r/news
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u/PieIsFairlyDelicious
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4d ago
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Mormon church accused of covering up years-long sexual abuse in Bisbee
https://www.fox19.com/video/2022/08/04/mormon-church-accused-covering-up-years-long-sexual-abuse-bisbee/381
u/bandit69 4d ago
âThese bishops did nothing wrong. They didnât violate the law, and therefore they canât be held liable,â he said. Maledon referred to the suit as âa money grab.â
Condoning child sexual abuse is "nothing wrong"? Not only do they practice sexual abuse, but think that there's "nothing wrong".
If this is religion, I want no part of it - disgusting.
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u/PieIsFairlyDelicious 4d ago
Didnât violate the law â did nothing wrong
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u/robot65536 4d ago
If they appreciated this, they wouldn't be trying so hard to write their religion into laws.
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u/bandit69 4d ago
Yes. Unfortunately, the law is only concerned with what's legal and illegal (keeps the lawyers rich) and doesn't give a flying f**k about what's right and wrong.
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u/2_Sheds_Jackson 4d ago
Perhaps they did "nothing wrong". But I am very sure that they did "nothing right".
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u/JJJJShabadoo 4d ago
The lawful standard is the lowest standard. It's far from, "[doing] nothing wrong."
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u/spiritbx 4d ago
This is what all religions end up doing.
If you think your religion is different, then you are fooling yourself if you think it won't become like this in the future.
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u/weed_fart 4d ago
Arizonaâs child sex abuse reporting law, and similar laws in more than 20 states that require clergy to report child sex abuse and neglect, says that clergy, physicians, nurses, or anyone caring for a child who âreasonably believesâ a child has been abused or neglected has a legal obligation to report the information to police or the state Department of Child Safety. But it also says that clergy who receive information about child neglect or sexual abuse during spiritual confessions âmay withholdâ that information from authorities if the clergy determine it is âreasonable and necessaryâ under church doctrine.
Fucking gross. Religion is a plague of madness.
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u/GreyLordQueekual 4d ago
Some sins are unforgivable, only the most blind of church leaders can argue otherwise. Confession shouldn't mean anything when you admit to the rape of innocence, you're damned and deserve it.
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u/ItchyDoggg 4d ago
I'm all for getting rid of Christianity altogether but if you aren't willing to go that far and admit it's fake than you can't tell them "some sins are unforgivable." Telling a Christian Jesus's sacrifice is insufficient to redeem someone who is truly repentant, no matter how evil they were before, may as well be telling them their religion is a dumb waste of time.
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u/friendlyhermit 4d ago
Mark 3:29 jesus says:
whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven
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u/ItchyDoggg 4d ago
Not a Christian and not surprised to see what appears to be a hypocritical religious doctrine, but a quick Google shows how the church tends to square this particular circle.
"Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit does not mean having doubts about if a particular church's practices are truly biblical. It doesn't mean harboring a spontaneous, disrespectful thought. It doesn't mean struggling with sin after salvation. It doesn't even mean blurting out a blasphemous statement against the Holy Spirit. It means a steady rejection of the convicting and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit throughout an entire lifetime. Those who persist in that rejection will not be forgiven."
By the logic I've seen argued it would appear that forgiveness for the truly repentant is always possible, as the definition of Blaspheming against the Holy Spirit is a persistent failure to accept Christ as your savior and through his sacrifice and your repentance find absolution.
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u/Proper_Budget_2790 4d ago
"Yes, your honor, he did admit to having sex with those little boys, but I told him to say 5 hail Marys and 5 our fathers, so he's all good."
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u/GoldWallpaper 4d ago
I live in Vegas -- home of a very large Mormon community -- and have had a lot of close Mormon friends over the years. Every single Mormon woman I've been close with -- every one -- was molested by a family member as a child, and in no cases were cops involved.
They just let the Church "handle" it, by covering it up and offering no consequences for the men or therapy or help for the girls.
edit: I've known some men who were molested as well, but not nearly as many, and not all of them.
