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Paul Rytting listened as a woman, voice quavering, told him her story.
When she was a child, her father, a former bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had routinely slipped into bed with her while he was aroused, she said.
It was March 2017 and Rytting offered his sympathies as 31-year-old Chelsea Goodrich spoke. A Utah attorney and head of the church’s Risk Management Division, Rytting had spent about 15 years protecting the organization, widely known as the Mormon church, from costly claims, including sexual abuse lawsuits.
…
Audio recordings of the meetings over the next four months, obtained by The Associated Press, show how Rytting, despite expressing concern for what he called John’s “significant sexual transgression,” would employ the risk management playbook that has helped the church keep child sexual abuse cases secret. In particular, the church would discourage Miller from testifying, citing a law that exempts clergy from having to divulge information about child sex abuse that is gleaned in a confession. Without Miller’s testimony, prosecutors dropped the charges, telling Lorraine that her impending divorce and the years that had passed since Chelsea’s alleged abuse might prejudice jurors.
Re-read the report. Bishop Miller would have testified if the law permitted him to do so. The problem is the abuser had to give permission first, which he obviously wasn’t willing to do.
I stand by my statement. If your institution has such a law to protect it, it is gotta be pretty evil.
In my country and in my profession (teacher), it is stated in law that I am required to report (and testify if needed) any suspicion of child abuse. It is absolutely abhorrent to me that someone wouldn’t be required to. Never mind be protected from it.
Regardless of Bishop Miller’s opinion, that law is exists and is evil. And it taints all those who it protects.
Your view is extremist and bigoted, but you’re entitled to it. Assuming you’re a United States citizen, your logic makes everyone evil because there are laws that have the effect of protecting people who commit heinous acts, including about half the Bill of Rights. Labeling religious people evil because there are laws that protect them is bigotry.
Those laws exist because they were lobbied for. It is not bigoted to hate laws that exist to protect abusers or those who are happy to use them. And I am not American, fortunately no such evil protections have been allowed in my country.
Also thinking it is extremist and bigoted to be against laws that exist to protect abusers and those that support them is certainly a take…
I also assume you have taken it as bigoted because you are American and assume that this applies to all clergy. But there are in fact clergy in the world that don’t support such thing. And shockingly many other countries where such disgusting laws don’t exist.
You realize that ALL criminals are protected, right? That’s what “innocent until proven guilty” means.
It’s worth pointing out that the only person actually protected here is the accused. The clergy-penitent privilege law doesn’t actually protect the Church at all in this case.
It is also worth pointing out that, that changes nothing about what I said. It all still applies.
It’s worth pointing our again to you that it’s a granted exemption from reporting, it does not bar that clergy from reporting it mearly gives them a legal excuse not to report. But go on about how it’s not protecting the clergy or church from disclosure.
Wrong. The Bishop cannot divulge the contents of the confession without permission from the penitent.
So let me get this straight. You’re saying that a member of clergy should be allowed to hear an adult say, “I molested that child last week” and not have to report it?
Is that what you are saying? I want to hear it from you straight.
That is not what I’m saying. I have no qualms with mandatory reporting when it comes to child abuse. I am simply explaining the law in Idaho, which states that a clergy members must have permission from a penitent in order to divulge the contents of a confession. I’m not saying it should be that way, I’m saying it is that way. That’s how it works right now, and that’s why Bishop Miller could not testify against John Goodrich.
Also, this is not a case of “I molested a child last week.” This is a case of “I molested a child a decade ago.” I’m not saying it’s less bad, I’m just saying it’s different. The urgency of removing a child from that situation doesn’t exist when the victim is no longer a child and no longer a subject of abuse.
What are you on about? Duty to report laws make perfect sense to people who are dealing with the vulnerable. I want teachers, doctors, daycare staff to report child abuse. I don’t care if the abuser is the biggest atheist whoever atheisted or the fucking Pope.
@Jonny stated that all religious people are evil because clergy-penitent privilege laws exist. I’m not arguing against mandatory reporting laws here (although I have reservations because of the First Amendment implications). Making a blanket statement that religious people are evil is bigotry.
I don’t see where they said that. Show me the exact quote that says “all religious people are evil”.
For the record I would never say that. I don’t think religion makes you a bad person, I think it makes it harder to be a good one.
I did not state that. Your country is not the only country in the world. Not every religious person is part of the clergy.
I stated, and will state again. Those laws are evil and it taints all those who they protect.
The law protects penitents. That is its purpose. It protects them from having their private confessions revealed by trusted clergy members.
It’s the same sort of law as client-attorney privilege or doctor-patient privilege. You’re barking up the wrong tree (and your veiled claim of Americentrism is hilariously off-base here).
The only way you could think I said all religious people is if you assumed all of them had this law. Which would mean American centrism. You can’t have got to that without it.
Those privileges should not protect (and in my country do not protect) suspicion of serious harm to others. You tell a member of your legal team or doctor that you abused a child, there is a duty to report.
[I’m not going to respond anymore. Partly because it’s late and I have work. Partly because I think you are arguing in bad faith, as your conclusions repeatedly do not correlate with what I said]
You should probably brush up on your reading comprehension before engaging in debates online. You should also educate yourself on context before arguing about laws and their implications in a country with as different political paradigms from your own as the United States has. For example, there is no meaningful “freedom of speech” in the UK, while here it is largely held sacred on both sides of the political spectrum.
The law in question applies only to people in the US state of Idaho. It does not apply to people in California, Canada, or the UK. It applies to anyone, whether religious or not, who make confessions to members of the clergy in Idaho. It is assumed that one would only make such a confession because one is religious, but I suppose that isn’t necessarily always the case. However, saying that all people who are protected by this law are evil is saying that all people who confess to their clergy are evil. Which is a small-minded, ignorant, bigoted thing to say.
Note again that the law really only exists to protect penitents, not the members of the clergy.
Do you find it bigoted because you’re christian or because you’re a paedophile?
You’re getting dragged but you’re right. Clergy is legally allowed to report whatever they want unless the confession is considered by the state to be “protected religious conversation owned by the confessor”. That’s what is happening here. The first article links a second that covers it in greater detail. It’s super fucked up.
If clergy shared their confessions regardless, they’d likely lose their position with the church and could be sued by the confessor, having violated clergy-penitent privilege, but I’d willingly sacrifice my job to keep someone from raping children. These assholes, though, are indoctrinated from the beginning to believe that the confession process is a magical “get out of jail free” card that just puts people on the path of recovery because they showed penitence. How? Native American Jesus, Joseph Smith, and magical hats. Fucking magic.
The last half of your response is bigoted, but I appreciate the words of logic about the issue at hand. I’m not aware of any situations where a bishop has been censured for reporting crimes that they became aware of through a confession, and from my own service in the Church I find such a thing unlikely.
So really, the risk to Bishop Miller in this case has very little, if anything to do with the Church and everything to do with the fact that it would be illegal for him to testify against John Goodrich, and even if he did, his testimony would be inadmissible.
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Making blanket statements about an entire group being brainwashed certainly qualifies as a form of bigotry.
How about you re-read the law, it gives him an exemption from reporting it does not bar him from reporting, its mearly a lobbied excuse from religious institutions. That POS decided not to report instead using his exemption and blaming it on the abuser for his lack of action. Relgions constantly demonstrate they enable abuse in multiple forms, stop apologizing about institutions eroding basic human rights by decrie of myths and fairytales.
Incorrect. The law protects the penitent by requiring their consent before the clergy member can divulge the contents of a private confession.