Speaker 1: Yoda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is a summer special
Speaker 1: of The Front Page, The Enzid Herald's daily news podcast.
Speaker 1: While The Front Page is on summer break, we're taking
Speaker 1: a look back at some of the biggest news stories
Speaker 1: and top rated episodes from the podcast in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: New episodes will return on January thirteenth. In twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: Business Desk journalist Murray Jones investigated the finances of the
Speaker 1: New Zealand branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Speaker 1: Latter day Saints, better known as the Mormons. That investigation
Speaker 1: sparked a lot of feedback on social media, including a
Speaker 1: number of posts that suggested there was more to the
Speaker 1: church than first thought. That all led to Heaven's Helpline,
Speaker 1: an ends at Herald podcast that investigated the church and
Speaker 1: how it has built a system that protects its wealth
Speaker 1: and reputation and shields sexual predators from the law. You
Speaker 1: can listen to half of the first episode of Heaven's
Speaker 1: Helpline now and find the full series on iHeartRadio or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: In the church that Gayleen grew up in, they'd sometimes
Speaker 2: do these things called firesides no actual fires involved. Rather
Speaker 2: it be an evening meeting where a church leader would
Speaker 2: speak on some topic or other and members, perhaps a
Speaker 2: youth group, perhaps adults, would be encouraged to discuss it
Speaker 2: and ask questions. Once, when Gayleen was in her early.
Speaker 3: Teens, somewhere between twelve and fourteen, she.
Speaker 2: Went to one of these firesides. This time there was
Speaker 2: more than one speaker.
Speaker 3: We went from room to room getting different lessons.
Speaker 2: And in one room there was a lesson that is
Speaker 2: really stuck in Galien's memory. The bishop's wife, who was
Speaker 2: leading the discussion, had put a cake on a table
Speaker 2: at the front of the room. It was quite the cake.
Speaker 3: This really really beautiful looking, very white cake, and it
Speaker 3: was almost sparkling with sugar crystals.
Speaker 2: The youth group knew that the theme of the lesson
Speaker 2: was chastity, but the cake, they weren't sure what that
Speaker 2: was about.
Speaker 3: But then she said, who would like a piece?
Speaker 2: Well, of course everyone wanted a piece, But.
Speaker 3: Then she got this handful of dirt like dirt from
Speaker 3: the ground and threw it all over the cake, and
Speaker 3: she said, hoo wants a piece of cake? And no
Speaker 3: one then wanted a piece of cake.
Speaker 2: So the cake. You got this already is a metaphor.
Speaker 3: She likened that to being pure and chaste and keeping
Speaker 3: ourselves clean versus a someody touched us inappropriately or kissed
Speaker 3: us or anything. Haw, then we won't clean and nobody
Speaker 3: would ever want us.
Speaker 2: That was forty years ago, but the memory has always
Speaker 2: stayed with Gayleen. I mean, seeing an adult throw dirt
Speaker 2: over a cake is pretty memorable under any circumstances. But
Speaker 2: the bigger point the bishop's wife was making was that
Speaker 2: if you were impure, if you were unchased, if you
Speaker 2: with a dirt spattered cake, you would be imperiling your
Speaker 2: chances of getting into heaven. But missing out on heaven.
Speaker 2: That was taking the long view. The more immediate incentive
Speaker 2: to keep in line was that.
Speaker 3: If you did make a mistake, you would end up
Speaker 3: in the bishop's office.
Speaker 2: And there were so many mistakes you could make in
Speaker 2: this church, so many rules that could be broken, like
Speaker 2: to your coffee, you.
Speaker 4: Don't if a swear, you can't be involved in six
Speaker 4: year relations before marriage.
Speaker 3: Don't watch TV on Sunday.
Speaker 2: This podcast is all about the Church Jesus Christ of
Speaker 2: Latter day Saints, the Mormons. You'll hear about the things
Speaker 2: they believe.
Speaker 3: The living can also be united with the deed.