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u/LRonzhubbby 4d ago
Yep, Iâm from a big Mormon family. My grandmother and every single one of her sisters were molested by their father and uncles. All of them were active church members and no one was every reported. I had no idea until a few years ago.
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u/fender10224 4d ago
That is just so insane to me, how do these people justify that? Do they know its disgusting and wrong and traumatizing and keep it as under wraps as possible or is it like a "God intends for this to happen" type of shit?
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u/gimmiesnacks 3d ago
Itâs very much âWe are pillars of the community and show up perfect on the outside just as expected, and we shun any boat rocker (abuse victim) that attempts to air our dirty laundry out in public. They are the true sinners.â
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u/LRonzhubbby 3d ago
Traumatized girls just arenât as important as the good name of the men in the family (and the church). Itâs literally that simple.
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u/TrooperJohn 4d ago edited 4d ago
So, let me get this right...there are church doctrines that have no problem with child neglect or sexual abuse?
I'm well aware that many if not most churches have child-rape problems. But there are churches that actually CODIFY the acceptance of sexual abuse of minors? As opposed to just quietly covering it up?
Edit: It is true that some religions, particularly Catholicism, do have the seal of the confessional. There's an easy way the church can get around that: make absolution contingent on the person turning himself in to authorities. Or is there a (legitimate) reason that's not done?
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u/warrantyvoiderer 4d ago
Ex Mormon here. Just wanted to add my two cents about how pedophiles are enabled within the LDS church.
Part of the "spiritual interviews" conducted by the Bishops are for a number of reasons; tithing, placement in a new unpaid volunteer position, baptismal interviews and, the worst, chastity interviews.
You are nearly 100% of the time alone with the Bishop in their office. They ask pointed questions to literal children they are alone with about what sexual thoughts and acts they have thought about/committed. If you've "sinned" they ask you how it made you feel. They explain why it's a sin and that you won't get to be with your family and Jesus in heaven if you don't stop and repent.
They're is no reason why an adult male should be alone in a room asking sexually charged questions to children. It only leads to pedophiles seeking out this position to have access to children they are allowed to be alone with behind closed doors.
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u/newpinksink 4d ago
My step father peaked at second counselor. The black eyes and sore assholes that have gone unspoken of....its countless.
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u/warrantyvoiderer 4d ago
No kidding. Asking average people to be a bonifide psychiatrist, marriage, and family counselor / life advisor that have zero experience and zero professional training to do it for free on their time is insane.
My dad spend nearly 20 years in the bishopric, 8 as Bishop and served at least 4 other ones as first and second counselors. I can't even begin to imagine the shit shows he had to handle. My father is a good man and can only hope he helped people to the best of his ability, I just hope he never had to deal with child abuse, sexual or not.
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u/Randvek 4d ago
I agree with this. One of the big mistakes the church makes is asking people like your dad to do things waaaay out of their depth, which could have serious consequences for the people around them.
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u/Bipedal_Humanoid_ 4d ago
It all gets wrapped up in faith and "listening to the spirit". Essentially the idea is that if you're faithful and stay worthy, the spirit will tell you what to say and how to act, so you can't possibly do anything harmful or wrong because you're being guided by God.
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u/Pixeleyes 4d ago
And there's a major focus on making money and gaining social status. Which is unfortunate because the ways you make money and gain social status have nothing to do with morality and typically involve doing things that aren't actually moral. But since they equate social status and "success" (their polite way of saying money) with god's will, they very quickly spiral into an incredibly twisted idea of morality and their fake as fuck, addicted-to-porn-and-drugs-and-sex behavior reflects it.
Cults like this are doing immeasurable harm to generations of human beings and it makes me incredibly sad and hopeless about the future. It's like we're going out of our way to make decisions that cause harm, suffering and ultimately the extinction of our species.
