In the book The Sins of Brother Curtis: Story of Betrayal, Conviction, and the Mormon Church, the author shows how the LDS Church lacked essential safeguards to protect children from a serial sexual predator. Because lay leaders are seldom trained about abuse prevention and detection, have access to children and youth in one-on-one interviews, and do not consistently annotate records of abusers, the Church continues to leave children vulnerable to sexual abuse.
The Church must become more proactive in implementing procedures and policies that hold offenders responsible and that exonerate victims of shame and blame. The following solutions can reduce the number of sex offenses in the Church and can make the Church a safer place for all members:
1. Problem: Predators recognize that authority is usually unquestioned in the Church. Church members are told to only speak positively about their leaders and to always obey them.
Solution: Church must teach members that leaders are fallible. Church members should be taught how to recognize and report abuse–even if trusted leaders are the abusers.
2 Problem: Unhealthy reverence for power and authority of male priesthood leaders.
Solution: Church should teach members to worship God alone and to remember that all members of the Church are imperfect, including Church leaders.
3. Problems: Little oversight of Church leaders and priesthood holders.
Solution: The Church needs to implement increased supervision of leaders to ensure that they are not abusing children.
4. Problem: Perpetrators have easier access to victims through ministering and church assignments.
Solution: Two -deep service must be implemented for every Church calling where members have access to children, including bishop’s interviews.
5. Problem: Victims are often shamed by Church leaders so survivors seldom report abuse.
Solution: Church leaders must be trained to eliminate any procedure or policy that shames abuse victims.
6. Problem: Perpetrators know that the Church seldom reports abuse to police.
Solution: After the Church determines that the victim is safe, abuse should be reported to police.
7. Problem: Church leaders often rationalize sex abuse or blame the victims.
Solution: Church leaders on every level need extensive training on the dynamics of sexual abuse, including grooming and how perpetrators tend to isolate and shame victims.
8. Problem: The Church does not consistently annotate records of abusers, which allows them to abuse others.
Solution: Abusers’ church records should always be tagged and ward leaders should never call perpetrators to positions where they can abuse others.
9. Problem: Priesthood leaders tend to cover up the offenses of their colleagues and friends.
Solution: Church leaders should be appropriately monitored to make certain that they hold abusers accountable. The Church must create a hotline for abuse victims, including ecclesiastical abuse victims.
10. Problem: Perpetrators observe that victims are sometimes silenced by the Church. This increases the likelihood that they may be attracted to join the Church or become involved in Church callings that involve children.
Solution: The Church must implement policies and procedures that make certain that survivors are not silenced.
11. Problem: Since the Church does not perform background checks on members who work with children in a Church calling (except in Scouting), serial sex offenders may be baptized and moved into Church positions.
Solution: Church should perform a background check before anyone is called to serve youth or children.
12. Problem: With the Church’s emphasis on missionary work, some members invite others into their homes and lives without due diligence.
Solution: Members should receive regular training on how to protect themselves and their families from sex offenders.
13. Problem: Church leaders often deal with pedophilia as a sin and not as a crime.
Solution: Church members and leaders should be taught that abuse is a crime and that is should be reported to police.
14. Problem: Church literature asks bishops to help pedophiles turn away from their sin, something they are unqualified of doing.
Solution: Bishop should be advised to turn all counseling over to trained professionals.
15. When abuse is reported, the Church does not implement meaningful reforms to protect LDS children. Bishops, for example, can still interview children alone even though there are some bishops perpetrated on children during interviews.
Solution: Church should eliminate all one-of-one bishop interviews with children and youth.
16. LDS Church officials and its lawyers typically attempt to evade responsibility by hiding behind the “free exercise of religion” clause of the Constitution, statute of limitations technicalities and clergy-penitent privilege statutes.
Solution: Church must adhere to high ethical standards and determine than protecting its members from abuse is more important than protecting its reputation.
The Church must use its resources and practices to protect children, not to protect offenders. Over the years, too many abuse survivors were further victimized by Church leaders who refused to listen to victims or who shielded their friends who were perpetrators. Too often, the Church has hired skilled attorneys to attack victims and to defend offenders. This is unacceptable.
The Church must implement critical safeguards to better protect its children and members. As it does so, it will better represent the Savior who asked us to love, serve, and defend the “least among us,” who include children, the vulnerable, and the abused.