SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
The Daily Utah Chronicle
April 2, 2018
By Morgan Barron
Last fall, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints unveiled 16 standardized interview questions for young adults interested in serving as missionaries for their church. These questions, designed to determine if candidates are prepared physically, mentally, socially and spiritually to represent the LDS church, range from the applicant’s belief in Jesus Christ to their financial situation. As bishops, local lay leaders who conduct these interviews, previously only received general guidelines about what to ask potential missionaries, these questions garnered some media attention. Question eight, “Have you ever sexually abused a child in any way, regardless of whether or not you were charged, you were convicted, or the record was expunged?” appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune where LDS columnist Robert Kirby wrote, “This is an excellent question to put to a prospective representative of Jesus Christ … However, an excellent follow-up question here would be, “Have you ever been sexually abused… in any way, regardless of whether or not the perpetrator was a church leader?” With the disturbing revelation of sexual abuse within the LDS Church earlier this month, the most important question members need to be asking is how predators who utilize their positions of power within the church to prey on victims are held accountable in our community.
In 2002, The Boston Globe broke the story of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, focusing in on former priest John J. Geoghan and how cardinals, aware of the sexual misconduct, habitually reassigned Geoghan to protect him and the church from scandal. In their zeal to preserve the reputation of the church and Geoghan, the archdioceses failed to protect Geoghan’s victims, boys as young as four years old. Richard Sipe, a former priest and psychotherapist who was quoted in the article, has long believed the Catholic Church has been too slow when dealing with priests who molest children. According to him, “the church defied its own most basic values of protecting the young and fostering celibacy.”
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