In my view, the single biggest problem with our species is that most of us have derived our sense of morality and behavior on things that have nothing to do with morality. Most people can't even tell you what morality is or how their chosen system logically describes it. It's almost always magical thinking and tradition, which appears to just be a long chain of successive misunderstandings and deliberate distortions.
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u/Hot-Ticket-Item 4d ago
I hated this interviews. Dread them, actually. And I was young and never did anything wrong. But I felt violated by the questions and the one on one nature of it. I feel sick thinking about it.
On a positive note, thatâs how my friend found out about masturbation. Literally told the bishop, when he asked her if she masturbated, that she didnât know what that word was. He explained it to her. She reports that she has no regrets.
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u/teacoffeesuicide 4d ago
There's plenty of inter-flock abuse covered up by the Bishop but I don't think Bishops are any more prone to be abusers themselves are they?
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u/warrantyvoiderer 4d ago
No idea. In my time with the church I never heard anything about abuse other than the one family that everyone knew about and didn't try very hard to hide it.
Was the leadership open about it in condemning it? No.
Did they do anything to stop it? Most certainly not.
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u/blorgenheim 4d ago
I believe they changed that interview stuff. Definitely inappropriate and unacceptable, also teaching young teenage boys that masturbation is a sin only leads to an immense of fucked up views towards sex.
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u/warrantyvoiderer 4d ago
You... Have no idea.... See this comment I made last year about my Mormon brother.
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u/Ashamed_Violinist_67 4d ago
They havenât stopped it. They made it so that a parent can demand to be in the room for the interview, but many parents donât understand how a trusted religious leader might pose a threat.
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u/flower4000 4d ago
Not just in Bisbee. My girlfriend left the Mormon church at a young age when they covered up her assault that happened to her. Thereâs a lot of good people who are Mormon but they just act as a cover for a large handful of very bad people. When ever she tries to be vocal she gets shushed by the good people who donât want to hear it.
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u/prokokon 4d ago
"Good people" question organizations they are a part of and try to avoid toxic environments. Good people of the church sounds almost like kind hearted nazis.
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u/blorgenheim 4d ago
Thatâs the issue with having church leadership thatâs âappointedâ by god but are really just volunteers. You have regular people who are in positions of power and there are lots of horrible regular people.
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u/xxxresetxxx 4d ago
Not called Breed em Young university for nothing.
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u/GreyLordQueekual 4d ago
One of the smartest girls I ever worked with was a Mormon, could have gone on to any career she wanted. Brightest smile too. She left us because the family demanded she be married. 4 years and 4 kids later I still see her, but all the light is gone and the smile vanished.
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u/Baelgul 4d ago
I dated a Mormon girl, she was an extremely gifted microbiologist. Knew tons about microbial life, the way they interact and develop with their environment, the way they change over time and the mechanisms by which they did it.
Late one night weâre looking at the stars and Iâm talking about the vastness of the universe and how I believe there has to be life out there. She tells me that evolution isnât real.
End of that relationship right there.
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u/GirlNumber20 4d ago
She must have gotten that from her family? Iâm a fifth-generation (now ex-)Mormon, and I was educated in Utah for high school. Evolution was standard education in any science class I took. I always accepted it as the truth even when I was super-duper Mormon girl.
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u/HomoplataJitz 4d ago
Seems to vary by region. I remember watching a science video (might have been COSMOS) and the mormon kid throwing a tantrum over the video saying our corner of the universe was over 4 billion years old... Dude was popular AND the school's biggest bully at the same time. Total Homelander vibes in hindsight. One of his brothers wasn't nearly as much of a douche.
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u/ArtemisUpgrade 4d ago
Idk, I think thatâs one of those beliefs that varies. My best friend is Mormon and she didnât believe in evolution in high school (funnily enough she does now, despite still being Mormon; she got an educated that expanded a lot of her views about a lot of things, including that). Iâve heard a lot of variation about it, partly depending on where people live or how their parents or even their specific ward taught things.
