jfid – A father confesses to his bishop that he has raped his five-year-old daughter.
The bishop contacts the church’s help center, run by lawyers, and is advised not to report the case to the police or other authorities.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church, excommunicates the father but takes no further steps to protect his children.
As a result, the abuse continues for seven years, and the father begins to rape his second daughter, who is just six weeks old. He even records his vile acts and uploads them to the internet.
It is not until 2017 that he is arrested by authorities after the videos are traced by police in New Zealand and the United States. He subsequently commits suicide in jail while awaiting trial.
This horrifying story came to light last year, thanks to an Associated Press investigation that exposed the system used by the Mormon Church to protect itself from lawsuits by concealing cases of child sexual abuse, sometimes allowing the abuse to continue for years, and endangering other children.
Three of the six children of the father, referred to as Paul Adams, sued the church, the bishop, and other church officials in 2021, alleging negligence and conspiracy to cover up child sexual abuse to avoid “costly lawsuits” and protect the church’s reputation.
However, recently, a judge in Arizona dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that church officials who knew that a church member was raping his daughter were not obligated to report the abuse to the police or social services because the information was obtained during a spiritual confession.
Judge Timothy Dickerson stated that the state’s clergy-penitent privilege exempted two bishops and several other church officials from Arizona’s mandatory reporting laws for child sexual abuse because Paul Adams initially revealed during a confession that he was raping his daughter.
“The church defendants were not required by the Mandatory Reporting Statute to report the abuse of Jane Doe 1 by her father because their knowledge of the abuse came from confidential communications that fall within the clergy-penitent exception,” Dickerson wrote in his decision.
The judge’s decision has sparked outrage and disappointment among the victims and their supporters, who are calling for the law to be changed to force clergy to report child sexual abuse, even if the information is obtained during a confession.
However, efforts to change the law have not been supported by some members of the Arizona legislature, who believe that the seal of confession is a sacred part of their church, particularly the Catholic Church.
“The seal of confession is a sacred, sacred part of the Catholic Church,” Rep. Quang Nguyen, a Catholic, told Capitol Media Services.
In other words, is the sacred right of a rapist more important than the sacred right of a child to be protected from a sexual predator?
Is this what we call justice? Is this what we call compassion? Is this what we call faith?
