SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
The Salt Lake Tribune
December 14, 2017
By Peggy Fletcher Stack
The prominent support group that helped expose widespread sexual abuse by Catholic priests is calling on the LDS Church to discontinue its practice of male bishops interviewing young Mormons behind closed doors.
Such conversations — sometimes about intimate sexual matters — are “a recipe for abuse,” said Joelle Casteix, the Western regional leader for SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “They should be stopped.”
Considered the oldest and largest support group for victims of sexual abuse in institutional settings, SNAP’s efforts were featured in the Oscar-winning film “Spotlight.”
Predators thrive “in a system like the LDS Church has,” Casteix, an abuse-prevention expert and a survivor herself, said Thursday in an interview. “This is not a safe environment for children.”
No other “reputable institutional church, private or public school, sports group, youth-serving organization, or community center allows one-on-one meetings between adults and children,” she said in a news release. “Why is the LDS Church endorsing this horrible practice?”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.