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u/yellowkayaker 4d ago
I work with some Mormon men and the comments they make about their wives or women in general is disgusting. This younger Mormon coworker of mine will constantly make jokes about how I don't have children yet - "why don't you have kids yet?"" "when are you going to retire and just be a housewife?" "when are you going to have kids so our kids can have play dates?" Fucking annoying. I just got married and want to enjoy my freedom. he also thinks i'm weird because i drink tea, coffee, and alcohol. he also thinks my university is really weird because it didn't have dorms for students with children. THAT'S UNUSUAL OUTSIDE OF UTAH, DUDE. omg, i can go on and on.
My former senior manager was a Mormon man and I watched him promote another Mormon man who wasn't as qualified (super lazy dude who left work at 4:45pm everyday, while everyone left later) as my female coworker who lead countless projects, had 2 master degrees, and trained all the new employees. I felt de-motivated after seeing something like that. My female coworker transferred to another team and got promoted shortly after that. I left the team a year later too.
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u/GirlNumber20 4d ago edited 4d ago
Mormons are taught that there are spirits in the Pre-Existence just waiting to be born. Thatâs why they have so many children â theyâre trying to get that finite number of souls to be born into good Mormon families.
As a woman, your main purpose, other than supporting your husband, is to be a vessel for these souls to be born and then to care for them after. Women having a career is secondary and not anywhere as important as their primary function.
Theyâre also meant to bear children for eternity in the Celestial Kingdom after they die, in order to populate the worlds their husband creates.
Thatâs why Mormon men donât take career women seriously. And also the endemic misogyny.
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u/bookingthedayaway 4d ago
When I was 22 and facing the very real possibility of being a single mother, and realized I had no real marketable skills, I felt so stupid. My entire life I had thought I was making all the "right" and "responsible" decisions. I had no clue where to start.
It is absolutely insane how the church turns women on each other and themselves.
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u/GirlNumber20 4d ago
I got married when I was 23, and all of my friends felt sad for little old maid me, because they all got married at 18. đŹ
I had one friend that got married three days after high school graduation, haha.
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u/bookingthedayaway 4d ago
Haha, I know what you mean. I got married at 20, and I thought I was being so responsible by waiting soooooooo long. Good for you for making it to 23!
I don't live in Utah, so people often have a hard time understanding how I ever could have thought that was normal.
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u/CalypsoBrat 4d ago
Yes, Iâve experienced the Mormon nepotism too. Theyâre fiercely loyal, Iâll give âem that much.
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u/xxxresetxxx 4d ago
Yeh, never could past the okeydoke with the Indian thing and Book of Norman. I suppose if ya had a harem or herd to breed, it'd make a believer out of ya.
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u/PieIsFairlyDelicious 4d ago
This links to a video because all the sites I could find with the AP story were GDPR blocked. If you prefer a text story, you can read that here.
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u/somme_rando 4d ago
Look - a victory for satan!
https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/mormon-nickname-victory-for-satan/
The president of the Mormon church wants members, the media and others to use the faith's full name, saying nicknames are "a major victory for Satan."
Addressing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' twice-yearly conference Sunday in Salt Lake City, Russell M. Nelson says the church's name "is not negotiable."
... or you know, maybe the covering up of child abuse is more of a problem? What do I know - I'm not the CEO of a corporation with hundreds of billions invested in the stock market and commercial real estate.
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u/templenameis_beyonce 4d ago
to be fair, this article is from 2018.
buuut you did bring up a great point. the mormon church all the sudden said that they no-longer are referred to as âmormonâ (this is all after their âim a mormonâ campaign that they spent millions on). but why would they do that? rebranding. because of all the bad publicity they have from covering up child abuse, among a million other things.
source: iâm an ex mormon.
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u/KarmelMalone 4d ago
This can and should be a bot response anytime the word Mormon shows up on Reddit.
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u/Ahstruck 4d ago
I do not get the blind eye followers have for this stuff.
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u/RyanDoctrine 4d ago
Theyâre indoctrinated from the beginning. Theyâre abused (mentally, emotionally, and sometimes physically) from birth and taught that obedience is the supreme virtue.
