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Speaker 1: Curder Murray here. There's nothing specifically triggering in this episode,

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Speaker 1: specially compared to what you've heard in previous episodes. We

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Speaker 1: did want to let you know that we asked for

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Speaker 1: an interview with a church representative, but they declined. We

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Speaker 1: put all allegations in this series against the LDS Church

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Speaker 1: to them in writing, and they responded. As followers of

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Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of

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Speaker 1: Latter day Saints a poor abuse of any kind. As

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Speaker 1: a church, we invest heavily on prevention and response and

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Speaker 1: will continue to do so. When a lay leader of

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Speaker 1: one of our congregations learns of abuse, they are asked

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Speaker 1: to immediately call a helpline to assist them, to protect

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Speaker 1: the victim, and to ensure that perpetrators face the consequences

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Speaker 1: of their actions. The church claims that the helpline ensures

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Speaker 1: compliance with legal reporting obligations, encourages the victim or victim's

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Speaker 1: family to report the abuse to civil authorities, and helps

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Speaker 1: connect victims with professionals who can provide counseling assistance. The

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Speaker 1: church indicated it is published numerous online resources to help

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Speaker 1: lay leaders, members, victims, and their families, and that it

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Speaker 1: will study and implement review recommendations for churches from the

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Speaker 1: Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry.

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Speaker 2: I am an ex Mormon, and I'm going to talk

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Speaker 2: about some of the thoughts and feelings I had going

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Speaker 2: through a Mormon temple endowment ceremony for the first time.

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Speaker 3: I am going to show some pictures.

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Speaker 4: Smith's had over thirty wives.

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Speaker 5: Seven of those girls were under eighteen when he married.

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Speaker 2: There then left the Mormon Church, And that is a

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Speaker 2: whole story that.

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Speaker 6: Young Mormons, usually like teenage to college student.

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Speaker 7: Kind of age, are very sexually repressed.

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Speaker 1: Go on TikTok or YouTube or Reddit or any number

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Speaker 1: of other social media sites, and man, there really is

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Speaker 1: a lot of Mormon content out there.

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Speaker 5: The secret handshakes.

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Speaker 2: It was like if a nine year old had invented

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Speaker 2: a religion.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes it's someone talking about some entertainingly quirky aspect of

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Speaker 1: Mormon life.

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Speaker 5: Have y'all heard of some because to wear special religious underwear.

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Speaker 8: So you've never heard about the rock in the her

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Speaker 8: For goodness sake, are we.

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Speaker 9: Talking about you?

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Speaker 1: These are all real things. By the way, the rock

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Speaker 1: in a hat was the special stone. Joseph Smith apparently

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Speaker 1: used to translate the Book of Mormon. Caroline has already

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Speaker 1: talked about the special underwear she received during her temple

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Speaker 1: endowment ceremony and soaking. You know, if you really want

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Speaker 1: to know what soaking is, you can google it.

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Speaker 10: Ye, Mormons have got workarounds.

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Speaker 1: And of course, talking of workarounds, there's the trashy hit

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Speaker 1: reality show Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.

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Speaker 6: We were raised to be these housewives for the men,

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Speaker 6: serving every desired.

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Speaker 1: The cast of which shot to fame after their admission

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Speaker 1: to soft swinging.

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Speaker 11: No one was innocent.

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Speaker 6: Everyone has hooked.

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Speaker 4: Up with like everyone.

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Speaker 1: But a lot of the online conversations about Mormonism have

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Speaker 1: a much more serious purpose.

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Speaker 12: And somehow the victim just gets shamed, blamed and shunned.

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Speaker 1: And this is a clip from the Mormon Stories podcast.

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Speaker 1: The woman speaking, Chelsea Goodrich, alleges that she was sexually

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Speaker 1: assorted by her father, who was a bishop. She was

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Speaker 1: later offered a secret three hundred thousand dollars by the

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Speaker 1: church not to sue them. We discussed the case briefly

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Speaker 1: in episode four.

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Speaker 5: When I think of my choice to run a TikTok

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Speaker 5: account dedicated to criticizing the church, I have to ask

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Speaker 5: the question, who does my silence benefit. I've never met

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Speaker 5: an ex Mormon who's not elated to be free.

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Speaker 7: From the church.

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Speaker 1: That was Alyssa Grenfell, a Utah woman who grew up

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Speaker 1: in the church but left in her mid twenties. She

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Speaker 1: presents an honest but lighthearted look at Mormonism. Her TikTok

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Speaker 1: tagline is I gave up eternal life for coffee made.

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Speaker 1: And then there's this ex Mormon influencer.

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Speaker 13: One of the most startling aspects of the ELDS cultural

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Speaker 13: enterprise is the assumption that what's good for the church

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Speaker 13: in Utah must be good for everyone else.

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Speaker 1: You might recognize that voice, No, my.

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Speaker 9: Had am I welcome to a thoughtful faith podcast. I'm

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Speaker 9: your host, Gina Colvin.

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Speaker 1: That's right, it's Gina, the Mormon expert who's popped up

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Speaker 1: occasionally through this podcast. Gina is a significant voice in

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Speaker 1: the international ex Mormon community. She blogged under the name

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Speaker 1: Kiwi Mormon, and later she hosted a podcast where she

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Speaker 1: talks with guests about her many ethical and spiritual questions

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Speaker 1: around the church. It's had millions of downloads. The point, though,

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Speaker 1: is that whether it's jokes about unusual undergarments and soaking

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Speaker 1: or brainy conversations about cultural neo colonialism. For the LDS Church,

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Speaker 1: the Internet has totally changed the game. An organization that

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Speaker 1: for almost two centuries managed to control what its members

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Speaker 1: read and heard and therefore believed, has been confronted with

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Speaker 1: this worldwide free for all of information. This Internet information

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Speaker 1: avalanche has sparked something that even the church is calling

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Speaker 1: a faith crisis. Back in twenty thirteen, a huge report

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Speaker 1: prepared for the church's top leadership tracked the spike in

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Speaker 1: people quitting the church and directly correlated it to the

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Speaker 1: growing speed of Internet access. That report, without a hint

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Speaker 1: of sarcasm, defined the faith crisis of individual Mormons as

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Speaker 1: being a state of intense emotional and spiritual distress resulting

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Speaker 1: from the discovery of church history facts that do not

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Speaker 1: align with the traditional LDS narrative history facts that do

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Speaker 1: not align. Some might say that's a particularly polite way

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Speaker 1: of admitting that maybe the church hasn't been telling the

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Speaker 1: truth to its members, But in fairness to the church,

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Speaker 1: around that time, they did start making efforts to talk

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Speaker 1: more openly about the subjects members were stumbling across online.

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Speaker 1: They began publishing a series of Gospel topics essays which

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Speaker 1: push back on some points and just conceded on others,

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Speaker 1: things like the fact that DNA evidence totally contradicts the

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Speaker 1: Book of Mormon, or that Joseph Smith really was a polygamist. Naturally,

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Speaker 1: the people I've met while making this podcast haven't been

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Speaker 1: immune to this faith crisis. But there's something I've found

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Speaker 1: really curious. This podcast, Heaven's Helpline, has been focused on

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Speaker 1: one particular and egregious failure of the LDS Church, the

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Speaker 1: way that victims of sexual and domestic violence have been

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Speaker 1: silenced or ignored, while offenders have been protected from legal

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Speaker 1: consequences and sometimes even elevated within the church. But for

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Speaker 1: many of the people I've talked to literal eyewitnesses to

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Speaker 1: abuse and abuse cover ups, that wasn't necessarily the thing

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Speaker 1: that finally undermined their religious conviction. Faith is a powerful force,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes you'd be surprised by what will and what

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Speaker 1: won't break it. So for the first part of this

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Speaker 1: final episode, we're going to dig into that a little

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Speaker 1: bit and find out from some of the people we've

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Speaker 1: already met what happened to their faith in the Olds Church.

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Speaker 4: For Jesus had one hundred billion dollars areas spend it on.

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Speaker 8: I remember opening the door thinking, fuck, he knows, he knows.

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Speaker 13: I walked out of the temples that day and my

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Speaker 13: heart knowing I wouldn't go back.

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Speaker 1: I'm Murray Jones and this is the final episode of

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Speaker 1: Heaven's Helpline, a New Zealand Herald investigation into the Mormon

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Speaker 1: Church in Alter Roa and beyond. Episode six, Breaking the Shelf.

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Speaker 9: An Egon toast and a pippermint tea and a bundle

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Speaker 9: of nerves.

