Speaking of the mission blog, just went to look for the December 2019 entry, was suspicious that it had been deleted, but found the January 2020 entry and it seems like they were too busy to write an entry in December. Anyway, January 2020 mentions family visits, shows photos of family together (perpetrator and victim) doing stuff, etc...
For those wondering where this alleged entry can be found, it's at:
This sounds to me like a tragic story. I understand that pedophilia is an awful condition and that people with pedophilia can be deceptive and manipulative. And sixteen year-olds can be erratic in their sexual behaviour in any case. I'm sure parents would be desperate to believe that their sixteen-year-old son was somehow cured of his pedophilia, perhaps through some divine power. I can guess that the son might have performed well to convince his parents of that; he might have been cynically faking it or hoping and believing it to be true, or some combination of both.
So I'm guessing the parents and their church superiors were too quick to believe that priesthood power or whatever had cured pedophilia in this case. I guess they were too quick to reassure themselves that everything was all fine now, thanks to God, by getting the son off the sex offenders list and taking the family to Spain. The joy and relief, and the gratitude to God for this great deliverance, may have all made the calling as a Mission President seem perfectly fitting. What a miracle, what a testimony.
There was no actual miracle, and the religious readiness to believe in a miracle only led to scarring assaults on a child. All the adults involved should have thought about the risks they were taking as well as the hope that they felt. Mormon doctrine and practice, encouraging untrained people to believe that they have miraculous powers of discernment and healing, probably made this situation worse. Bigger churches with larger and more professional hierarchies have failed just as badly with pedophiles, though.
Maybe it helps not to have religious encouragement of any kind to give second chances to pedophiles, but I'd be surprised if it were only religious people who failed in this way. It must be hard to accept that someone you love is a monster who cannot be trusted. If these parents were complacent before, they must be shattered now.
A former mission president/temple president/BYU professor and very best friend of Gordon B. Hinckley was a close family friend. He performed my wedding at the Salt Lake temple, was there when I blessed our children and our families even traveled together occasionally.
Later it was revealed he was raping his grandson, and others. I still haven’t been able process or accept any of it, even to this day. It has completely destroyed his family and the lives of others.
The evil and damage of child abuse casts a shadow over generations.
"I'm on paid sabbatical from BYU in exchange for my promise to use this time to finish two books."
I don't know how treatable pedophilia is by any means of any kind. People with pedophilia can certainly control themselves to avoid doing harm, if necessary by avoiding all contact with children, but I don't know how much the condition itself can be changed.
And I don't actually know how often it is that religious people of any kind persuade themselves or others that some spiritual power can cure pedophilia. Some people must really want to believe that God or whatever can and does cure it, however. Family and friends of pedophiles must want that, and I expect that many pedophiles themselves would much rather not be that way. For whatever reason, though—nonexistence, lack of power, higher priorities beyond human conception—I don't think that God actually removes the condition very often. Expecting God to fix pedophilia seems to be like relying on prayer to cure cancer.
Prayer itself can hardly do direct harm, but relying on prayer to the point of not doing other things that could really help can do great harm. It's one thing to hope for a miracle when a miracle would be the only possible help, but it's another thing to make the miracle necessary by not doing all that you can. In Christian tradition, jumping off the temple so that angels will catch you is the advice of the devil.
"If you are the true church of God, then put this suspected pedophile in a high place, for surely God will not let him fall." That's also the devil's advice. Churches have too often taken it.
I still feel that we are missing some key details in this case. If it was the same child that was abused in 2014 and in 2019 in Spain, and that this victim is the nephew/niece of the perpetrator, then surely you have to ask serious questions of everyone else involved? e.g. The perpetrator's brother and MP Phil. Something is not right there.
I've managed to read some of the current and historical court documents now, and it seems the family member involved in 2014 and 2019 is not the same person, which makes much more sense - somewhere the reporting has implied this. For the expungement, I notice that the perpetrator has no supporting letters from siblings, only from parents and grand parents.
The perpetrator's background is more complex than I had realised.
I've managed to read some of the current and historical court documents now, and it seems the family member involved in 2014 and 2019 is not the same person, which makes much more sense - somewhere the reporting has implied this.
Does the perpetrator merely not look like the same person because his records from 2014 were expunged?
I've managed to read some of the current and historical court documents now, and it seems the family member involved in 2014 and 2019 is not the same person, which makes much more sense - somewhere the reporting has implied this.
Does the perpetrator merely not look like the same person because his records from 2014 were expunged?
I might be wrong, but I read it to mean there were two different victims, rather than two different perpetrators.
Premise 1. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable.
Premise 2. The best evidence for the Book of Mormon is eyewitness testimony.
Conclusion. Therefore, the best evidence for the Book of Mormon is notoriously unreliable.