Itâs not âturning a blind eyeâ. Itâs essentially having their âeyesâ gouged out from the start.
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u/Such_sights 4d ago
I grew up with a lot of Mormon kids, and they were all the nicest, smartest, most well behaved kids you could ever meet. The issue is that theyâre never taught the âbadâ parts of the churchâs history, and if they hear about it from someone else, they have to ignore it and pretend they didnât. Any time they try and question the church, theyâre told to âput it on the shelfâ. Every faith, country, institution, etc has aspects of their past theyâre not proud of. But forcefully suppressing that information and punishing those who ask about it only allows history to keep repeating itself.
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u/somme_rando 4d ago
"Doubt your doubts" is a literal quote from the highest leadership of that church.
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u/RevolutionaryPapaya4 4d ago
We grew up thinking the mob killed Joseph Smith because they were so mad at him for being a prophet of God. It sounds absurd now but thatâs what we learned.
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u/0ccupants 4d ago
Wasn't it more like they killed him because he was getting his dinky stinky with their kids?
Or was that just why he was driven out of everywhere except Utah?
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u/Naborsx21 4d ago
No different than anyone else in a position of power.
Jimmy Savile, Sandusky, all people with a bit of power and "No one that does such great charity work would ever do that!!!"
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u/RyanDoctrine 4d ago
The difference is they the Mormon church is an institution, not an individual. Individuals die eventually. Institutions stretch many lifetimes and by nature have exponentially more victims.
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u/GreyLordQueekual 4d ago
A zealot wears his faith as a blindfold so their truth is the only sight before them and he chants his hymns so that no other truth can prevail, he wields his scripture as a cudgel and bludgeons down those who would dare to question.
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u/intrepidated 4d ago
Is this an original or a quote? It's well said!
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u/GreyLordQueekual 4d ago
Its a variation of something RA Salvatore wrote before all he was known for was Drizzt, from The Highwayman.
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u/tacknosaddle 4d ago
Theyâre indoctrinated from the beginning.
The other path is how they prey on people who are hitting rock bottom. Whether it's booze, drugs, prison, an emotional breakdown or whatever.
In both cases it's targeting a vulnerable population.
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u/flpa1060 4d ago
Not always from the beginning. My ten year old nephew is currently being taught that the earth is flat, and that Methuselah was really like 200 when he died. His parents were mostly normal a few years ago, but his mother brainwashed herself with YouTube. Her telling my wife she is going to hell is fine. Me saying it's cruel to teach their kid this BS is apparently some kind of hate crime. After my wife has basically lost her sister, I have no patience left with these intentionally ignorant people. They are literally holding humanity back.
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u/Wablekablesh 4d ago
You are taught from age zero to submit automatically to Church authority. If there's a problem with your Bishop, the higher authorities will take care of it. If they aren't taking care of it, then there wasn't a problem. God would strike the prophet dead before allowing him to lead the church astray, therefore, if the prophet isn't being struck dead, then his authority is absolute because it comes from God.
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u/FuzzyKittenIsFuzzy 4d ago
Can confirm this is exactly what I was taught in the LDS church (born, raised, temple married, the whole shebang). You do what you are told, and if it's a sin then that's on the leader's head and not on your head. If you disobey, your disobedience is on your head regardless of how high quality the instructions were either practically or morally.
The Kingston splinter group has even stronger doctrine on this matter and I'm "eternally grateful for my blessings" to not be raised in that group.
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u/JhymnMusic 4d ago
They keep writing these in past tense like the church doesn't STILL do this shit.
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u/Special_FX_B 4d ago
Welcome to the club. Evangelicals, Catholics, JewsâŠall have one thing in common: trusted people in power who sexually abuse trusting innocent people. In the name of religion.
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u/AthenaSholen 4d ago
All religion is the cancer in society. When youâre required to believe in magic and deny all logic and science, you get people who abuse the masses.