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Speaker 1: Remember Caroline, we heard her story in the second episode,

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Speaker 1: and when we left her, she'd escaped her abusive husband

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Speaker 1: in Australia, returned to Auckland with the help of another Kiwi,

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Speaker 1: John Campbell, then had that awful experience where church leaders

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Speaker 1: pressured her into sitting down with her abuser and.

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Speaker 9: I said that I forgave him so that the meeting

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Speaker 9: could be either and so that I could leave.

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Speaker 1: That experience was extremely retraumatizing for Caroline, and she lost

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Speaker 1: some trust in those specific leaders, but she didn't exactly

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Speaker 1: blame it on the church.

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Speaker 9: Because we are taught that we need to forgive all

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Speaker 9: people as usual, I thought I was the one with

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Speaker 9: the problem.

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Speaker 1: She stayed in the church for years after that. Sadly,

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Speaker 1: there were more tough times to come for Caroline, including

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Speaker 1: an abusive marriage with a second man she met through

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Speaker 1: the church, though it was far less extreme this time round,

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Speaker 1: and always, just like in her teenage years, Caroline had

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Speaker 1: questions about the church's teachings.

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Speaker 9: I had a lot of doubts.

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Speaker 1: Some were quite specific, like why did profit Brigham Young

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Speaker 1: ban black people from taking the priesthood? And why did

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Speaker 1: the band last all the way until nineteen seventy eight

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Speaker 1: and a biggie. Had the early Mormons really been polygamous

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Speaker 1: as outsiders kept claiming, because that's not what she was

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Speaker 1: hearing in church.

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Speaker 9: We had been taught that Joseph Smith did not have

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Speaker 9: multiple wives.

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Speaker 1: Mostly, she brushed these doubts aside.

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Speaker 9: We're encouraged to not look into anything unless it's from

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Speaker 9: the church source, So if ever I heard anything negative

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Speaker 9: about the church from another source, I would ignore.

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Speaker 1: It until that is twenty thirteen. Remember, twenty thirteen was

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Speaker 1: the year of that big internal report about a global

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Speaker 1: faith crisis, and twenty thirteen was the year the church

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Speaker 1: started publishing those Gospel Topics essays.

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Speaker 9: Thesis is we're on the official church website.

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Speaker 1: Which meant it was fun for Caroline to read them,

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Speaker 1: and some of the subjects covered.

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Speaker 9: Were significant to me because they addressed issues that I

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Speaker 9: had with the church.

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Speaker 1: Caroline was shocked to learn that actually the founder of

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Speaker 1: the LDS Faith, Joseph Smith, did have multiple wives.

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Speaker 9: The church admitted in these essays that yes he did.

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Speaker 1: In another essay called Race and the Priesthood, about the

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Speaker 1: early ban on black priests.

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Speaker 9: They admitted in their essay that basically it was just racism.

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Speaker 9: It wasn't because God had cursed all these men for

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Speaker 9: something that had happened in their lineage and their ancestry.

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Speaker 1: Caroline found it hard to process what she was learning.

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Speaker 9: I read them over and over and over again.

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Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, Caroline's entire Mormon faith

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Speaker 1: just fell.

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Speaker 9: Apart, like, oh my God, I don't think this is

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Speaker 9: true anymore.

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Speaker 1: Actually following that up and leaving the church wasn't easy, though.

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Speaker 1: After a lifetime of being guided by her scripture and

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Speaker 1: church leaders, Caroline's decisions were now her own to make,

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Speaker 1: which was liberating but also scary.

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Speaker 9: It's like suddenly becoming an adult from being a child.

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Speaker 1: But with her faith gone, there was no going back

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Speaker 1: this experience. Caroline had a lifelong accumulation of doubts and

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Speaker 1: questions than a sudden collapse of faith at a particular

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Speaker 1: moment in time. This is such a common experience amongst

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Speaker 1: LDS leavers that they have a name for it. They

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Speaker 1: call it breaking the shelf.

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Speaker 14: All of these things on my shelf a got to

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Speaker 14: be so heavy that.

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Speaker 5: I things that should have broken my shelf.

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Speaker 14: Part two.

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Speaker 15: It was more of a shelf item than it was.

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Speaker 1: Why a shelf, Well, the shelf is the place where

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Speaker 1: you stack up all of your doubts and questions, all

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Speaker 1: the cognitive disc sinances, with the intention of some day

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Speaker 1: going back and figuring them out. But one day you're

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Speaker 1: carefully balancing just one more tricky question or inconvenient facts

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Speaker 1: on the top of the pile, and the whole shelf breaks,

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Speaker 1: and everything that's been piling up for years crashes to

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Speaker 1: the floor, and you've got to deal with all of

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Speaker 1: it then and there.

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Speaker 8: We have so many things on our shelf as Mormons

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Speaker 8: that we just pack for Marlin.

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Speaker 1: Remember he's the guy who mastered the art of the

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Speaker 1: strategic pause when saving souls as a missionary. For Marlin,

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Speaker 1: there was a lot of stuff stacked up on his shelf.

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Speaker 1: He'd become really skeptical about those powers that senior church

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Speaker 1: leaders were supposed to possess. Inspiration where the Holy Spirit

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Speaker 1: guides your decisions, and the power of discernment, where the

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Speaker 1: Holy Ghost helps you distinguish truth from lies and good

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Speaker 1: for evil. Like the time well after his mission, when

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Speaker 1: Marlin's marriage was in trouble and he was having an affair.

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Speaker 1: He knew it was wrong. He felt guilty, and every

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Speaker 1: time he bumped into a leader with the power of discernment,

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Speaker 1: he felt certain that they could look right into his

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Speaker 1: heart and see the corruption there.

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Speaker 8: I'm having this, Sofia, I'm being dishonest to the church,

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Speaker 8: to God, to my wife. Get a knock on the door.

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Speaker 8: It's the state president, the top leader in that part

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Speaker 8: of Auckland. I remember opening the door thinking, fuck, he knows,

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Speaker 8: he knows right, That's why he's not on my door.

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Speaker 8: I guess, can I see you and your wife?

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Speaker 14: Yeah?

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Speaker 8: Come in.

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Speaker 1: The state president comes in. They sit down, and he

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Speaker 1: tells Marlin the good news. The Lord has called him

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Speaker 1: to be the Ward's elder's quorum leader, quite an elevated position.

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Speaker 8: Those is exact words, we know you are worthy because

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Speaker 8: your name came up. I'm sitting on the couch next

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Speaker 8: to my wife, going, fucking kidding me here. I was

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Speaker 8: that he was going to say, because he's inspired leader,

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Speaker 8: we know what you've been doing. You've been naughty boy.

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Speaker 8: But he didn't, and I'm thinking, holy shit, So what

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Speaker 8: do I do? I double down? I accept. That's when

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Speaker 8: I was starting unravel. So that's when I was starting

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Speaker 8: to get these guys aren't inspired. This is bullshit.

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Speaker 1: Bullshit maybe, but for now, Marlon just puts it on

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Speaker 1: the shelf, adds it to his fine collection of cognitive dissonances,

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Speaker 1: things that just don't add up. And it's not until

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Speaker 1: years later that Marlin's shelf breaks. He hears someone on

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Speaker 1: the radio talking about Joseph Smith's polygamy, and he's thinking

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Speaker 1: it's just the usual anti Mormon lies.

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Speaker 8: But he gave references and then he said, go to

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Speaker 8: the church's own family history site, going to look at

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Speaker 8: the records.

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Speaker 1: Marlon went online, and sure enough.

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Speaker 8: I couldn't believe what I was finding. So I felt

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Speaker 8: lied to, and I thought of they're lying about that?

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Speaker 8: What else? So they' lying? Then I and investigated everything

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Speaker 8: I could about the church. Within a week, I figured

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Speaker 8: it was not what it claimed to be. Within twenty

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Speaker 8: four hours, I was like, Holy moly, it was that quick. Yeah,

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Speaker 8: was that quick? Within twenty four hours, I was like,

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Speaker 8: I've been dooped. This is a cult.

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Speaker 1: Everyone's journey out of the faith is different. But again

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Speaker 1: and again I heard about a shelf breaking moment. Quentin,

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Speaker 1: the bishop we met in episode three. His shelf was

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Speaker 1: piled high with concerns like the practice of tithing and

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Speaker 1: what the church was actually doing with its extraordinary wealth.

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Speaker 4: If Jesus had one hundred billion dollars, what he spend

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Speaker 4: it on. He would clothe the night kid, he would

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Speaker 4: feed the hungry, he'd liberate the captive, He'd administer relief

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Speaker 4: to the second the afflicted.

