Push to require clergy to report abuse stalls in Mormon Utah
SALT LAKE CITY>> Lindsey Lundholm looked out over hundreds of people at the Utah State Capitol last year and felt a deep sense of healing. Abuse survivors, religious leaders and major party politicians were all gathered to rally for an end to a legal loophole that exempts religious clergy from being required to report child sexual abuse once it comes to their attention.
Lundholm, one of the rally’s organizers, recalled telling the crowd how, growing up as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints in Idaho, she told her bishop about her painful abuse only to see it go unreported.
Unearthing the trauma wasn’t easy, but back in August she hoped reforms could be forthcoming so others would not face what she did.
“There was really a lot of momentum,” said Lundholm, now a teacher in northern Utah. “Everyone we were talking to was like, ‘ This is a no brainer. This is something that needs to be changed.’”
It hasn’t.
Proposals to reform laws that exempt clergy from child sex abuse reporting requirements went nowhere in Utah’s statehouse this year, failing to receive even a hearing as lawmakers prepare to adjourn for the year. Efforts were stymied by a coalition of powerful religious groups, continuing a yearslong pattern in which Catholics, Latterday Saints and Jehovah’s Witnesses have defended the exemptions as survivors like Lundholm fight for reform.
In Utah, where the majority of lawmakers are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints, state law requires most professionals — therapists, doctors and teachers among them — report abuse, yet clergy are exempt from alerting authorities about abuse they learn of through confessions.
Republicans and Democrats announced plans last year to reform laws that exempt religious clergy from reporting child sexual abuse cases revealed in conversations with parishioners.
Behind-the- scenes conversations between legislative leaders in Utah and what Senate President Stuart Adams said was “a broad base of religious groups” helped thwart four separate proposals to add clergy to the list of professionals required to report child sexual abuse.
“I think they have First Amendment rights and religious protections,” Adams, a Latter- day Saint himself, said, noting fears among religious leaders that clergy could be punished for breaking vows of confidentiality.
Each proposal was introduced or announced after an Associated Press investigation found that the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints’ sexual abuse reporting hotline can be misused by its leaders to divert abuse accusations away from law enforcement and instead to church attorneys who may bury the problem, leaving victims in harm’s way.
In lawsuits detailed in the investigation, attorneys from the faith widely known as the Mormon church have argued clergy-penitent privilege allows them to refuse to answer questions and turn over documents about alleged sexual abuse.
Church officials declined to comment about the stalled legislative efforts. The Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City did not respond to requests for comment but campaigned against them, saying in January that priests and clergy were different from other professionals mandated to report sexual abuse.
“Legislation that would require a priest to (report sexual abuse) violates our right to practice our religion,” Bishop Oscar Solis, of the Salt Lake City Diocese, wrote in a Jan. 25 letter to parishioners.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox last month said he “had no problem with the bills moving forward” and receiving consideration in the statehouse.
“I think it’s an important conversation to have. We’ve encouraged the Legislature to look at this and make sure that our model is the right model,” he told reporters.
Marci Hamilton, chief executive of the abuse prevention nonprofit Child USA, said churches have maintained the same playbook for decades in opposing more disclosure.
Routinely it involves a two- pronged approach, defending clergy-penitent privilege in statehouses and using it to avoid damaging disclosures in court cases, said Hamilton, also a University of Pennsylvania law professor.
“They have not veered from it. Both institutions are hoping that time will simply let everybody start trusting them again,” Hamilton said, referring to Catholics and Latter- day Saints.
But, she added, “by preventing the public — and especially the sincere believers — from getting the full story you don’t create the accountability that these organizations should be held to and the secrets continue.”
“The problem in the United States — and this is particularly acute in a state like Utah — is that the lobbying power of these religious organizations is so extraordinary,” Hamilton said.
Laws in 33 states exempt clergy — regardless of religion — from laws requiring people report child sexual abuse allegations to authorities. Religious leaders have systematically fought efforts to expand the list of states.
They currently oppose efforts from Vermont to Washington, where a proposal advanced through the state Senate Tuesday.
Kansas lawmakers introduced multiple proposals on penalties for not reporting suspected child sexual abuse, including one in the state Senate that would have added clergy to a list of mandatory reporters. It faced especially fierce public rebukes from Catholic leaders because it didn’t exempt confessions. No proposal received even a hearing before an initial deadline this year.
In the wake of the AP’S investigation last year, Republican state Rep. Phil Lyman and Democratic Rep. Angela Romero announced plans to reform Utah’s clergy-penitent privilege loophole. Lyman, who served six years as a Latterday Saints’ bishop, said at the time lawmakers should want to reexamine the loophole “regardless of religious or political affiliation.”
“People should be able to go and confess their sins to their bishop without fear of being prosecuted up until when they are confessing something that has affected someone’s else life significantly,” he told the AP in August.