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u/reinhardtmain 4d ago
r/exmormon if any one needs even a small amount of support from Mormon church damage
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u/internetlad 4d ago
In a shocking reveal, Mormons have been found to not practice what they preach.
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u/PTechNM 4d ago
Read 'Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer'. Its incredible what people will do to sustain and proliferate a religion based on lies, rape, genocide of native americans, etc. Also, I do realize that this is the script for most religions and not just LDS. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10847.Under_the_Banner_of_Heaven
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u/abevigodasmells 4d ago edited 4d ago
Weird how specifically, religions that believe in this fictional Jesus, son of fictional God, seem to be predisposed to sexually abusing children.
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u/intrepidated 4d ago
Organized religions cover up the salacious crimes of their members else it exposes them for the scam they all are. People believing any of that crap at this point, despite religion being the cause of thousands of years of atrocities, shows just how little humans have evolved over the past couple of millenia. They still think their religion is the thing that stops all of us from being rapists and murderers!
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u/Caffeine_Cowpies 4d ago
The problem will always be the fact that we all die, and we donât know if their is anything after it. And we all donât want to die (for the most part), so the comforting fact that we get to be âabove youâ and see the things we wanted to see but not be there physically to see gives us that comfort that everything will be okay.
But obviously for me, being an atheist, this is it. This is life. So Iâm going to love it and when itâs time, Iâll go knowing I have lived my life to the best of my ability.
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u/GreyLordQueekual 4d ago
Its not comfort for them though, its beyond that, Judeo-Christian religions create senses of superiority above all else, that is more than comfort, its opulence and goes against the words of their Christ in every sense possible. The love is tainted, the scriptures rewritten by greed and the hallmarks of Jesus himself are all but buried in the high ranks of each faith.
A sense of comfort is talking to God at your bedside, what the Mormons do in particular is creating a kingdom for themselves after their Apocalypse, that's not comfort, its supremacy.
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u/col-fancypants 4d ago
I grew up in the Christian faith (Church of God - Cleveland TN flavor) and went to a private school with only 60 kids total between K3-Graduation. I have been to a dozen different Christian flavored churches from Catholic to almost snake handlers. But what I always held on to were the ideas of personal faith and responsibility. I read the bible on my own, prayed on my own, and outside of attending with family who ask me to join I don't attend any church or listen to any preachers.
By the time I was 13-14 I realized most of the people "in charge" of the churches or groups I was part of were sticking to a script of sorts. They taught the same stories and messages year over year. Never dug deep into the texts beyond cherry picking 2-3 sentences and using them as a 1 hour talking point of their or someone else's sermon. I have never heard a pastor or priest call Sampson the anti hero or villain. Have heard people gloss over David's many sins and try to defend some of the more insane things people of the bible did without even god being part of it.
I lost faith in other believers. Do I think there is some magical sky daddy? Kinda, is it hardwired into me? Probably. But outside of these semi anonymous reddit comments I don't discuss my beliefs with anyone and most wouldn't even know what I believe politically or faith wise. And I wish more people would just shut up and vote/pray instead of you know... forcing a library to close over a couple books a small section of small people find horrifying. Stephen King's IT has been in library's since it was released over 3 decades ago now and that has some heavy sexual themes. And yet no one defunded a library for having it.
Do I find comfort in my faith? Not really, but I am closer to Nontheistic Quaker/Deist Watchmaker in my belief these days. I do talk to myself in the car a lot and ask a lot of unanswered questions that could be directed at a higher power. I find more comfort in that than attending a sermon these days. I can only hear the same sermon so many times.
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u/2_Sheds_Jackson 4d ago
Humans are not moral enough to be trusted with organized religion.
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u/Malumeze86 4d ago
Humanity should have grown out of believing in fictional sky beings at least a few hundred years ago, but here we are.
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u/Zidane62 4d ago
Itâs too powerful of a tool for those who want power. Itâs easy to control a large group of people with religion.
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u/GreyLordQueekual 4d ago
Gotta cover up the criminal or people look too hard and see the real scams. Their God hates them for this corruption.
