Child Sexual Abuse in the Mormon Context

This short blog raises some of the questions I have had, and have raised, about the relationship of the Latter Day Saints Church and the Boy Scouts of America in the abuse context.

While both organizations had historically serious problems with child sexual abuse within their ranks, both also have made good progress in many ways and are doing a better job than before in abuse training and prevention.  Still, there are some troubling questions about the extent and breadth of the historical, and current, abuse problem for the Mormon Church. Unlike the Boy Scouts of America, which has been forced through our litigation to release at least major portions of their child abuse files, the Mormon Church has never released its child abuse files, and indeed claims it has none.  Now, if that latter claim is true–that there are no records of child sexual abuse in the Mormon Church–a church that keeps meticulous records on just about everything–then this is indeed troubling.  The mere fact that there are no files, if that is so, is itself a bald failure; how can it be that this powerful and sophisticated organization never thought to keep track of and study such a serious problem as child sexual abuse?  Can this really be true?

I don’t know if we’ll ever get to the bottom of this.  But these questions are worth pondering and posing to the Church.”