Speaker 2: You'll learn about the importance of service and obedience.
Speaker 3: Oh, it was just a full on soldier for the church.
Speaker 2: And the unbreakable commitments that people in the church make.
Speaker 3: There is nothing that warrant breaking up our.
Speaker 2: Family commitments that lead members to put the church first.
Speaker 2: If the church gets embarrassed, I get embarrassed. No matter
Speaker 2: the cost.
Speaker 3: They did what I was supposed to do.
Speaker 4: I told my bishop a church wouldn't deliberately put a
Speaker 4: child in harm's way. They kept insisting that I needed
Speaker 4: to forgive him, not just.
Speaker 1: Tell the helpline and they can make it all go away.
Speaker 2: Is this the LDS church abuse helpline speaking to this
Speaker 2: is Heaven's Helpline? A six part New Zealand Herald investigation
Speaker 2: into the Mormon Church in New Zealand, episode The Business
Speaker 2: of Saving Souls. Where are we We're heading on to
Speaker 2: State Highway one, so we're in South Auckland or heading
Speaker 2: into it, I should say, and why are we here?
Speaker 2: Because I'm going to show you the Mormon Temple, Adam,
Speaker 2: the Auckland Mormon Temple. This recordings from a couple of
Speaker 2: months ago, I was with Adam Dudding, one of the
Speaker 2: producers for this podcast. I wanted him to see what
Speaker 2: I'd been seeing every time I drove south of Auckland,
Speaker 2: and every time I drove back and boom there it is.
Speaker 1: Okay, that is really absolutely stalkingly huge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been. It's been going up for a couple
Speaker 2: of years now. Every time I drive to Hamilton and
Speaker 2: come back to Auckland, I see it getting bigger and
Speaker 2: bigger and bigger, and it's nearly done. I'm Murray Jones,
Speaker 2: I'm an investigative journalist, and yeah, it's fair to say
Speaker 2: over the past couple of years, the Church of Jesus
Speaker 2: Christ of Latter day Saints, better known as the Mormons
Speaker 2: or the LDS Church, has become a bit of an
Speaker 2: obsession for me. The church, its money, its vast new
Speaker 2: Auckland temple, but I think it's so notable right. It's
Speaker 2: put right up on the hill, it's looking over the
Speaker 2: whole of Manico. It's really quite a big statement from
Speaker 2: the church. You know, when I first started writing two
Speaker 2: years ago, I didn't even know the Auckland Temple was
Speaker 2: coming up. And then to the fact that this huge
Speaker 2: temples being built in the city I've been living in,
Speaker 2: just as I've been introduced to the Mormons. This obsession
Speaker 2: began not long after I arrived in New Zealand from
Speaker 2: the UK. You might have spotted from my accent that
Speaker 2: I'm not from around these parts. Originally I got a
Speaker 2: contract to help Enzeme's business desk with a project looking
Speaker 2: into charities and their money. Which ones are rich, where
Speaker 2: does the money come from, how do they spend it,
Speaker 2: that kind of thing, And really quickly it became obvious
Speaker 2: that the LDS Church was worth a close look, because
Speaker 2: it turns out they are mind bogglingly rich, and there
Speaker 2: are all kinds of fascinating side issues around their wealth,
Speaker 2: like the way they tithe ten percent of all their members' incomes,
Speaker 2: many of whom aren't all that rich to begin with,
Speaker 2: or the fact that they spend just a tiny fraction
Speaker 2: of that tithe money on the kind of things you
Speaker 2: might expect from a charity, you know, soup kitchens or
Speaker 2: helping the homeless or running hospitals, Or the way that
Speaker 2: the Mormons have this huge focus on constructing these extravagant
Speaker 2: and expensive temples all over the world, just like the
Speaker 2: one in the south of Tarmackie Mikodo. Anyone who's driven
Speaker 2: or flown into Auckland in the past couple of years
Speaker 2: will have noticed it.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean it's quite beautiful though, isn't it. I mean
Speaker 2: I'm just looking back at it now, you know. The
Speaker 2: spy sort of goes up like a tin layer wedding cake. Yeah,
Speaker 2: sixty meters. Although I was focused on the New Zealand
Speaker 2: LDS Church, I couldn't ignore the global wealth of the Mormons.