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Speaker 1: But the church, with its hundreds of billions, didn't seem

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Speaker 1: to be doing very much of that at all. Also

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Speaker 1: on Quentin's shelf polygamy, the Black priests issue homophobic policies,

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Speaker 1: and the.

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Speaker 4: Church started to release some academic essays.

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Speaker 1: Those essays, again and look, Quentin really wanted to believe.

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Speaker 1: He wanted to make it work. There was so much

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Speaker 1: he loved about being a member of the church, but

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Speaker 1: he just couldn't ignore this new information, so he sought reassurance.

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Speaker 1: One day in twenty seventeen, at a Sunday open forum discussion,

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Speaker 1: Quentin asked a question about the life of Joseph Smith.

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Speaker 4: I see what about the other versions of this story?

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Speaker 4: And there was a bit of a chuckle from the teacher.

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Speaker 4: This is it, but we won't talk about it today.

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Speaker 4: And that was it, and I actually leaft the class,

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Speaker 4: stood in the hallway. I was thirty nine or fortieth time.

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Speaker 4: I just started crying. I broke down and I just cried,

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Speaker 4: and I realized that I wasn't going to get answers.

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Speaker 4: And too many things have been piled up on top

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Speaker 4: of each other.

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Speaker 1: They actually, rather than a shell breaking, Quentin has a

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Speaker 1: way of describing it that I like even more, because

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Speaker 1: where else but in New Zealand would you get this

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Speaker 1: metaphor for the sudden catastrophic collapse of your faith in

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Speaker 1: your church.

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Speaker 4: Like a jar of Jeffers or a bag of lollies

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Speaker 4: at the Boovie Theater and that breaks up and all

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Speaker 4: scattered down under the seats and down the stairs, and

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Speaker 4: there's theretling and going every and you just know you're

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Speaker 4: not going to get all your lollies back. That's how

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Speaker 4: I felt. I just I could never pick them all up.

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Speaker 4: It was not going to work. That was it, and

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Speaker 4: I left the building. I went home, and I haven't

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Speaker 4: been to a church a service since.

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Speaker 1: For Gayleen, she of the white Cake and the handful

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Speaker 1: of dirt, it was a book that did it. In

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Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, the church published a popular history called Saints.

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Speaker 1: It was part of that same wave of openness triggered

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Speaker 1: by the global faith crisis, and just like in the essays,

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Speaker 1: the book concedes that Joseph Smith was a polygamist and

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Speaker 1: actually he married a fourteen year old behind his first

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Speaker 1: wife's back.

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Speaker 14: I was shocked.

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Speaker 15: I couldn't put it together with all the doctrine.

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Speaker 1: For the first time in her life, Gayleen started looking

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Speaker 1: at her faith with a critical eye. I just wanted

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Speaker 1: to know what was true.

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Speaker 9: It was tough going empty nurse confusion.

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Speaker 1: She made repeated visits to the Temple in search of

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Speaker 1: solace and inspiration. But finally, a couple of years after

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Speaker 1: first picking up that history book, she was done.

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Speaker 13: I walked out of the temple that day, kind of

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Speaker 13: in my heart knowing I wouldn't go back.

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Speaker 1: And then there's the leaving story of the person who's

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Speaker 1: probably in New Zealand's most famous ex Mormon ever, former

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Speaker 1: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardn. Ardurn declined my request for an

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Speaker 1: interview for this podcast, but she's talked before about why

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Speaker 1: she left the LDS Church in her early twenties. This

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Speaker 1: is from a twenty seventeen interview with New Zealand personality

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Speaker 1: Anika moa.

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Speaker 4: Family in politics.

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Speaker 3: I was involved in campaigning for civil unions and one

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Speaker 3: of the things where I really departed from the church

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Speaker 3: was on their views around gay homosexuality.

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Speaker 14: And you know, it was a bit.

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Speaker 3: Of a contradiction that hero was campaigning for this thing

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Speaker 3: over here in you I was in a church that

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Speaker 3: hadn't quite embraced diversity.

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Speaker 1: In Ganesh, the other ex bishop we met in episode three,

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Speaker 1: he had a faith crisis too, triggered again by those

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Speaker 1: infamous essays. But even today he still goes to church

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Speaker 1: on Sundays. He still sees the community's potential for good,

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Speaker 1: even if he no longer believes or the doctrine as

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Speaker 1: it happens ganesh knew jes cinder Radun long before she

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Speaker 1: shot to fame in the Labour Party, and he says

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Speaker 1: oar Den's impressive career has been a challenge for Mormons.

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Speaker 12: It's a real conflict for members of the church in

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Speaker 12: New Zealand of what you do with j Senda Adan

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Speaker 12: because she's obviously left the church and she's extremely productive

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Speaker 12: and amazing, but that's not the narrative that we have.

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Speaker 12: We have the narrative that people leave and they are

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Speaker 12: the least.

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Speaker 1: Then in twenty nineteen, Prime Minister ar Dern briefly met

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Speaker 1: the LDS Global President Russell Nelson when he visited New Zealand.

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Speaker 1: It was arranged by her uncle Ian Ardun, who was

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Speaker 1: the most senior church leader for the Pacific region. And

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Speaker 1: I think you can hear in this clip that President

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Speaker 1: Nelson was having trouble getting his head around the post

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Speaker 1: Mormon achievements of young Jacinda.

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Speaker 16: It's an unlikely scenario or a young mother leading a

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Speaker 16: great nation. We're very impressed with her. She'll have a

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Speaker 16: great future.

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Speaker 1: But even grudging praise is more than most ex Mormons

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Speaker 1: get when they leave the church. It can mean the

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Speaker 1: end of important lifelong relationships works. Marlin says when he

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Speaker 1: told his parents he'd stopped believing, they.

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Speaker 8: Just ignored me, shut me off, and then told my

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Speaker 8: friends that I was an anti Mormon and I was Antichrist.

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Speaker 1: It can mean falling out of sync with people you

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Speaker 1: thought you were close to.

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Speaker 4: Here's Quentin, those relationships were not the types of relationships

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Speaker 4: I thought they were. There's a tune that's used in

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Speaker 4: the church lot about unconditional love, and I didn't feel

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Speaker 4: it like I felt it was extremely conditional, Like as

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Speaker 4: soon as I decided not to believe, they love us

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Speaker 4: turned off.

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Speaker 1: And there's that leaving narrative. Ganesh mentioned that if you go,

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Speaker 1: your life will fall apart. When I interviewed Quentin, I

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Speaker 1: also met his wife, Sarah, who quit the church around

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Speaker 1: the same time as him. She said leaving was scary

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Speaker 1: because for years she'd been told.

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Speaker 10: Your life is going to fall apart, your children will

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Speaker 10: run off and literally like become criminals, and you know

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Speaker 10: they will lose all moral.

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Speaker 1: She's really not exaggerating. This message comes right from the top.

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Speaker 4: You want to walk away from the church, walk away

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Speaker 4: from anything that lets anything in your life count.

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Speaker 1: This is Brad Wilcox, a Brigham Young University lecturer and

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Speaker 1: senior youth leader, choking up with emotion when speaking at

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Speaker 1: a Mormon youth gathering in Utah a couple of years ago.

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Speaker 4: I hope you realize that if you walk away from

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Speaker 4: this religion, you lose everything.

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Speaker 1: So this LDS faith crisis has been simmering away inside

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Speaker 1: the church for more than a decade, But meanwhile, beyond

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Speaker 1: the world of its believers, the church has been fighting

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Speaker 1: other fires. In recent years, there have been scandals about

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Speaker 1: the church's investments.

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Speaker 17: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saint san

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Speaker 17: It's investment arm will pay a fine totaling five million dollars, and.

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Speaker 2: How it spends tithes they'd been led to believe would

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Speaker 2: be spent on humanitarian aid and other charitable causes. Now

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Speaker 2: instead they're accusing the church of investing the money.

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Speaker 1: There's been public pushback at the church's attitude to gay people.

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Speaker 7: Director insisted the faith does not support conversion therapy.

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Speaker 1: But an outrage about sexual abuse inside the Boy Scouts America,

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Speaker 1: which in the US has especially close ties to the

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Speaker 1: LDS Church.

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Speaker 16: The LDS Church has been hit with several lawsuits for

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Speaker 16: allegedly covering up decades of sexual abuse among Boy Scout troops.

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Speaker 1: And of course there has been a huge reaction to

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Speaker 1: the kind of abuse and abuse cover ups that we

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Speaker 1: focused on in this podcast, including those two big associated

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Speaker 1: press stories about the helpline in the US.

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Speaker 9: An abuse helpline used by lay leaders was used to

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Speaker 9: cover Upper Day Saints.

