My Former Institute Teacher is a Pedophile

I don’t know about everybody else, but sometimes I find myself randomly thinking about people who were once a big part of my life, but who I haven’t seen or talked to in years.
Sunday night, I started thinking about my old Institute teacher.

He was someone I really looked up to. I respected him. Honestly, I envied his life. He had a strong testimony while I struggled with mine, and he always seemed to have the right answers to the questions I had. He had a strong marriage while I was single. He had loving kids while I didn’t have any yet.

For what it’s worth, I’m now happily married with two beautiful children of my own. At the time, though, I looked at his life as almost a blueprint for what I hoped mine might eventually look like.
But more than anything, I just thought he was a good guy.

For whatever reason, Sunday night I wondered what he was up to. I knew he had moved to Utah and started a company, so I looked him up on Facebook. We had been Facebook friends at one point, but he wasn’t in my friends list anymore. I searched his name and couldn’t find a profile.
I figured maybe he’d deleted Facebook. Honestly, a lot of us could probably benefit from doing that. Good for him.
But my curiosity got the best of me, so I Googled him.

What I found shocked the hell out of me.

At first, I thought the article had to be about somebody else with the same name. Then I saw the name of his company.

Then I saw his picture.

It was him.

This son of a bitch had been accused of sexually abusing children, multiple children, through his counseling practice.

This was a man who had held prominent positions in the church and worked for the Church Educational System for 23 years. As recently as 2017, he was meeting with members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles about ways to prevent suicide among struggling members.

And now I’m reading allegations that this same man I admired had been abusing children.

I showed the article to my wife, who, in her own words, is still 100% in the church. She read it carefully but didn’t have much to say.

Yesterday, I brought it up again. She expressed sadness that, even though it wasn’t “the church” abusing these children, I might use this as another reason to leave—that it might sway me further away.

The thing is, I don’t think I can really be swayed anymore.

I think my mind is made up. What I’ve learned over the last several years simply doesn’t allow me to believe the way I once did.

But this does add to something else that has become increasingly difficult for me to ignore: the amount of abuse I have seen connected to church environments, and what I see as institutional failures to protect children and take accountability when those systems fail.

And this isn’t just something I’ve read about on the internet.

One of my mission buddies and best friends was sexually abused as a child. His younger brother was abused for years by one of the Young Men leaders in their ward.
The man who abused them had abused children before. He had been excommunicated. He had served prison time. After getting out, he was rebaptized, the annotations were eventually removed from his membership record, and he was placed in Young Men leadership.

According to what my friend was told, the reasoning was that his previous victims had been female, and they believed it was unlikely that he would cross genders and abuse boys.
Except that’s exactly what he did.

That man was eventually caught and rather than going back to jail, killed himself.

Years later, another victim approached my friend about joining a lawsuit intended, in part, to force policy changes. My friend ultimately decided not to join the lawsuit himself, although he expects to be deposed. His younger brother has joined it.

Then there’s my brother’s former bishop, who abused his own children and stepchildren. He was quietly removed as bishop without an explanation to the ward. When members eventually learned what had happened, some used the church directory to create an email list and notify other members.
Those members were threatened with church discipline for sending the emails.

At what point do these stop feeling like isolated incidents?

I’m not saying the LDS Church is responsible every time a member commits a horrific crime. Obviously it isn’t. There are predators in churches, schools, sports programs, families, workplaces, and everywhere else human beings gather.

But an institution is responsible for the systems it creates to protect people. It is responsible for what it does when allegations are made. It is responsible for who it places in positions of trust. It is responsible for whether it prioritizes transparency and protecting victims or protecting the institution.

And after seeing enough examples like these, I have a very difficult time accepting the argument that there isn’t a systemic problem here.

It also makes claims about priesthood discernment incredibly difficult for me to take seriously. If discernment is supposed to help inspired leaders recognize who should be placed in positions of authority and trust, what exactly are we supposed to conclude when predators repeatedly end up in those positions? HE WAS HAVING REGULAR MEETINGS WITH THE TWELVE FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!

I still go to church.

I go because I love my wife, and supporting her matters to me. I’m okay with where she is as long as she’s okay with where I am.