SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
Las Vegas Sun [Las Vegas, NV]
February 3, 2026
By Mike Barrett, Ashburn, Va.
A lawsuit against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for not reporting child abuse was revived last year by an Arizona court.
The Church is back in court on charges it failed to alert police to child sexual abuse known to authorities at the highest level.
The Church claimed it had no responsibility to report the abuse to police. The court of appeals noted that the man admitted the abuse to his wife during a meeting with a Mormon bishop — and a jury could decide that the meeting was not a religious confession.
The court remanded the case to the lower court, pending the Church’s expected appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court.
The Church has not apologized for its decision to not report the case to police, and no apology should probably be anticipated since the new prophet and president of the church has publicly stated, “The church doesn’t ‘seek apologies’ and we don’t give them.”
Perhaps he should reconsider. After all, even the pope has apologized for “grave errors of judgment” in the Catholic Church’s failure to act in a timely manner in such cases, and for the “heart-wrenching pain” of victims that was long “ignored, kept quiet or silenced.”