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Speaker 4: Trying to pay.

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Speaker 1: We're going to look at how the church is reacting

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Speaker 1: to these scandals, these threats to its money and reputation.

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Speaker 1: But first I want you to hear just one more

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Speaker 1: leaving story. Neville Rocco was that high flying Australian lawyer

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Speaker 1: and high flying Mormon who got caught up in the

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Speaker 1: internal church court process after a young missionary complained that

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Speaker 1: he'd been raped by his mission companion. You'll remember from

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Speaker 1: episode three that it got complicated. Neville concluded the complaint

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Speaker 1: was legit, but when it seemed the offender would get

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Speaker 1: away with a slap on the wrist from the church,

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Speaker 1: Neville helped the victim take the case to police, but

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Speaker 1: getting so deeply involved in this case, sitting with the

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Speaker 1: victim as he told his story to police. Learning in

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Speaker 1: those interviews about additional rapes. All this sparked a trauma

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Speaker 1: response in Neville himself because.

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Speaker 14: As emoting on behalf of this victum, I myself took

443
00:24:53,520 --> 00:24:57,720
Speaker 14: you on. I was diagnosed with PDSD and the advice

444
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:01,600
Speaker 14: was you must stay away from all potential triggers.

445
00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:05,320
Speaker 1: Staying away from triggers meant a break from going to church.

446
00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:08,720
Speaker 14: I think that was very good advice. Carl's able to

447
00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:11,760
Speaker 14: recover as a result of there. But it's during that

448
00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:15,439
Speaker 14: time that I decided I'd take a good look at

449
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:18,720
Speaker 14: the church. I thought, well, I've had lots of questions

450
00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:22,639
Speaker 14: for years and years I haven't really had a chance

451
00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:27,720
Speaker 14: to check those things out. So I'm going to do that.

452
00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:31,119
Speaker 1: And I think you can guess what happened next. With

453
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:33,880
Speaker 1: all that time on his hands, Neville dug into those

454
00:25:33,920 --> 00:25:38,080
Speaker 1: gospel topics essays and started thinking more deeply about LDS

455
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 1: doctrine and truth claims, and.

456
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:44,200
Speaker 14: That led to my leaving the church overall.

457
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 1: Since leaving, Neville's also had time to think about how

458
00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:52,840
Speaker 1: the church handles complaints about abuse, and he's been thinking

459
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:57,159
Speaker 1: about what it would take to make things better. The

460
00:25:57,280 --> 00:26:00,959
Speaker 1: fact is, the LDS Church has reformed itself more than

461
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:04,920
Speaker 1: a few times. It abandoned polygamy. It reversed the ban

462
00:26:05,160 --> 00:26:10,040
Speaker 1: on black priests. Its stance on homosexuality, though still pretty hostile,

463
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:14,200
Speaker 1: is less hostile than it was. Publishing the Gospel topic's

464
00:26:14,359 --> 00:26:18,879
Speaker 1: essays was essentially a reversal of a policy of suppressing

465
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:23,320
Speaker 1: the church's true history. In twenty twenty, the Church in

466
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:28,160
Speaker 1: New Zealand created a Terreo Maori speaking branch in Kaikohe, Northland,

467
00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:31,959
Speaker 1: the first one for seventy years after Thereo was banned

468
00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 1: in the church in the nineteen fifties. Some of these

469
00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:40,960
Speaker 1: changes were a matter of adapt or die. The church

470
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 1: leader's revelation that it was time to pivot away from

471
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:47,080
Speaker 1: polygamy in eighteen ninety came at a time when the

472
00:26:47,160 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 1: US federal government was passing increasingly harsh laws against the practice.

473
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:56,320
Speaker 1: But change can also come from within, like what happened

474
00:26:56,359 --> 00:27:02,080
Speaker 1: to worthiness interviews in twenty eighteen. So remember worthiness interviews

475
00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:04,440
Speaker 1: are those one on one meetings where members have a

476
00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 1: chat with their bishop, which means teenagers are being routinely

477
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:11,680
Speaker 1: asked whether they're having sexual thoughts or have ever masturbated.

478
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 1: Remember too, that Quentin, the former bishop, thought they were

479
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:17,119
Speaker 1: pretty problematic.

480
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 4: You know, I'm an old man talking to these young

481
00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:23,040
Speaker 4: teens in the privacy of my office. It or a fiction,

482
00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 4: is so gross.

483
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:28,400
Speaker 1: Well, around twenty seventeen, a Utah Mormon in his mid sixties,

484
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:32,159
Speaker 1: a former bishop called Sam Young, also decided that it

485
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:36,600
Speaker 1: was so gross. He'd learned that bishops often asked really

486
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:37,920
Speaker 1: explicit questions.

487
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:40,560
Speaker 7: I've got six daughters. I asked one of them, did

488
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:42,600
Speaker 7: this happen to you? And she said, yeah, Dad. When

489
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:46,119
Speaker 7: I was twelve, the bishop asked me, do you masturbate?

490
00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:48,199
Speaker 7: I'll tell you if I still get a little anger

491
00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:51,119
Speaker 7: in me to think this happened to my child behind

492
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 7: a closed door.

493
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:55,400
Speaker 1: So he started a campaign to reform the worthiness interviews.

494
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:58,840
Speaker 1: On a website Young set up, hundreds of women shared

495
00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 1: their experiences, ranging from the uncomfortable to the traumatic. They've

496
00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:07,640
Speaker 1: been asked questions like describe the sexual positions you engaged in,

497
00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:11,719
Speaker 1: or what were you thinking of while you masturbated? Or

498
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:17,120
Speaker 1: how many fingers did you use? And Sam Young's campaign worked.

499
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:22,399
Speaker 1: The rules were changed. Nowadays, a child can have another adult,

500
00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:25,879
Speaker 1: such as a parent, in the room with them. Teens

501
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:28,400
Speaker 1: are still asked if they're following the law of chastity,

502
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:31,760
Speaker 1: but the opportunity for the bishop to be a creepy

503
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 1: old man is somewhat reduced. But there's a twist. The

504
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 1: policy changed, but Sam Young was excommunicated, and Neville Rocco says,

505
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:49,720
Speaker 1: that's not surprising. That's just the way things roll in

506
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:50,480
Speaker 1: the Mormon Church.

507
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 14: Is it reformable, Yes, but somebody is going to have

508
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 14: to put the hit above the characters. They will get shot.

509
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:01,880
Speaker 14: They will get shot, and then what they'll do is,

510
00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 14: I'll pick over the ecidavers and pick a few reforms

511
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:07,160
Speaker 14: that they'll take you out of there to make it

512
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:11,320
Speaker 14: look like they are listening. They only listen by shooting

513
00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:12,840
Speaker 14: first and asking questions later.

514
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:17,400
Speaker 1: There are other examples of this pattern. In two thousand

515
00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 1: and four, Simon Southerton, an Australian Mormon and a geneticist,

516
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 1: published a book explaining how DNA evidence contradicted church dogma.

517
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 1: He was excommunicated, but a decade later the church conceded

518
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 1: that very thing in one of those Gospel topic essays.

519
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:39,040
Speaker 1: Further back, in September nineteen ninety three, six quite senior

520
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:41,720
Speaker 1: members of the church were kicked out at once because

521
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:46,520
Speaker 1: they'd been calling for various reforms, greater transparency about church history,

522
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:50,800
Speaker 1: more leadership positions for women, greater tolerance for gay church members.

523
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 1: Thirty years on, critics would say there's still a long

524
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 1: way to go, but there has without question been some

525
00:29:57,440 --> 00:30:03,320
Speaker 1: reform at least in all of those areas. And sometimes

526
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:07,240
Speaker 1: a campaign for change succeeds and you don't even get

527
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 1: kicked out.

528
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 11: There's been times throughout the campaign when Jane and I

529
00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:14,040
Speaker 11: thought we'd get excommunicated and have been quite surprised on

530
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:16,000
Speaker 11: many occasions when it hasn't happened.

531
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:20,840
Speaker 1: This is Sarah Delaney. She's from Redditch in Worcestershire, that's

532
00:30:20,880 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 1: about half an hour south of Birmingham in the UK.

533
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 1: She's been in the church for forty seven years, since

534
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 1: joining at the age of twenty with her husband and

535
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:33,080
Speaker 1: two small children. Sarah has worked as a probation officer

536
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 1: and social worker and has spent more than thirty years

537
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:40,320
Speaker 1: working with sexual offenders and abuse victims, so she knows

538
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:42,760
Speaker 1: a lot about what it takes to reduce risks to

539
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:47,120
Speaker 1: children and she could see that there were serious problems

540
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 1: with the way the LDS Church viewed abuse.

