties," are the daughter and son-in-law of an apostle in
 |  the Mormon Church. (87)...
 |
 |          No neighborhood could be a better setup for a child
 |  abuser than the LDS one, where everyone is and has to be
 |  perfect and no one who attends church diligently has
 |  admissible problems. I can't blame the Church. I totally
 |  bought into the perfectionism and denial. I do blame Church
 |  leaders now if they don't deal with problems when they know
 |  about them. The bishop told Loraine she should believe Hank
 |  because he held the priesthood. Just as the
 |  [sixteen-year-old] priest had told April [that she should
 |  comply with his demands]. (110)
 |
 |  As Loraine's letter indicates, Hank's remarriage was another
 |  blow. Elaine (pseudonym), his new wife, had two small
 |  daughters. When Hank sued for visitation rights with his
 |  children, Elaine attended the hearing at which the
 |  children's therapists gave detailed reports and at which
 |  Hank's records from Johns Hopkins were reviewed. The court
 |  denied all visitation. Elaine heard all of the testimony but
 |  told Carol that she did not believe these "lies" and that
 |  her place was with her husband.
 |
 |  Norton, the children's grandfather, became deeply depressed
 |  in the fall of 1986 and took his pistol to the safety
 |  deposit box to eliminate one means of committing suicide. As
 |  a businessman, as someone with Church connections,
 |
 |          he was always effective; at the least he could have
 |  impact; he could be heard. Now he had to face a legal system
 |  in which all of us seemed to have no credibility. Nothing
 |  happened. When he suggested the police search homes for
 |  pornographic videos, they called the alleged perpetrators
 |  and made appointments, explaining why they were coming....
 |
 |          Then there was the Church. Norton had his share of
 |  disagreement with Church policies, but he was a fervent
 |  believer and totally loyal. He had given and given to the
 |  Church -- time, money, energy, thought; love. We had talked
 |  about what it might be like for him to be a mission
 |  president or some equivalent. Now no one in the Church would
 |  listen to him. After Loraine moved, Norton and I went to the
 |  new bishop of her old ward. We thought that since he had
 |  moved into the neighborhood recently, he needed information.
 |  We told him everything we knew.... He said he believed us
 |  and would pray for us. I suggested ways he could warn his
 |  ward without implicating or hurting anyone, ways he could
 |  help the children who had been named and had never seen a
 |  therapist. His response was, "I don't see that there is
 |  anything I can do it is really not within the parameters of
 |  my office. It's in the hands of the stake president"
 |
 |           . . . Little innocent children were to go on being
 |  sacrificed, and it was not within his jurisdiction.... The
 |  apostle's son-in-law would continue to sit next to the
 |  bishop on the stand in Church, looking down on all the faces
 |  of the children he had molested.
 |
 |          Norton went to his friend, a young and very
 |  effective General Authority. For thirty years, he and his
 |  wife had been two of our best friends. When the children
 |  told, almost the first thing Loraine, Jake, and Sara did was
 |  take their children to him for blessings. Our friend, the
 |  authority, had met with Hank then too and tried to help him.
 |  He had urged Jake and Loraine to keep in touch with him. He
 |  is a brilliant, spiritual, unselfish person, totally devoted
 |  to his calling in the Church and to his fellow human beings.
 |  When the names of the apostle's daughter and son-in-law came
 |  up, however, all contact with him about our particular
 |  situation ceased almost overnight. He assured us he could do
 |  nothing. After a couple of months, he invited us to dinner
 |  at his home, but he made a point of saying that this
 |  particular subject could not be discussed. His wife was not
 |  supposed to know anything about it. Norton... felt betrayed
 |  . . . We don't see them anymore.
 |
 |          Unlike me, [Norton] had always assumed if he tried
 |  to do what he should and if he trusted in God, he and his
 |  would be protected. For the first time in his life, he faced
 |  the simplistic quality of his faith. He had to come to grips
 |  with evil. For a long time, he could not pray. He went to
 |  church and wept during the hymns. He watched the "falling
 |  away" of his children as they struggled with the Church.
 |  (144-45)
 |
 |  When April, visiting a friend, attended the Young Women's
 |  class she co-taught, she walked out during the other
 |  teacher's lesson on chastity and demanded of her friend,
 |  "`What about the incest victims? . . .  There were over
 |  twenty girls in that class. I'm certain that a couple of
 |  them just had their hearts wrung through a wringer.' Laurel
 |  just stared at me. She commented that she had never thought
 |  of it that way before" (79). At Carol's request, April
 |  talked to Hank's stake president. He arranged for her to
 |  meet with two General Authorities:
 |
 |          They seemed to be very caring, compassionate men. I
 |  told them everything. I told them about my family, the
 |  neighbors, and Hank  . . .  about the children from my
 |  neighborhood. The deaths, the suicides, and psychiatric
 |  hospitalization . . .
 |
 |          We all came from well-educated, upper-class
 |  righteous homes. We grew up in a nice neighborhood. Over
 |  half of us have had incomprehensible pain throughout our
 |  lives because of the sexual abuse that happened to us as
 |  children . . . .
 |
 |          I think the General Authorities believed me. They
 |  asked me if I would be willing to speak at a [disciplinary]
 |  council.
 |
 |          I told them I believe that the support of the Church
 |  could help the perpetrators get into professional
 |  counseling.
 |
 |          One of the General Authorities said, "This council
 |  might help push them into therapy." (191)
 |
 |  April was never called as a witness. There were no
 |  disciplinary councils.
 |
 |  The story continued after the publication of Paperdolls. 
 |  [Skip back to RAPE AND SODOMIZATION BY DIAGNOSED PEDOPHILE
 |  IGNORED BY CHURCH -- AFTERMATH, for this continuation!]
 |
 |
 |  [Statements By Parents And Others About Ecclesiastical
 |  Reluctance To Act On Reported Abuse, Case Reports Of The
 |  Mormon Alliance, Volume 1, 1995, Chapter 5, section 2; ``A
 |  summary of the bi-generational abuse inflicted in the
 |  families of April Daniels and Carol Scott, the pseudonyms of
 |  two women who wrote their stories in Paperdolls: Healing
 |  from Sexual Abuse in Mormon Neighborhoods (Salt Lake City:
 |  Palingenesia Press, 1990). Ecclesiastical inaction and
 |  actual support for one perpetrator was an unexpected and
 |  bitter source of pain for those already suffering.''
 |  http://mormonalliance.org/casereports/volume1/part1/v1p1c05.htm
 |  ]
 |
 |
 |  (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this
 |  material is distributed without profit to those who have
 |  expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
 |  information for research and educational purposes.)
 |______________________________________________________________