Certain critics of the Church are absolutely giddy with excitement because, it seems, some anonymous disaffected former employee at Church headquarters (in the tradition of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, though at considerably less risk and without much prospect of becoming the hero of a big-budget Hollywood film) has leaked several hours of in-house videos that record briefings or presentations to members of the Twelve and other General Authorities.

I haven’t watched them yet, and probably won’t watch them (I have many more pressing things on my plate), but I’ve seen what the critics have to say about what they plainly regard as the most devastating and damning “revelations” contained in them.

Thus far, I can’t see that there’s really very much there. (Besides, that is, the obviously questionable ethics of the person who leaked them without authorization and, thus, violated his presumed obligation of confidentiality and discretion.)

I also don’t quite follow the claim that these meetings demonstrate the leaders of the Church to be “out of touch.” The claim seems to me quite stupendously preposterous anyway, because, after all, they’re constantly traveling across the United States and Canada and around the globe, talking with local leaders and members on all inhabited continents. But it’s doubly absurd to make such a claim specifically in this context, since it should be clear beyond reasonable dispute — of course, that word reasonable might be the issue here, given the kinds of critics I have in mind — that such presentations as those recorded here are obviously an effort to be very much in touch.

I actually know something personally about such “briefings.” For example, along with Dr. Gerrit Gong (now himself a General Authority who evidently shows up multiple times as a presenter in these leaked videos) and Dr. James Toronto (currently serving as a mission president in Istanbul after having previously presided for three years over the Italy Catania Mission), I made such a presentation several years back on current trends in the Islamic world.

They simply represent an attempt by the Brethren to keep up to speed on various topics that might be of interest to them in their callings (e.g., just as hypothetical illustrations, on epidemics in Africa, the economic prospects for China, European secularization, legal trends in France) but that are not directly germane to any particular day-to-day responsibility (such as keeping stake and mission presidencies staffed, overseeing Church welfare properties, and determining whether or not to build a temple in Winnemucca, Nevada). They bring in people with solid credentials — if you doubt that, see the backgrounds of Elder Gong and Professor Toronto as given in the links that I supply above — to talk about issues that might impact the Church and its members.

So far as I’m aware — and also, I’m entirely confident, where I’m not personally aware — there’s nothing mysterious or nefarious about what goes on in such meetings. For one thing, they’re informational. No decisions are made in them. They include nothing that’s especially dramatic, and certainly nothing that’s shameful.

Anyway, here’s the Church’s response to the leak of the videos:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865663842/LDS-Church-responds-to-leaked-videos-of-private-meetings-with-Mormon-apostles.html

This is scarcely All the President’s Men.