541
00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 11: We have a culture that really does allow abuse to flourish.

542
00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 11: We know the only thing necessary for sexual abuse to

543
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:02,880
Speaker 11: flourish secrecy, and in the church we don't talk about it,

544
00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:05,640
Speaker 11: which makes it much easier to hide.

545
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:09,320
Speaker 1: From her professional life, Sarah knew that there was one

546
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:14,880
Speaker 1: particularly effective tool for reducing risks to children, routine criminal

547
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 1: background checks on people who work with children and vulnerable adults.

548
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:22,760
Speaker 1: In the UK, it's called a DBS. She talked to

549
00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:26,239
Speaker 1: her local leaders about doing this in the church and

550
00:31:26,280 --> 00:31:27,720
Speaker 1: she got nowhere.

551
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:30,600
Speaker 11: If you attempt to have conversations with leaders were shut

552
00:31:30,640 --> 00:31:33,480
Speaker 11: down very quickly. It was like, yeah, the priests are

553
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 11: dealing with this, We've got it, is nothing for you

554
00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:38,680
Speaker 11: to be concerned about. And I just couldn't break through

555
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:42,440
Speaker 11: anybody listening and paying attention to the seriousness of the problems.

556
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:46,240
Speaker 1: So in twenty twenty one, she and another LDS member,

557
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:50,680
Speaker 1: Jane Christy, launched a formal campaign, which became known as

558
00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 1: twenty first Century Saints.

559
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 11: I just randomly started asking bishops and leaders, if you

560
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 11: were concerned about sexual abuse or any form of abuse

561
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 11: of child, what would you do? Who would you report

562
00:32:02,840 --> 00:32:05,800
Speaker 11: it to? And apart from phone in the church helpline,

563
00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:08,240
Speaker 11: not one person could tell me yep.

564
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:11,480
Speaker 1: Just like in the US and in New Zealand, the

565
00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:16,080
Speaker 1: UK church has an abuse helpline.

566
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 11: And so that kind of raised alarms that they didn't

567
00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:20,680
Speaker 11: know what to do if there was an allegation of abuse.

568
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:24,320
Speaker 1: And what was happening when bishops reached out to the helpline.

569
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:28,120
Speaker 11: They've been advised by the church legal services and helpline

570
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 11: not to make a statement and not to be involved

571
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 11: in investigations, which is deeply alarming.

572
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 1: Sarah and Jane got to work. They wrote to MP's,

573
00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 1: they launched a podcast.

574
00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:45,880
Speaker 11: YouTube, shorts, tiktoks, just anything that was getting people talking.

575
00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:46,320
Speaker 9: Really.

576
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 11: I remember walking around my chapel one Sunday morning and

577
00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:55,640
Speaker 11: filming the first aid station, the IRSH station, the far extinguishers,

578
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:59,120
Speaker 11: the Health and Safety book, the road and controlled traps

579
00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:01,560
Speaker 11: and kind of put a video on YouTube and said, hey,

580
00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:03,480
Speaker 11: we've got all this stuff in our chapel and nothing

581
00:33:03,520 --> 00:33:04,560
Speaker 11: about child abuse.

582
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:07,920
Speaker 1: They also wrote a letter to every bishop in the

583
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 1: country telling them that they should be using the DBS

584
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:16,520
Speaker 1: background checks. The letter said the church was letting victims down.

585
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:21,040
Speaker 1: It said the church was leaving abuses unsupervised and unsafe,

586
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:26,000
Speaker 1: and crucially, the letter informed bishops that they could be

587
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:30,560
Speaker 1: personally legally responsible if they appointed someone who went on

588
00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:34,280
Speaker 1: to abuse a child and they hadn't conducted a DBS.

589
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:37,520
Speaker 11: It was very effective because we actually even had bishop's

590
00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 11: wives contact to us and say, you're telling me my

591
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:43,160
Speaker 11: husband's responsible for this. So that got quite a reaction,

592
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 11: and we heard of state presidents that were forced to

593
00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:48,720
Speaker 11: gather all their bishops together and discuss it. The church

594
00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:50,760
Speaker 11: lawyers got very angry with us, so got Ever so

595
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 11: angry and Ever were upset with us and wrote quite

596
00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:56,520
Speaker 11: a strong worded letter to us about our actions, telling

597
00:33:56,560 --> 00:33:58,280
Speaker 11: us that we couldn't write to bishops, so I thought,

598
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:00,080
Speaker 11: we'll write to anyone I like act.

599
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:04,280
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Sarah and Jane were getting messages from all over

600
00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:08,800
Speaker 1: the UK from people with stories of mishandled abuse cases.

601
00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:12,880
Speaker 1: They started collecting them one hundred and forty in total,

602
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:17,399
Speaker 1: which is a pretty interesting number because just two years

603
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:20,240
Speaker 1: earlier the church had come up with its own number.

604
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:24,640
Speaker 1: It told a twenty nineteen inquiry into child sexual abuse

605
00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:27,400
Speaker 1: in the UK that it was aware of just sixteen

606
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:32,360
Speaker 1: recorded allegations of abuse within the church over the past decade.

607
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:36,920
Speaker 1: Sixteen to Sarah, that figure was absurd.

608
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:40,680
Speaker 11: So is it simply that the Church are only counting

609
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:44,400
Speaker 11: those cases where there's been a conviction, Because they figures

610
00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:46,680
Speaker 11: sixteen in ten years. Jane and I know of more

611
00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:51,719
Speaker 11: than that sixteen in ten years. We can point them

612
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:54,000
Speaker 11: to that many easily.

613
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:56,880
Speaker 1: But even while the church was seeming to deny it

614
00:34:56,920 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 1: had an abuse problem, Sarah and Jane's Tiktoks and pokes

615
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:03,359
Speaker 1: asked random questions to bishops, and I think probably most

616
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:07,440
Speaker 1: importantly that letter warning bishops about their own legal peril.

617
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:11,839
Speaker 1: It had an impact. In June twenty twenty three, the

618
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:17,800
Speaker 1: uk LDS Church suddenly announced mandatory background checks for anyone

619
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:20,720
Speaker 1: working with children or vulnerable adults.

620
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 11: And that was fantastic. There's nothing in legislation that said

621
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:28,279
Speaker 11: they had to do it. The church voluntarily decided that

622
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:31,880
Speaker 11: all the evidence and all the information they had showed

623
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:33,960
Speaker 11: that that was the right way to go, and they

624
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:39,200
Speaker 11: did it. Fantastic start, guys, But now we need dbs

625
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:43,800
Speaker 11: for missionaries. We need a far better, more enhanced training program.

626
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:45,320
Speaker 11: We need to move forward.

627
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 1: Like Sarah says, the UK Church deciding to use background checks,

628
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:59,440
Speaker 1: that's a fantastic result, but it does beg the question,

629
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 1: right If it's good enough for the UK, why isn't

630
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:09,440
Speaker 1: it church policy everywhere? This is an incredibly centralized organization.

631
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:13,760
Speaker 1: Each Sunday, millions of church members in over one hundred

632
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:18,080
Speaker 1: countries here a sermon on the same topic. Every team

633
00:36:18,160 --> 00:36:21,880
Speaker 1: gets exactly the same messages. In seminary school, every person

634
00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:25,759
Speaker 1: going through the Endowment ceremony watches the same video. There's

635
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:28,719
Speaker 1: a handbook of instructions, and the same rules and procedures

636
00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:33,200
Speaker 1: apply to Mormon leaders all over the world. If anyone

637
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:37,200
Speaker 1: can roll out a policy worldwide, it's the LDS Church.

638
00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 1: But in New Zealand, for example, the church still isn't

639
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:44,719
Speaker 1: doing background checks, and there are no laws here requiring

640
00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:47,760
Speaker 1: them to do so. It's just one of the ways

641
00:36:47,800 --> 00:36:50,440
Speaker 1: that our legal system makes it possible for the church

642
00:36:50,560 --> 00:36:52,920
Speaker 1: to do the things we've learned about in this podcast,

643
00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:57,880
Speaker 1: things like not reporting abuse and dealing with predators in house,

644
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:03,000
Speaker 1: and pressuring bishops into silence via the helpline or without

645
00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:07,439
Speaker 1: even breaking the law. Here are some of the other

646
00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:12,440
Speaker 1: gaps in New Zealand law that make all this possible. Firstly,

647
00:37:12,760 --> 00:37:17,239
Speaker 1: we have no laws requiring mandatory reporting. This is the

648
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:20,719
Speaker 1: idea that people in certain positions of responsibility who learn

649
00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:24,160
Speaker 1: of abuse are obliged to report it to the authorities.