Speaker 2: They've got investments worth two hundred and sixty billion dollars US.
Speaker 2: That's more than the annual gd of New Zealand. Anyway,
Speaker 2: when my articles came out, well, they got a pretty
Speaker 2: big reaction. Online. Journalists like to pretend that we don't
Speaker 2: read the comments on our stories, but of course we do,
Speaker 2: and these ones were fascinating. There were non religious readers
Speaker 2: outraged that churches have tax free status at all. There
Speaker 2: were current members of the church coming to its defense,
Speaker 2: saying that my articles were a hit job by a
Speaker 2: so called journalist. But there were also conversations kicking off
Speaker 2: in the comments that made me realize there was more
Speaker 2: to say about Mormon money. There were some heartbreaking accounts
Speaker 2: of the way tithing had been really punishing for members.
Speaker 2: One woman talked about how she still felt emotionally scarred by.
Speaker 3: The realization that I could have provided my suicidal team
Speaker 3: the specialist therapy the bishop refused.
Speaker 1: To help pay for if I hadn't been paying tithes
Speaker 1: for decades.
Speaker 2: One woman talked about how she was asked by a
Speaker 2: senior church leader to.
Speaker 1: Pay tithing my student line because I was receiving money.
Speaker 2: Another woman, commenting from Salt Lake City, Utah, the home
Speaker 2: of the Mormon faith, said she'd been led to believe
Speaker 2: that if you pay tithing, the Lord will provide.
Speaker 3: But funny, once we start paying tithing, we had enough
Speaker 3: on our own.
Speaker 2: What a scam. Reading all these, I wanted to do
Speaker 2: some follow up stories on the human cost of tithing
Speaker 2: and also hear from more women, since most of the
Speaker 2: people in my original Mormon money articles were men, so
Speaker 2: I sent messages to a dozen or serve of the
Speaker 2: people who'd made comments. Would they be interested in telling
Speaker 2: their stories in a bit more detail for a follow
Speaker 2: up article. Half of those people got back to me.
Speaker 2: Half of that half agreed to a phone call, and
Speaker 2: one of those three people. Well, she didn't want to
Speaker 2: talk to me about tithing. She wanted to talk about
Speaker 2: something much much darker. That first call lasted for a
Speaker 2: couple of hours, and.
Speaker 4: So you think you're the only one that's such a
Speaker 4: disparate circumstance. But that's the mentality editor time.
Speaker 2: And to be honest, it shook me. So I have
Speaker 2: a bit a bit lostful words. Yeah, it's not as
Speaker 2: it is hard to understand this woman who I'll be
Speaker 2: calling Caroline. So she had been in the church for
Speaker 2: more than forty years before finally leaving. Her story was
Speaker 2: one of betrayal. You just trust that the leaders are
Speaker 2: going to take care of things, trauma and denial. I
Speaker 2: cut myself off from everything. I cut myself off from
Speaker 2: the news, trying to protict myself of missed opportunities and
Speaker 2: cover ups. You said that people knew he was predatory.
Speaker 2: Who knew and what did they know? But talking to
Speaker 2: her also made me realize I needed to be asking
Speaker 2: some very different questions about the church. Yes, the church
Speaker 2: is rich, and sure it's important to look closely at
Speaker 2: the burden that tithing places on some members. But after
Speaker 2: talking to Caroline, it got me wondering about things like
Speaker 2: who does the church value and who do they see
Speaker 2: as expendable.
Speaker 3: If you feel superior to somebody, it becomes real easy
Speaker 3: to just say, oh, well, wouldn't have happened to my kid?
Speaker 2: Who holds power in the church and how do they
Speaker 2: use that power?