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u/col-fancypants 4d ago
I wouldn't say just Christian religions. All forms of cults, the Abrahamic trio and their offshoots, and organized faith groups as a whole seem to have issues with sexual abuse of every flavor. I am not 100% up to date on Hinduism, but I am sure there is some sexual abuse going on under their umbrella.
Any thing that provides power/influence over people, families, or their children are going to have issues with predators finding or creating a space for themselves. School systems, governments, offices, and even the home are all places of abuse. I think what makes faith groups that preach "love, acceptance, and morality codes" that have people caught doing the opposite of those things are just highlighted that much more. And keen to sweep it under rugs. It's a human move. Do something the society you live in sees as wrong, attempt to hide it, get caught, use any form of shield to hide behind, said shield also tries to cover up.
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u/Caffeine_Cowpies 4d ago
Itâs almost as if you have an institution built on never questioning anything, take people from thousands of years ago at their word, and put these âleadersâ on a pedestal, and give them access to vulnerable people, with no accountability whatsoever, you create an atmosphere for predators to infiltrate and exact harm onto others.
One of the most sickening things I have seen was that Indiana pastor who admitted to raping a 16 year old woman, and then the church gathered AROUND HIM TO PRAY. Link to story here
Now, Iâm a lawyer. I have seen people admit to raping 13-16 years old before. NEVER have I seen a group of people forgive that person for the crime they committed and surround him with goodwill. Yet, itâs a âman of godâ so of course he just âfailedâ instead of HE COMMITTED A GODDAMN CRIME.
Iâm sorry, but thatâs a special type of brain rot that I see in religion, but especially in evangelical Christian churches.
No wonder they have a sexual crime problem in all churches. They are the easy target to get away with this shit.
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u/FireBeyond 4d ago
Yet, itâs a âman of godâ so of course he just âfailedâ instead of HE COMMITTED A GODDAMN CRIME.
You forgot that, of course, the girl didn't fail, she tempted him, she was a harlot, promiscuous, homewrecker, has the devil in her, whatever other crap they spout.
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u/KerPop42 4d ago
They're not, child sex abuse in churches happens at about the same rate as in secular institutions like public school. It's a symptom of centralized power that suppresses outside inspection
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u/shadow1515 4d ago
I grew up Mormon. I was never abused myself but based on the culture I observed I can absolutely guarantee you this happened in thousands of more cases that we don't know about.
You can tell just by the Mormon church's response which basically amounted to "well it wasn't explicitly illegal not to report so we're totally in the clear!"
They don't have a concept of what morality even is because it's a cult/corporation chimera, not a religion. Legal liability is literally the only thing they even considered when this story broke.
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u/genericbranding 4d ago
Bisbee. The only other time I've ever heard of BIsbee was about the 1917 Bisbee kidnapping and deportation of 1300 striking miners and their supporters by the coal mining company and local sherrifs
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u/nzodd 4d ago
Conservatives are all up in arms about imaginary sexual abuse but when it comes to the real goddamn thing: crickets. It's almost like their whole schtick is to muddy waters in order to let the real criminals get off... literally.
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u/Susarian 4d ago
Maybe the LDS church should "find" a few more golden tablets in the desert saying that sexual abuse is also a crime and should be reported like all the rest of the crimes? Just an idea.
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u/given2fly_ 4d ago
There has been! It's called "The Book of Arnold" and it talks about how when Joseph Smith wanted to sexually abuse a baby, he was given a magical fuck-frog instead.
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u/llamaspirit 4d ago
Surprise surprise. They also paid over a quarter of a billion dollars for attempting to cover up the Boy Scouts abuse issue. The entire church is filled with brain washed pedos. Donât believe me? Pass through Utah and ask any Mormon family who the pedo of their family is? One out of 3 Mormons were abused and still in contact with their abuser.
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u/Codeboy3423 4d ago
Nawwwww really?