650
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 1: In many jurisdictions, teachers, careers, doctors and sometimes clergy if

651
00:37:30,120 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 1: they learn of any child abuse, they are legally required

652
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:40,080
Speaker 1: to report it to the authorities. In New Zealand they're not. Secondly,

653
00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:45,360
Speaker 1: Priest penitent privilege is a thing here. Remember, Priest penitent

654
00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 1: privilege PPP is what keeps a confession confidential. Not every

655
00:37:50,560 --> 00:37:55,239
Speaker 1: country has laws recognizing PPP, but New Zealand does. It's

656
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:57,799
Speaker 1: all there in section fifty eight of the Evidence Act

657
00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:00,800
Speaker 1: two thousand and six. It's one of the most strongly

658
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:06,120
Speaker 1: written versions of PPP in law anywhere in the world. Thirdly,

659
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:10,439
Speaker 1: in civil court, we have a short statute of limitations

660
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:13,440
Speaker 1: for historic abuse. If you want to take a civil

661
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:17,520
Speaker 1: case against an organization where you are sexually abused, well,

662
00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:20,840
Speaker 1: New Zealand has a six year limitation date, which is

663
00:38:20,920 --> 00:38:24,280
Speaker 1: kind of crazy when you consider that there's solid research

664
00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:27,480
Speaker 1: to show that it takes survivors of child abuse around

665
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:30,719
Speaker 1: twenty five years on average before they're ready to report

666
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:35,880
Speaker 1: what happened to them. So New Zealand could make some

667
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:40,680
Speaker 1: big strides just by changing the law. After all, we

668
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:44,360
Speaker 1: know from stories of the abuse helpline both here and overseas,

669
00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:48,080
Speaker 1: that the Mormon Church keeps a very close eye on

670
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:53,320
Speaker 1: what's legal and what's not. But laws don't change overnight.

671
00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:57,399
Speaker 1: What could change, and honestly, it could really be quite

672
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:00,279
Speaker 1: fast if the will were there is the church his

673
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:04,120
Speaker 1: own policies. Some of the people I've talked to for

674
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:07,920
Speaker 1: this podcast have really clear ideas of some in house

675
00:39:08,000 --> 00:39:12,320
Speaker 1: changes the church could make that really would make a difference.

676
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:14,200
Speaker 4: On a hero.

677
00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:18,799
Speaker 1: Herbert Graves said the church could simply make reporting mandatory

678
00:39:19,360 --> 00:39:21,560
Speaker 1: without waiting to be told for.

679
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:25,040
Speaker 18: There to be systemic change, and that's what is needed.

680
00:39:25,719 --> 00:39:29,680
Speaker 18: Our general authorities, which covers the whole world, they need

681
00:39:29,719 --> 00:39:35,000
Speaker 18: to mandate very clearly to all of our leaders. Any

682
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:40,200
Speaker 18: allegation must first and foremost be taken to the police.

683
00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:45,280
Speaker 18: It's a crime. The church can deal with the sinner

684
00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:47,799
Speaker 18: aspect of it, but not in lieu of.

685
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 1: An A hero. Has another suggestion, by the way, which

686
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:53,640
Speaker 1: is also pretty hard to argue with.

687
00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:56,880
Speaker 18: I really do want to see more and more notice

688
00:39:56,920 --> 00:40:00,479
Speaker 18: taken of women leaders in the church. I don't see

689
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:04,320
Speaker 18: why we have to ask permission to blow the whistle

690
00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:08,759
Speaker 18: to speak out about these things publicly. You know these

691
00:40:08,800 --> 00:40:09,440
Speaker 18: are crimes.

692
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:13,399
Speaker 1: Nevil Rocco has an idea too. The church could teach

693
00:40:13,440 --> 00:40:16,600
Speaker 1: its bishops a different playbook for when they hear a

694
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:21,800
Speaker 1: shocking confession, even in places where a priest penitent privilege applies.

695
00:40:22,239 --> 00:40:24,239
Speaker 19: If I were a bishop in the Mormon Church and

696
00:40:24,280 --> 00:40:26,960
Speaker 19: somebody came to me and said, look, I've been abusing

697
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:31,960
Speaker 19: children or raped a person or killed somebody, I'd say, well,

698
00:40:32,520 --> 00:40:36,959
Speaker 19: what you've told me is covered by a confidentiality, at.

699
00:40:36,920 --> 00:40:42,239
Speaker 14: Least within the church. But if you're truly penitent, you

700
00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 14: will come with me to police and repeat the same

701
00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:49,840
Speaker 14: thing as a confessor to the police. If you won't

702
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:52,560
Speaker 14: do that, then I can't accept that you're truly penitent,

703
00:40:52,960 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 14: and therefore I should be free to go to the

704
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:58,160
Speaker 14: police myself. So that's the way I would solve it.

705
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:02,480
Speaker 1: See, with a bit of imagination, you can find ways

706
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:06,319
Speaker 1: to do the right thing. And on that third law,

707
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:10,640
Speaker 1: the statute of limitations, there's one new voice I'd like

708
00:41:10,719 --> 00:41:14,840
Speaker 1: you to hear from now. Remember that back in episode three,

709
00:41:14,920 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 1: we heard that awful story of Jenny who said that

710
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:21,520
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties she was abused by an adult

711
00:41:21,640 --> 00:41:25,319
Speaker 1: church member and then abused again by her bishop when

712
00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:28,799
Speaker 1: she reported it to him. Like I said, Jenny's now

713
00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:31,480
Speaker 1: trying to sue the church and her lawyer in this

714
00:41:31,560 --> 00:41:33,400
Speaker 1: case is Mobina Hills.

715
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:37,240
Speaker 6: I've been working with abuse survivors for about thirteen years now.

716
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:39,840
Speaker 1: And one of the issues Mobina had to explain to

717
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:43,880
Speaker 1: Jenny was that New Zealand had this surprisingly short statute

718
00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:48,439
Speaker 1: of limitations when it comes to civil law. For many

719
00:41:48,480 --> 00:41:52,239
Speaker 1: of Mobina's cases, the church involved has chosen not to

720
00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:56,520
Speaker 1: use that statute of limitations defense, even though it's available

721
00:41:56,600 --> 00:41:59,879
Speaker 1: to them. But with Jenny's case with the Mormon Church

722
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:04,359
Speaker 1: the Gun, It's been a totally different story. Mabina says.

723
00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:06,920
Speaker 1: The Elders Church has stuck to the letter of the

724
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:10,879
Speaker 1: law on the Statute of limitations and has generally been

725
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 1: far more aggressive in their language and tactics than other

726
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:17,359
Speaker 1: religious institutions she's dealt with, to.

727
00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:21,239
Speaker 6: The point where has been retraumatizing to our clients, which

728
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:27,040
Speaker 6: is most unusual. In many cases churches and institutions survivor

729
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 6: focused and would seek to accept the allegations that the

730
00:42:32,600 --> 00:42:35,200
Speaker 6: survivor has put to the church. In this particular case,

731
00:42:35,239 --> 00:42:37,520
Speaker 6: we haven't seen that at all. The Church has been

732
00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:41,000
Speaker 6: utterly dismissive and really relying on the legal basis to

733
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:43,480
Speaker 6: really defend the claim and not see Ginny as a

734
00:42:43,520 --> 00:42:45,000
Speaker 6: person at all.

735
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:48,520
Speaker 1: So look, the world could hold out for the LDS

736
00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:51,840
Speaker 1: Church to switch to mandatory reporting without waiting for a

737
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:55,799
Speaker 1: law change, like Anahira just suggested. We could wait to

738
00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:58,920
Speaker 1: see if the Olds Church will advise its bishops to

739
00:42:58,960 --> 00:43:02,399
Speaker 1: set aside the protective shield of priest penitent privilege as

740
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:05,960
Speaker 1: never recommends. But it seems much more likely that the

741
00:43:06,040 --> 00:43:09,279
Speaker 1: church will instead continue to take the kind of aggressive

742
00:43:09,719 --> 00:43:14,919
Speaker 1: legalistic approaches that Mabina talks about. There have been examples

743
00:43:15,200 --> 00:43:19,000
Speaker 1: all over the world. In its submission to the UK's

744
00:43:19,040 --> 00:43:23,200
Speaker 1: Child Abuse Inquiry, the LDS Church opposed the introduction of

745
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 1: mandatory reporting laws in the US. The church is still

746
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:33,000
Speaker 1: leaning heavily on PPP. Late last year I saw there

747
00:43:33,040 --> 00:43:37,840
Speaker 1: was a depressing update to the case of Paul Adams's daughters. Remember,

748
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:41,799
Speaker 1: they were suing the church because Mormon officials had known

749
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:45,279
Speaker 1: that Paul Adams was abusing them and did nothing to

750
00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:51,080
Speaker 1: stop him for seven years. Well, in the end, the

751
00:43:51,200 --> 00:43:53,680
Speaker 1: daughter's case was dismissed.