Speaker 6: Every think good that your family wants sort of you,
Speaker 6: you have to get this person's approval.
Speaker 3: The opportunity for abuse as a means.
Speaker 2: And when things go wrong, when lives are ruined, when
Speaker 2: families are torn apart, when crimes are committed, what will
Speaker 2: the church do to keep things quiet?
Speaker 1: Handle problem, sh'll it off, get the victim into figures.
Speaker 2: It would be almost two years before some of those
Speaker 2: questions were answered, and we are going to get to
Speaker 2: all of that soon. And yes, we are going to
Speaker 2: come back to Caroline and hear her whole story, but
Speaker 2: first we need just a bit of context about this church.
Speaker 2: Where did it come from and how did it make
Speaker 2: it over to Altairoa. Mormon history is really fascinating. We're
Speaker 2: going to give you the potted version here, but if
Speaker 2: you're keen to understand more, then listen to our explainer
Speaker 2: episode in the podcast feed. So in eighteen twenties, New
Speaker 2: York State, a young man called Joseph Smith had some
Speaker 2: religious visions which told him not to follow any of
Speaker 2: the current churches out there, but to set up his
Speaker 2: own instead. The way Smith tells it, he was first
Speaker 2: visited by God and Jesus. Then one night in eighteen
Speaker 2: twenty three, an angel called Moroni appeared in his.
Speaker 5: Bedroom, standing in the air, for his feet did not
Speaker 5: touch the floor.
Speaker 2: Moroni showed Joseph the location of some golden plates that
Speaker 2: were hidden near his home.
Speaker 5: He said there was a book deposited written upon gold plates.
Speaker 2: Under divine guidance, Smith translated the pages, and those translations
Speaker 2: became what's known as the Book of Mormon. It has
Speaker 2: a huge narrative spanning centuries, climaxing with Jesus visiting the
Speaker 2: Americas after his resurrection. Smith was into polygamy, the practice
Speaker 2: of men taking multiple wives. This would get the church
Speaker 2: in trouble with wider American society, so they fled westwards
Speaker 2: and set up shop in Salt Lake Valley, Utah, which
Speaker 2: has remained the beating heart of the church ever since.
Speaker 2: Just a quarter century after the Book of Mormon was
Speaker 2: published in the eighteen fifties, the first LDS missionaries arrived
Speaker 2: in New Zealand, they had minimal success converting Europeans, so
Speaker 2: turn their focus to Mary and it went really well.
Speaker 2: Large numbers of Tanga to Fenua joined the church. There's
Speaker 2: a number of reasons that people point to for this. Language. Ancestry, polygamy,
Speaker 2: and prophecies all played a part. But crucially, unlike European missionaries,
Speaker 2: American Mormons weren't involved in the British crowns land grabs.
Speaker 2: But again we dive into these factors in the Explainer episode.
Speaker 2: Whatever the specific reasons, though, the fact is Mormonism became
Speaker 2: really big in Marydom. By the nineteen sixties, over sixty
Speaker 2: percent of the membership of the LDS Church was Mardy.
Speaker 2: So can't we go and can we go inside this thing? Nope,
Speaker 2: So only the most worthy of church members are allowed
Speaker 2: to go in. It's where special rituals and ordinances happen.
Speaker 2: So you got your ceilings, which is your weddings, You've
Speaker 2: got your baptism and they are dead. You've got your endowments,
Speaker 2: So not anyone can just go in at any time.
Speaker 2: It's only for special situations, ceremonies. Watch out for that
Speaker 2: track temples are one of the most important symbols of
Speaker 2: faith for Latter day Saints. Sure they have churches all over,
Speaker 2: but temples are much more rare and much more special.
Speaker 2: As I mentioned there to Adam, only those who are
Speaker 2: deemed to be behaving well enough according to church doctrine
Speaker 2: are allowed inside the temple. This new temple in the
Speaker 2: south of Auckland will no doubt be a huge deal
Speaker 2: to the many members living nearby. But if you wind
Speaker 2: the clock back to the construction of this country's first
Speaker 2: Mormon temple in nineteen fifty eight, well, it literally shifted
Speaker 2: the landscape.
