So, I can’t remember exactly where we were putting all the “church leader is a sexual abuser” posts, but here we go again.., A “Youth Pastor”, male age 56, in a town a bit South of Provo, UT is accused of sexually abusing a 14yr-old boy. He paid the kid for his silence, and then felt that he could continue abusing the kid as he was paying him anyway….. My “favorite” part of this story, if you click on the link, is that it does not reference which church this “youth pastor” belongs to. The article linked goes to KSL.com, which has a “special relationship” with the LDS church. Of course the guy is LDS and this happened in one of its congregations. It is completely disingenuous to refer to the man as a “youth pastor,” as the LDS church has a lay clergy, and so he was just a rando in the congregation who got the “call” to be a youth leader for a few years. There’s no training and no professionalism involved to confer the title of “pastor” on this man. He’s just a dude who is essentially babysitting your kids unpaid a few hours a week. The news org knows this, the LDS church knows this, its congregants know this, and it is an intentional obfuscation to avoid bad PR. Decades ago, this abuse wouldn’t have even been brought to law enforcement, and would have just been shushed. So I guess that’s some progress? However, this kind of reporting by the media branch of the LDS church doesn’t make me feel like they are doing all they can to protect kids and tackle the issue of child abuse within their ranks and institutions.
Great idea! That worked so well for Catholics. And regarding the rest of your post: it looks like the LDS Church is forgetting thst the abused kids and their families ARE the church. Inother words, in spite of what they say, they're not trying to protect the church. They're trying to protect the heirarchy.
We might need to close down the kiddy fiddlers infrastructure until we can figure out what has gone wrong
When you go around telling everyone yours is the only “TRUE” church and that the Priesthood authority was divinely restored to the earth through Joseph Smith, - which means that the “youth pastor” was somehow divinely inspired to be called to that position, - then it kinda throws the whole “TRUE”thfullness and trust in “the Church” into crisis.
It is still not over. You can see how this cult stuff develops when you keep pushing the TRUTH. Gets people to push aside a bunch of evidence contrary to the belief, until brushing off contraindicators is a badge of faith and status.
This isn't the clever post you probably think it is. That church and many others put pedos in positions of authority and then try to protect the leadership and/or defend the structure that creates the issue.
exactly. It’s not the 1980s anymore. If your Organisation has structural abuse problems it needs to be closed for cleanup IMO. How many more examples do we need?
We just had a multi-episode series on historical child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Flanders and Belgium. The interesting thing was the media appearances by our Cardinal. After the first episode, he complained about going over "old" stories that the Church had moved on from ages ago and not understand the need to dredge this up again. By the time the last one had aired, he was aware of the anger bordering on rage in the public opinion and his tone was far more humble and conciliatory. One of the major problems is that even within those institutions these problems are not taken seriously (or seriously enough). e.g. the Priest who helped make the documentary series had collected testimonies from victims for decades but each time he had tried to broach the subject at the archdiocese, he had been met with a brick wall.
Some time back, i compared notes with friends about pedos at our respective schools In 2 cases the person was simply mysteriously fired - but we all knew why - indeed it was an open secret about one of the teachers in question. In the other case of a catholic school it eventually came out when he was charged with grooming multiple kids. The priority was always about protecting the reputation of the institution and it's leaders and nothing about safety of the kids. I am really not sure how many stories we need about these abusive institutions. For example - Liberty U has been covering up rape. What happened? oh wait nothing.
Said he was laaaaaaaay clergy Sunday driver, yeh It took 'em soooooooo long To find out But they found out
Jitty: "We need to think of the kids' safety." dave: "That might destroy the institution." Jitty: "Yes." dave: "But the institution matters more." Jitty: *beats head against table*
This is textbook abuser behavior and I wish people would have enough knowledge of it by know to recognize it as such and not as an expression of real remorse. https://www.thecut.com/2023/12/nobody-won-the-jonathan-majors-trial.html The framing of this entire article is incredibly harmful.
Huh. I actually think the author was pointing out that the victim blaming themselves is classic abuser manipulation. Maybe she wasn't explicit enough?
I disagree. I read that article as Jabbari was in a position she wasn't ready for, and that Majors is abusive. It also gets into how relationships are complicated. For example, why does one couple have a healthy yet argumentative relationship while another has a healthy relationship in which voices are almost never raised? To me, this article read like it was saying Jabbaei had to yet come to self-acceptance that Majors is an abuser, physical AND emotionally.
Epstein files dropped last nite. Dershowitz & so many other perverts in there. This is surprising 🚨Just in: Steven Hawking was mentioned in the Jeffery Epstein documents. It’s alleged that Hawking participated in an underage orgy. pic.twitter.com/BY5JzePhhn— The Calvin Coolidge Project (@TheCalvinCooli1) January 4, 2024
yes, Dershowitz is the one we should be focusing on meanwhile…. Q. Let me back up. Do you know if Bill Clinton was a friend of Jeffrey Epstein? A. I knew he had dealings with Bill Clinton. I did not know they were friends until I read the Vanity Fair article about them going to Africa together. Q.Did Jeffrey ever talk to you about Bill Clinton? A. He said one time that Clinton likes them young, referring to girls.
Well Dersh was perhaps the loudest to pre-emptively protest the mere suggestion he would be on the list. So much of the attention is of his own making.