752
00:43:53,640 --> 00:43:57,319
Speaker 17: And Arizona judge has dismissed a high profile child sex

753
00:43:57,320 --> 00:44:01,840
Speaker 17: abuse lawsuit. Superior court judge said the state's clergy penitent

754
00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:07,040
Speaker 17: privilege excused two bishops from the state's child sex abuse

755
00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:08,760
Speaker 17: mandatory reporting law.

756
00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:12,960
Speaker 1: The church lawyers successfully argued that because Paul Adams had

757
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 1: admitted to the abuse during confession, those two bishops Herod

758
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:20,480
Speaker 1: and Mawsey, who'd called the abuse helpline and been advised

759
00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:25,440
Speaker 1: how to proceed, had no legal duty to let authorities

760
00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:30,080
Speaker 1: know about the child rapist in their midst, nor the

761
00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:33,360
Speaker 1: dozen or so other Mormon officials that were made aware

762
00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:38,800
Speaker 1: of his crimes during his church disciplinary council. The Church

763
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:53,279
Speaker 1: of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints had won. There's

764
00:44:53,320 --> 00:44:57,640
Speaker 1: a hymn that the Mormon Tabernacle choir is especially famous for,

765
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:18,560
Speaker 1: called Come, Come Ye Saints. It's a song composed in

766
00:45:18,600 --> 00:45:22,840
Speaker 1: eighteen forty six, just sixteen years after the foundation of

767
00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:27,120
Speaker 1: Joseph Smith's new religion. This was a time when the

768
00:45:27,160 --> 00:45:31,120
Speaker 1: members were being driven ever further west, from New York

769
00:45:31,239 --> 00:45:36,239
Speaker 1: to Ohio, from Ohio to Missouri, from Missouri up to Illinois,

770
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:41,919
Speaker 1: then eventually all the way to Salt Lake Valley, Utah.

771
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:46,000
Speaker 1: The song celebrates the faith and the perseverance of the

772
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:51,879
Speaker 1: Mormon pioneers, and their determination to strive onwards despite persecution

773
00:45:52,239 --> 00:46:02,560
Speaker 1: and hardship. Gird up yours, says the second verse, and

774
00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:08,360
Speaker 1: fresh courage. Take one hundred and eighty years later, the

775
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:12,280
Speaker 1: church has an investment portfolio worth two hundred and sixty

776
00:46:12,400 --> 00:46:16,520
Speaker 1: billion dollars US. It's easily one of the richest churches

777
00:46:16,560 --> 00:46:21,479
Speaker 1: in the world. It's not exactly the underdog anymore. Yet

778
00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:25,120
Speaker 1: Come Come Ye Saints is still the musical centerpiece of

779
00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:30,040
Speaker 1: major Mormon gatherings. There are still echoes deep in the

780
00:46:30,120 --> 00:46:35,240
Speaker 1: church's memory of being outsiders, of being persecuted, of having

781
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:41,000
Speaker 1: to stand up for themselves and for John regardless. So,

782
00:46:41,480 --> 00:46:46,400
Speaker 1: despite its battles with financial regulators, with lawyers like Tim Kosnov,

783
00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:49,719
Speaker 1: with a faith crisis in its ranks, the church is

784
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:53,799
Speaker 1: currently in an era of massive expansion, building temples all

785
00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:58,719
Speaker 1: over the world. Since President Russell M. Nelson took over

786
00:46:58,760 --> 00:47:01,799
Speaker 1: as the church's leader in twenty eighteen, he's announced at

787
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:07,640
Speaker 1: least one hundred and thirty new temple builds, including in India, Guatemala,

788
00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:09,400
Speaker 1: and of course New Zealand.

789
00:47:09,560 --> 00:47:12,640
Speaker 16: Now you've been wondering a little bit about is Brother

790
00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:14,680
Speaker 16: Nelson going to say anything about our temple.

791
00:47:15,239 --> 00:47:18,720
Speaker 1: This is him in twenty nineteen speaking to twelve thousand

792
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:20,040
Speaker 1: Mormons in Auckland.

793
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:23,399
Speaker 16: Today, I'm pleased to announce that the new temple will

794
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:27,080
Speaker 16: be built in Auckland on Redoubt Road.

795
00:47:28,760 --> 00:47:31,760
Speaker 1: One new temple, planned for the outskirts of Las Vegas,

796
00:47:32,280 --> 00:47:36,120
Speaker 1: was meant to have aspire sixty six meters high, but

797
00:47:36,239 --> 00:47:39,120
Speaker 1: designers shaved off six meters at the last minute because

798
00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:41,719
Speaker 1: otherwise they'd have had to put a flashing beacon on

799
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:46,360
Speaker 1: the top for the safety of passing planes. More temples

800
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean more members, at least in the US,

801
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:53,160
Speaker 1: where growth seems to have stagnated, but according to the Church,

802
00:47:53,560 --> 00:47:56,280
Speaker 1: membership is growing rapidly. In Africa.

803
00:47:56,960 --> 00:48:00,520
Speaker 15: The groundbreaking for the Kinshasha Democratic Republic look of the

804
00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:04,160
Speaker 15: Carngo Temple is the most recent example of the steady

805
00:48:04,600 --> 00:48:08,200
Speaker 15: an impressive rise of the church in this exotic land.

806
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:11,719
Speaker 1: When President Nelson was in Nairobi in twenty eighteen, he

807
00:48:11,880 --> 00:48:15,960
Speaker 1: told his audience poor people could only break out of

808
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:20,120
Speaker 1: the generational cycles of poverty when they pay their tithing.

809
00:48:21,520 --> 00:48:26,239
Speaker 1: So overall, the church's numbers are still growing The most

810
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:30,239
Speaker 1: recent official church count put membership at seventeen point three

811
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:34,920
Speaker 1: million people. People might be leaving because of the church's

812
00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:38,719
Speaker 1: attitude to LGBT rights, or the practice of tithing, or

813
00:48:38,719 --> 00:48:41,920
Speaker 1: the cover up of abuse, or because of some information

814
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:45,160
Speaker 1: they found in a gospel topics essay online or even

815
00:48:45,200 --> 00:48:50,080
Speaker 1: on a TikTok, but new people are still joining. There

816
00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:55,879
Speaker 1: are still enthusiastic missionaries pounding the pavements worldwide. A couple

817
00:48:55,960 --> 00:48:58,960
Speaker 1: of years ago, just after I had finished my business

818
00:48:58,960 --> 00:49:02,800
Speaker 1: Desk series of article about the church's finances, there was

819
00:49:02,800 --> 00:49:06,439
Speaker 1: an open day at Temple View. I went along more

820
00:49:06,480 --> 00:49:09,759
Speaker 1: out of nosiness than anything else. It was a rare

821
00:49:09,880 --> 00:49:12,560
Speaker 1: chance for outsiders to get a glimpse of the inside

822
00:49:12,719 --> 00:49:17,279
Speaker 1: of the Mormon experience. Back then, I was fixated on

823
00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:21,320
Speaker 1: Mormon money. I was looking around at all the marble

824
00:49:21,400 --> 00:49:24,759
Speaker 1: and gold, thinking about the tithing and what it had

825
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:28,960
Speaker 1: cost the members, the sacrifices made to grant this grand

826
00:49:29,080 --> 00:49:32,799
Speaker 1: monument to the Mormon faith. About the same time, in

827
00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:36,240
Speaker 1: South Auckland, in one of the poorest areas in the country,

828
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:40,240
Speaker 1: you could see the beginnings of New Zealand's second Mormon

829
00:49:40,280 --> 00:49:44,280
Speaker 1: temple in Manuco. Every time I drive back to Auckland,

830
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:48,000
Speaker 1: I see it getting bigger and bigger, and it's nearly done.

