I am disgusted–disgusted–with the official response of the Mormon church to the tape released yesterday about the sexual assault of a young sister missionary in the MTC by Joseph L. Bishop, who was serving as MTC president at the time.

It is full of subterfuge and victim-blaming. It is dishonest. It is evil. And it is precisely the reason these things happen: powerful institutions protect their own at the expense of victims. Even when there is proof–even when there is an audiotape of a man in his own voice admitting to molesting missionaries, acknowledging the existence of a secret sex room in the basement of the MTC, showing no surprise whatsoever at accusations of sexual assault, and being unable to definitively place the identity of the woman standing in front of him because he keeps getting her mixed up with other women.

And yet the line of defense is “the Church has engaged in an investigation of this woman’s allegations. In the course of that investigation, both she and Mr. Bishop have been interviewed by outside legal counsel. Not surprisingly, the the stories, timelines, and recollections of those involved are dramatically different” and “The Church, as a religious organization, does not have the investigative tools available to law enforcement agencies. Nor can the Church substitute for the courts in adjudicating legal claims.”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?

Newsflash, Salt Lake City: it does not take the investigative prowess of a law enforcement agency to recognize what has happened here. You do not need outside legal counsel to understand that what you are listening to is more than enough evidence of, in your words, “a tragic betrayal of our standards [that] would result in action by the Church to formally discipline any member who was guilty of such behavior, especially someone in a position of trust.”

First, if you are only going to discipline abusers who meet the burden of proof required by law, you have just given a green light to predators, who rely on the fact that sexual assault is notoriously difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, and that the vast majority of sexual assaults go unreported, in order to operate. This is NOT the standard of evidence required in a situation like this and the notion that it would be is utterly absurd. Your job is to protect your people, not to prosecute crimes. Stop hiding behind attorneys and police investigations and do your duty as religious leaders, for the love of God.

Second, the betrayal at the heart of this issue is not this man’s betrayal of your precious purity standards, which are frankly irrelevant. It is your betrayal of the people who put their trust in you. Your failure to protect those who give you their bodies, lives, and souls. Your willingness to put people with no pastoral training, background checks, or vetting of any kind into positions of high leadership while extracting covenants of obedience to those same leaders upon penalty of eternal separation from family. Your insistence on sending young people into rooms behind closed doors to be asked detailed sexual questions, such that when this predatory man was in a room with this young woman, she had been conditioned to accept these kinds of conversations–a situation he exploited to share details of his sex life in order to titillate and groom her, according to his own admission.

This spectacular failure of accountability, systemic oversight, and leadership is on YOU.

It is on YOU.

And in case I’m not being abundantly clear, the “you” to whom I am referring are you, the high-ranking leaders of the Mormon church–you self-proclaimed “prophets, seers, and revelators”– who hide like cowards behind sleek PR statements instead examining your own consciences, reforming your systems, and crawling on hands and knees to beg forgiveness of those whom you have betrayed.

Further, the transparent attempt to cast aspersions on the victim in this case is appalling. Being sure to snidely note that her missionary service was “brief.” Identifying her clearly as a “former Church member.” These are clear codewords intended to signal to the membership that she is not to be trusted. Of course her missionary service was brief, she was sexually assaulted by the MTC president in the MTC president’s secret sex room! Of course she is a former member of the church, she was sexually assaulted by the MTC president in the MTC president’s secret sex room!

How dare you! How dare you signal that she is not reliable, that because her story differs from the story of her abuser, despite the existence of a tape where he confirms his misdeeds, it’s too complicated for you to figure out and is “out of your hands.” It does not take a professional-level investigator to figure out why the abuser would lie about that–and fortunately, you don’t actually have a he-said/she-said dilemma in this situation because you have his admission in his own voice. How dare you attempt to make it about her moral failing instead of yours, the functional equivalent of asking “what were you wearing?” How dare you try to squelch the release of the tape by utilizing your political connections to quickly pass a law making such releases illegal–almost immediately after you yourselves admit to having learned of a tape like this! (You say you learned of the tape in January, and you pushed for this bill in February. It seemed out of the blue then, it makes sense now.)

This is precisely why such tapes have to exist. This is why victims hesitate to come forward. Because even in the face of the clearest evidence you could ever hope to find, you are still attempting to deny, obfuscate, victim blame, and gaslight.

How dare you. That could have been me. That could have been my daughter!

Let me be SUPER clear: there is only one way to respond to something like this. “We are devastated to hear of this, we have disciplined the person who did this, and we have hired a third party to provide an internal investigation to determine how this happened, to help us review our systems and processes, and to create concrete safeguards that ensure nothing like this ever happens again. We are so sorry for the harm this woman has experienced, and encourage any other victims to step forward.”

And then you follow through. You repent. I know this is hard for you, you who never apologize nor seek apologies, but you repent, Mormon leaders.

God help us all, please repent.

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

ETA: On March 23, the Mormon church issued an update to their statement, acknowledging the existence of at least one more accuser, and walking back much of the victim-blaming language in the original piece. This is an improvement for which I am grateful, but it is inadequate. They need to apologize for their initial response, which remains egregious and sinful, apologize for their failure to follow through on multiple accusations over several decades against this man (five that we know of so far), and address meaningful systemic changes that will, at a minimum, do away with worthiness interviews; provide training to bishops and other leaders on handling abuse allegations that are brought to them in the course of pastoral care; and roll out clear, transparent policies and procedures on how accusations against leaders will be handled.