Speaker 6: An American style suburb spraying from the swamp and Tuikaramea
Speaker 6: became Temple View, a beautifully landscaped village, snugly and closed
Speaker 6: by one thousand acres of church owned farmland.
Speaker 2: That was from a nineteen seventy three documentary marveling at
Speaker 2: how the church had built a self content community in
Speaker 2: the Waikato centered around a brand new temple, a vast
Speaker 2: white building with a sharp spire reaching for the sky.
Speaker 2: This was just the eleventh Mormon temple in the world,
Speaker 2: so it was a matter of enormous prestige and pride
Speaker 2: for New Zealand Mormons. The school next door, Church College,
Speaker 2: was a co ed secondary school that took borders and
Speaker 2: day students. The temple, the school, and the houses of
Speaker 2: Temple View were all built by volunteers called labor missionaries.
Speaker 2: Their mantra was Kiirhanga mortunu ake, build for eternity.
Speaker 4: The labor missionaries were just ordinary people who were mostly
Speaker 4: Marii being missionaries.
Speaker 2: That's doctor Gina Colvin her father have been Mormon for generations,
Speaker 2: and although Gina has been a vocal critic of the
Speaker 2: church over the years, she's only recently left. The idea
Speaker 2: of Temple View was to build a community where Mormon
Speaker 2: families could flourish and look after each other. But for
Speaker 2: some of the mari among them, it was something even more,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 4: After generations of having your land and your livelihood taken
Speaker 4: away from you through the confiscations and the land grabs,
Speaker 4: and all of the agony and the traumas that were
Speaker 4: as result of that, it was phenomenal, I think, to
Speaker 4: be part of something that built something for mari and
Speaker 4: for the spiritual flourishing and the spiritual welfare.
Speaker 2: Mormons flocked to live near the temple. Some came from
Speaker 2: Pacific nations or from Australia, places which at that time
Speaker 2: didn't have temples of their own. Remember Gayalen, the woman
Speaker 2: who watched someone throw dirt all over a white cake
Speaker 2: when she was a kid. Her family moved from Dunedin
Speaker 2: to live near the new suburb.
Speaker 3: We moved up here and that was different because like
Speaker 3: there were more everywhere. Like you go to the supermarket,
Speaker 3: you'd bump into them. You'd walk down the road, you'd
Speaker 3: bump into them. You wanted to talk to someone, and
Speaker 3: it's just over your fence or over the down the road.
Speaker 3: They were everywhere.
Speaker 2: Temple View is still a really distinctive place, although it's
Speaker 2: much quieter since the school shut down in two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine. The whole suburb, which is southwest of Hamilton City,
Speaker 2: is a little bit eerie if you drive into it
Speaker 2: without realizing what it is. A tiny land island of
Speaker 2: suburbia centered around spotless white buildings in the middle of farmland.
Speaker 2: There's around twelve hundred residents and just about everyone that
Speaker 2: lives there is a Mormon. For a very long time,
Speaker 2: this really was the epicenter of Mormonism for the whole
Speaker 2: of the Pacific region. Many of the people you'll meet
Speaker 2: in this podcast lived in or near that suburb, or
Speaker 2: studied at church college, or married their spouse at that temple.
Speaker 2: But even though it's kind of a religious one, and
Speaker 2: even though this is a really tight knit community, Mormons
Speaker 2: haven't completely separated themselves from mainstream New Zealand. We've had
Speaker 2: Mormon all Blacks, including Jonah Lomu Mahonu and in the
Speaker 2: sixties and seventies the Going Brothers Sid, Brian and Kenn.
Speaker 2: We've had Mormon Olympians including Valerie Adams and Joseph Parker.
Speaker 2: There have been Mormon Miss New Zealand's. One of them
Speaker 2: made it to the top seven in Miss World Miss
Speaker 2: New Zealand.