831
00:49:48,600 --> 00:49:51,920
Speaker 1: And Yeah, at the beginning, as the scaffolding went up

832
00:49:51,960 --> 00:49:54,120
Speaker 1: and the body of the temple began to fill out,

833
00:49:54,840 --> 00:50:00,919
Speaker 1: I was thinking about money, tithes, wealth, poverty, that never

834
00:50:00,920 --> 00:50:03,600
Speaker 1: seems to spend much of its wealth on helping the

835
00:50:03,640 --> 00:50:08,240
Speaker 1: homeless or feeding the hungry. But over the past two years,

836
00:50:08,520 --> 00:50:12,600
Speaker 1: the towering Auckland Temple has come to represent something quite

837
00:50:12,800 --> 00:50:17,120
Speaker 1: different for me. I see it and I think about

838
00:50:17,200 --> 00:50:22,560
Speaker 1: the worthiness tests, the power of the priesthood holders. I

839
00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:25,839
Speaker 1: think about the way those structures have allowed those abuses

840
00:50:25,880 --> 00:50:29,400
Speaker 1: to flourish in the church, and how so much of

841
00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:33,640
Speaker 1: that power revolves around the temple and whether you are

842
00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:39,760
Speaker 1: good enough to enter it. And I think about Caroline,

843
00:50:39,880 --> 00:50:43,400
Speaker 1: who thirty years ago sat on a hill next to

844
00:50:43,400 --> 00:50:47,839
Speaker 1: the temple in Hamilton. She just finished her endowment ceremony

845
00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:51,040
Speaker 1: so she could go ahead with the marriage that would

846
00:50:51,040 --> 00:50:57,520
Speaker 1: become a living nightmare. She sat there and thought about

847
00:50:57,520 --> 00:51:01,560
Speaker 1: the curious rituals she had just gone through and asked herself,

848
00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:05,799
Speaker 1: what the hell is this? Do I really believe in

849
00:51:05,840 --> 00:51:13,319
Speaker 1: this socially isolated yet surrounded by fellow churchgoers. She had

850
00:51:13,360 --> 00:51:18,560
Speaker 1: no one to validate her feelings, no one to tell

851
00:51:18,600 --> 00:51:24,280
Speaker 1: her to trust her instincts, and so, thinking the problem

852
00:51:24,320 --> 00:51:28,040
Speaker 1: lay with her, she didn't trust her own judgment. She

853
00:51:28,160 --> 00:51:34,120
Speaker 1: deferred to her male authority figures. Now though, the Internet

854
00:51:34,200 --> 00:51:38,279
Speaker 1: is letting the light in. People are sharing tiktoks about

855
00:51:38,400 --> 00:51:42,360
Speaker 1: temple rituals and YouTube essays about what Joseph Smith really

856
00:51:42,360 --> 00:51:48,160
Speaker 1: got up to. But perhaps most importantly, they are sharing

857
00:51:48,239 --> 00:51:53,120
Speaker 1: experiences about what has gone wrong in the past. They're

858
00:51:53,160 --> 00:51:57,240
Speaker 1: hearing from people like Caroline who have stories to tell.

859
00:51:58,400 --> 00:52:02,000
Speaker 9: I think the church behaves a lot like an abuser

860
00:52:03,239 --> 00:52:11,680
Speaker 9: in encouraging guilt and gas ladding you in saying no,

861
00:52:12,040 --> 00:52:14,920
Speaker 9: that's not actually happening. It's you're the one with the problem.

862
00:52:15,280 --> 00:52:16,760
Speaker 9: You know you don't have enough faith.

863
00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:22,960
Speaker 1: During that final interview with Caroline, I asked her, if

864
00:52:22,960 --> 00:52:25,719
Speaker 1: you were talking to a Mormon girl right now, to

865
00:52:25,800 --> 00:52:29,480
Speaker 1: a teenage girl, what would you say to her? What

866
00:52:29,600 --> 00:52:32,000
Speaker 1: advice would you give her?

867
00:52:32,640 --> 00:52:34,480
Speaker 9: What would I tell them? There's so much that I

868
00:52:34,480 --> 00:52:38,080
Speaker 9: could tell them. I would tell them that if they're

869
00:52:39,040 --> 00:52:44,000
Speaker 9: not comfortable with something, to listen to that and to

870
00:52:44,040 --> 00:52:48,320
Speaker 9: trust themselves. The church will say that if you study

871
00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:50,000
Speaker 9: something out in your mind and you pray about it

872
00:52:50,040 --> 00:52:52,120
Speaker 9: and you feel confusion, and then it's not of God.

873
00:52:53,239 --> 00:52:55,640
Speaker 9: I would say to them, other people are feeling confused

874
00:52:55,640 --> 00:52:59,799
Speaker 9: to other people are not comfortable either. They're hiding it.

875
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:03,799
Speaker 9: It's not socially acceptable to admit it. So I would say,

876
00:53:03,840 --> 00:53:09,080
Speaker 9: explore that confusion, and I would say, trust in your

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00:53:09,120 --> 00:53:13,720
Speaker 9: own intelligence. God gave you a brain, God gave your mind.

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00:53:15,239 --> 00:53:17,399
Speaker 9: I don't believe in God anymore. But if you still

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00:53:17,440 --> 00:53:21,400
Speaker 9: believe in God, why did he give you this thinking

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00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:25,080
Speaker 9: intelligence to reason and work things out. If you weren't

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00:53:25,080 --> 00:53:27,200
Speaker 9: allowed to think for yourself, if you weren't allowed to

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00:53:27,200 --> 00:53:30,960
Speaker 9: make decisions for yourself without passing it through a priest

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00:53:31,239 --> 00:53:36,120
Speaker 9: leader first. So every major life decision, it's your decision.

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00:53:37,000 --> 00:53:38,920
Speaker 9: No one else has a right to make those decisions

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00:53:38,920 --> 00:54:00,000
Speaker 9: for you.

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Speaker 1: Heaven's Helpline was funded by New Zealand on Air and

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00:54:24,960 --> 00:54:29,160
Speaker 1: The New Zealand Herald for enzed Me and iHeartRadio. It

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00:54:29,239 --> 00:54:33,400
Speaker 1: was researched, written and presented by Me Murray Jones. My

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00:54:33,560 --> 00:54:36,799
Speaker 1: producers were Adam Dudding, who co wrote the series, and

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00:54:36,880 --> 00:54:40,360
Speaker 1: Kirsten Johnston from Pop SoC Media, who edited and sound

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00:54:40,360 --> 00:54:44,759
Speaker 1: designed it Phil Brownlee as our sound engineer. Music was

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00:54:44,760 --> 00:54:49,080
Speaker 1: by Thomas Arbur and Anita Clark. Ethan Sills is executive

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00:54:49,120 --> 00:54:52,920
Speaker 1: producer here at New Zealand Herald. An additional interview was

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00:54:52,960 --> 00:54:56,960
Speaker 1: by Helen King. We had scripting advice from Melody Thomas

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00:54:57,000 --> 00:55:01,120
Speaker 1: and Andrew Laxon. Artwork was done by Phil Johnson. News

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00:55:01,160 --> 00:55:05,000
Speaker 1: clippings came from Fox News thirteen, Utah, twelve News, NBC

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00:55:05,440 --> 00:55:11,080
Speaker 1: and ABC four Utah Special thanks to Victoria Young, Matt Martel,

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00:55:11,640 --> 00:55:16,840
Speaker 1: Maggie Dudding, Christina Greentree and Alegrascales and all the voice

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00:55:16,880 --> 00:55:20,600
Speaker 1: actors who pitched in Namihi Nui. To all those who

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00:55:20,680 --> 00:55:23,359
Speaker 1: spoke to me for this podcast, I know it wasn't

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00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:26,319
Speaker 1: easy for people to speak out. If you have a

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00:55:26,360 --> 00:55:28,799
Speaker 1: story you'd like to share with me about the Olds Church,

903
00:55:29,560 --> 00:55:32,560
Speaker 1: or just want to get in touch, email me securely

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00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:38,520
Speaker 1: at Murray Reports at proton dot m or dm me

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00:55:38,640 --> 00:55:44,080
Speaker 1: on x at Murray Reports. And for more on this podcast,

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00:55:44,480 --> 00:55:49,160
Speaker 1: head to nzedherld dot co dot nzed slash Heaven's helpline.

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00:55:51,560 --> 00:55:55,319
Speaker 1: It's time intensive doing investigations like this, so if you

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00:55:55,480 --> 00:55:58,719
Speaker 1: value this kind of journalism, please support it by going

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Speaker 1: to your podcast platform and rating and reviewing the series.

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00:56:02,520 --> 00:56:04,920
Speaker 1: If you've been impacted by any of the issues in

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00:56:04,960 --> 00:56:08,600
Speaker 1: this series, we have included details of support services in

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00:56:08,640 --> 00:56:09,320
Speaker 1: the show notes.