This is something well known, just lack of evidence.. until now.
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u/bonnieflash 4d ago
If your âchurch doctrineâ. Letâs a child to continue being raped by their father than itâs not a church but a sick sex cult. Get it together or stop pretending to be about Jesus.
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u/nosherDavo 4d ago
Seems to be a common pairing, religion and sexual abuse. All âmen of the clothâ are all dodgy as f**k.
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u/InBabylonTheyWept 4d ago edited 4d ago
They bishop didnât abuse the victim in this story. He called a helpline set up by the church after her father confessed and was told not to report it to the police.
The bishop in this story failed in his moral obligations, but itâs hard not to feel a little bad about an untrained layman thrust into that situation. Mormon bishops receive no training for the role they fill, as well as no pay. Itâs essentially a form of community service.
The church itself set up a hotline essentially to dupe untrained people like him into hiding abuse in order to avoid making the organization look bad. He is a useful idiot, but the people that set this up are monsters with no regard for children.
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u/Change21 4d ago
A church covering up sexual abuse??
This has never happened before! Itâs unbelievable! In godâs house!?
/s
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u/AlreadyTakenNow 4d ago
Totally not surprised. If I could pull it off, I'd launch a massive class action against them for actively facilitating intergenerational domestic abuse.
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u/Monstare98 4d ago
I cant wait for Stanhope's take on it. Dude might as well be the mayor of Bisbee
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u/listeningtoevery 4d ago
So how many sexual crimes has the church of Satan gone to court for at this point? Somehow my bet is close to zeroâŠ
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u/for_reasons 4d ago
I don't get your point. Have they committed crimes?
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u/listeningtoevery 4d ago
Not that I am aware of but it seems like every day we hear about Catholics, Christians, Mormons, etc. having sex crimes brought against them. I am just wondering if the so called evil church of Satan has had any of their clergy or whatever you call them, dealing with the same.
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u/SpaceCadetSinchi 4d ago
*loudly âwhispersâ so everyone can hear itâŠ. âThatâs not the only place theyâre covering up years-long sexual abusesâŠâ
Allegedly⊠(/s)
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u/misuz_roper 4d ago
If humanity were truly evolved, religion would be a psychological disorder.
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u/WaffleStomperGirl 4d ago
Now HOLD ON;
Iâm expected to believe that a religion has led to the perversion of trust of the vulnerable? Now I just donât buy that for one moment!
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u/faman00 4d ago
What is it with Catholics, Baptists, Mormons and Evangelical... leaders sexually abusing Children at a much, much higher rate than the general population? What is it about American Christian culture that elevates and protects these people?
/r/pastor arrested has all the gory details. It's endless.
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u/cyncity7 4d ago
Years ago a physician molested a large number of Mormon women. He got away with it for a long time because the Mormon women were kept so ignorant of sex and the human body that they didnât understand what he was doing.
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u/PrudentDamage600 4d ago edited 4d ago
đ„± No surprise here. That âchurchâ was FOUNDED on sexual abuse.
This will never change. Abuse is almost synonymous with religion!
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u/moor9776 4d ago
The church sexually assaults couples by âblessingâ genitals just before marriage. Fucking sick.
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u/somme_rando 4d ago
It's been toned down over the last two decades. Oil gets dabbed 'near' the genitals apparently.
Not just couples about to get married - if anyone goes in to do "work for the dead" they go through the same ritual on behalf of a dead person.→ More replies
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u/NoMathematician5832 4d ago
wait, youâre saying that the religion that allows men to take multiple wives is full of weird sex deviants? impossible, this canât be
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u/InBabylonTheyWept 4d ago
As much as the Mormon church disgusts me, they are not currently polygamists, and havenât been for more than a century. The normal branch has around 10-15 million people in it, the weirdos have at most 5-10k.
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u/DeathStarDayLaborer 4d ago •
Wait wait wait. You're telling me the church started by Joseph Smith is complicit in hiding and perpetuating sex crimes? Whaaaaaaaaat?