Speaker 6: My name is Vicky Lee HUMEI I'm a student teacher
Speaker 6: and I'm studying English and Education.
Speaker 2: There are New Zealand judges who are Mormon, Mormon politicians.
Speaker 2: I mean, our third most recent Prime Minister was a Mormon.
Speaker 4: I was Mormon.
Speaker 6: I lived in Mornsville, and while I loved politics, I
Speaker 6: never ever dreamed I would work in it.
Speaker 2: Ja Cinder Ardern quit the church in her early twenties
Speaker 2: for reasons. We'll get to, but her family is still
Speaker 2: very involved. Her uncle Ian is a senior leader and
Speaker 2: was principal of Church College in the nineteen eighties. The
Speaker 2: church has made a real effort to help the country
Speaker 2: understand that they're pretty decent folk. Since the mid nineteen eighties,
Speaker 2: the people of Temple View have put on their epic
Speaker 2: Christmas Lights extravaganza, and around the same time in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty one, the church commissioned a documentary for the New
Speaker 2: Zealand audience.
Speaker 5: I've asked me to tell you a little bit about.
Speaker 2: Themselves, narrated by five star gold plated New Zealand hero
Speaker 2: Edmund Hillary, who, as you know, climbed Mount Everest before
Speaker 2: anyone else.
Speaker 5: For the Mormons, the most important single unit in the
Speaker 5: church is the family.
Speaker 2: To be clear, Hillary was not a Mormon himself, but
Speaker 2: as he put.
Speaker 5: It, maybe they didn't convert me to anything, but I
Speaker 5: couldn't help admiring their politeness and their sincerity.
Speaker 2: Clean cut, family, focused, working, polite, harmless, and that's the space,
Speaker 2: more or less where Mormons have sat in the eyes
Speaker 2: of non Mormon New Zealand for a good half century
Speaker 2: or so. A minority religion. Fifty four thousand members according
Speaker 2: to the twenty eighteen census, closer to one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty thousand according to the church's own figures. A church
Speaker 2: whose followers here are mostly Maudi in Pacifica, but a
Speaker 2: sizeable minority of Pakia, with some doctrinal quirks that make
Speaker 2: it a bit different from a lot of other Christian churches,
Speaker 2: a bit old fashioned, a bit straight, and sure outsiders
Speaker 2: might find some of their rules and rituals a bit unusual,
Speaker 2: worthy of a bit of teasing, Like in the TV
Speaker 2: show south Park.
Speaker 6: That's another thing.
Speaker 1: Why do you have to be so freaking nice all
Speaker 1: the time?
Speaker 2: It isn't normal, Or in the hit Broadway musical The
Speaker 2: Book of Mormon, which was written incidentally by the creators
Speaker 2: of South Park. That's been born of the.
Speaker 6: Modern Jackson Chary.
Speaker 2: For this sketch from the mid nineteen eighties New Zealand
Speaker 2: comedy show Funny Business, I.
Speaker 6: Don't drink goff it, I don't drink tea, and I
Speaker 6: enjoy it.
Speaker 5: Celibacy.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if there's any connection between that
Speaker 2: kind of teasing and the fact that around two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day
Speaker 2: Saints started distancing itself from the label Mormon and insisted
Speaker 2: that people refer to the religion as LDS or by
Speaker 2: its full wordy title. Most members I spoke to still
Speaker 2: referred to themselves as Mormons, even though it's no longer
Speaker 2: the official line.
Speaker 6: A Mormon, Norman Mormon.
Speaker 2: But if the worst thing you're known for is your
Speaker 2: straight laced faithfulness and your Christmas lights, then reputationally speaking,
Speaker 2: you're not doing too badly. Demon eler after the break
Speaker 2: your front dormant, O me the door knockers.
Speaker 1: You've just heard the first half of episode one of
Speaker 1: Heaven's Helpline. You can listen to the full episode and
Speaker 1: the rest of the series on iHeartRadio or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts.