How Does the Church Address Abuse?

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

DarkJedi wrote:

Commenting on the side discussion here, my bishop (not the bishop in question in the above situations) when I was a counselor actually called the church hotline once with the question on what he was legally required to report – in other words was he a mandated reporter. He was referred to the church legal department where he was told that in NY pastors are not mandated reporters but they were certainly free to report if they wished, just like anyone else. This apparently varies state to state.

Not to beat a dead horse here – but this would seem to bolster my argument that the church policies are pimarily motivated by church organizational/litigation priorities. I still believe that abuse is abhorred, just not necessarily more abhorred in the LDS organization than in the Catholic or BSA. I believe it is in the nature of almost all organizations to look after their own interests first and foremost.

If reporting is in place to protect the abused – so much so that many states have laws requiring reporting – and if the church were also primarily motivated to protect the abused, why would the church not require all of its representatives/church leaders to report suspicions regardless of the state laws in the area? Or require that bishops report confessions of abuse by the abuser?

As a business man, I likewise operate with organizational/litigation priorities – so perhaps that colors my bias. Nevertheless that is my view.

Actually, and I am not positive about this, I believe it has to do with confidentiality. If the someone confidentially confesses something to his priest/minister, then his minister runs to the police, the individual’s confidentiality would have been violated. Again, I’m not positive, but I believe Catholic priests are by policy forbidden to report what they hear in confessions to authorities, but some do so anyway while others strongly urge the individuals to turn themselves in. I think that’s why the church legal department’s advice was that the bishop could report but wasn’t required to. I do not think it’s LDS church policy not to report abuse, and the bishop’s question was whether he was a mandated reporter. FWIW, this particular bishop would have reported child abuse without question and without hesitation and he would have told the person he was doing so. (As a teacher I am aware that NY is not one of those states where someone can be prosecuted if a report turns out to be unfounded, BTW.)

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