This is NOT my story, but it IS the story of what can happen and what DID happen because of the policies of The Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints.
I imagine that there are non-disclosure agreements in place, but that doesn’t stop anyone from reading “The Sins of Brother Curtis”, a book by Lisa Davis. As an ecclesiastical abuse victim who has already told my story here on PLDSC, I was triggered by MANY similarities between the book’s story and my own. Here are just nine of them.
1. The Church knowing of an endowed, Priesthood-bearing individual with sexual problems and administering formal church discipline.
2. That individual, having successfully gone through the required gauntlet, being trusted again with the Melchizedek Priesthood AND being put in Church positions of respect, honor and contact with young people.
3. That gauntlet of the formal repentance process NOT requiring professional counseling for the perpetrator
4. The local Church leaders, KNOWING of this individual’s past (either by Church records or their own experience with him), GIVING NO WARNING to members in danger
5. The Church, through it’s local leaders, punishing and shaming the victim for coming forward, including formal church discipline
6. The Church, through it’s local leaders, not recognizing crimes as crimes and serial offenders as serial offenders but rather as mere sins and sinners.
7. Ignorant members mounting a campaign of support for the perpetrator while vilifying the victim
8. The individual “congregation hopping” to shed his reputation, shorten his Church discipline, and start over incognito to members in his new area
9. The individual knowing how to play the game and easily manipulate the LDS Church disciplinary system to get exactly what he wanted.
“[Mormons] were fairly unsophisticated people, sure, but the naivete that had come with their faith was puzzling. And how could a religious leader not want this molester arrested? ‘They forced these people to be religious zealots who will place their need to belong to this religious organization over the safety of their children,’ [Attorney Tim Kosnoff] reflected years later, ‘It was evil.’ ”