Mormon sex abuse scandal: Campaigners fight secrecy with background checks

Episode 6 of Heaven's Helpline is available online below. Illustration / Paul Slater

Podcast series Heaven’s Helpline reveals how credible reports of child sexual abuse and domestic violence vanish into a system of church leaders, lawyers and secret courts within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS church). In the sixth and final episode, Murray Jones reports on those fighting to reform the church – and the moments that made ex-members question everything they’d been told.

“The culture of the church aids and abets abuse,” explains Sara Delaney.

She’s been a member of the LDS church in Britain for 47 years and has spent more than 30 years working with sexual offenders and abuse survivors, as a probation officer and social worker. So she knows a lot about what it takes to reduce risks to children.

“We know the only thing necessary for sexual abuse to flourish is secrecy. And in the church, we don’t talk about it, which makes it much easier to hide,” she says.

Feeling frustrated at the church’s lack of acknowledgement of its shortcomings on this issue, she teamed up with another concerned LDS member, Jane Christie, and they launched a campaign known as 21st Century Saints. They started a podcast, posted on social media and wrote a letter to every bishop in the country, advocating for child safeguarding processes to be improved.

After two years of dismissal, rejection and stern letters from church lawyers, in June 2023 there was a breakthrough. The church announced that, in the UK, it would introduce mandatory background checks for anyone working with children or vulnerable adults. This means that anyone with a record of violent or abusive behaviour would not be allowed to work with these groups.

It was a major win for campaigners and an unusual development for a church that doesn’t tend to look fondly upon public criticism from its members.

A positive step, but it begs the question: if this is the best way to protect children, why is this not the policy everywhere, including in New Zealand? And why, unlike many other countries, are there no legal requirements for such checks?

In episode six of Heaven’s Helpline, we explore the areas of New Zealand law that enable the church to vanish abuse cases into its in-house system of lawyers and confidential courts.

Mandatory reporting, priest-penitent privilege (the system that allows clergy not to report criminal admissions made in a confessional context), statute of limitations and background checks – all areas of law that advocates for abuse survivors argue need to be changed to help prevent further abuse and cover-ups. These are discussed in various forms in the recommendations laid out by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into abuse in state care.

And, we ask: is the Mormon church reformable? And if not, does the Government need to step in to legislate to help protect victims of abuse?

Former members also talk of collecting their doubts about the church, using the metaphor of accumulating items on a shelf, until one, sometimes minor, revelation means it becomes too heavy to hold and their entire belief system or “shelf” collapses.

We sought comment from the LDS church in response to the allegations discussed in this episode. In a statement, the church indicated it has published numerous online resources to help lay leaders, members, victims and their families and that it will study and implement review recommendations for churches from the Royal Commission of Inquiry. The full statement from the church can be read here.

Heaven’s Helpline is available at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. The series was made with the support of NZ On Air. For more on this series, go to nzherald.co.nz/heavenshelpline.