1968–2026
Reporting, the abuse help line, and clergy-penitent privilege
20 sources, ordered by evidentiary weight — primary and contemporary first, then documentary editions, then the argument. 14 of them are held as full text in the Mormon Corpus; the other 6 are reached only as quotations inside works that are held, and are marked.
The Blessing of Church Interviews
Boyd K. Packer
The Church's own instruction on how worthiness interviews are to be conducted, and its explicit prohibition on cross-examining members about specific sexual practices.
Healing the Tragic Scars of Abuse
Richard G. Scott
The Church's teaching that abuse victims bear no guilt, alongside its 1992 caution against 'excessive probing' therapy — the passage both camps still argue over.
“This Thing Was Not Done in a Corner”
Gordon B. Hinckley
The first public description by a Church president of the abuse help line, one year after it was set up.
Personal Worthiness to Exercise the Priesthood
Gordon B. Hinckley
That the help line was described from the pulpit as staffed by 'professional counselors, including lawyers and social workers,' advising leaders on 'their obligations.'
To Heal the Shattering Consequences of Abuse
Richard G. Scott
That bishops were publicly directed to 'the Church handbook and the help line listed there' as the route for coordinating with civil authorities.
Arizona Revised Statutes §12-2233 (clergyman or priest and penitent) and §13-3620 (reporting)
State of Arizona
The exact statutory language on which the Adams litigation turned, including the clergy exception written into the reporting duty.
Protect the Children
Dallin H. Oaks
The most sustained apostolic statement on institutional duty toward children, framed as applying to 'citizens, public officials, and workers in private organizations.'
Jane Doe I, et al. v. The Corporation of the President, Cochise County Superior Court No. CV202000599, Under Advisement Ruling on Summary Judgment
Hon. Timothy B. Dickerson
The trial court's reasoning that the bishops had no knowledge independent of confidential communications and that Arizona's reporting duty was therefore overridden.
Sunstone (news reporting on Church abuse policy and settlements), issues 64 and 120
Sunstone Education Foundation
The 1982 First Presidency letters on temple-recommend interview questions, and the 2001 Oregon settlement — the first LDS abuse settlement amount ever publicly disclosed.
Seven years of sex abuse: How Mormon officials let it happen (and follow-up reporting)
Michael Rezendes and Jason Dearen, Associated Press
The account, drawn from sealed court records, of how the help line routed the Bisbee bishops' calls and what they were told.
General Handbook 38.6.2 and Handbook 1 “Abuse and Cruelty” (2010)
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The governing policy language: abuse 'cannot be tolerated in any form,' membership-record annotation, the two-adult rules, and the priority of helping the abused.
Church Offers Statement on Help Line and Abuse
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Newsroom)
The Church's immediate answer to the AP: that the help line's nature and purpose were 'seriously mischaracterized' and that it exists to ensure legal reporting requirements are met.
Second Church statement on the Associated Press report (“What did the Associated Press story get wrong?”)
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Newsroom)
The Church's own three-part statement of a leader's duty in abuse cases: stop the abuse, get care for victims, and comply with whatever reporting the law requires.
Confession in LDS Doctrine and Practice
BYU Studies
How confession to a bishop is understood doctrinally, what confidentiality the Church claims for it, and how the article's authors described the bishop's position when reporting law conflicts with that confidentiality.
Temple Admission Standards
Edward L. Kimball
The documented sequence of handbook and recommend-question changes in 1976 and 1978, and the First Presidency's follow-up instruction that bishops not inquire into marital intimacy.
Confronting Men's Violence Against Women and Girls in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Suzanne E. Greco
A peer-reviewed argument that clergy-penitent privilege enables harm, that the help line's client is the institution, and that the absence of Church data is itself structural.
Bishop interviews with youth (FAIR Answers)
FAIR
The defense of one-on-one worthiness interviews, resting largely on therapist and clergy-abuse survivor Jennifer Roach's published argument for their protective value.
Bisbee, Arizona — Adams abuse case (FAIR Answers)
FAIR
The apologetic case as its own advocates assemble it, and the roster of faithful responses published in the two weeks after the AP story.
LDS Sexual Abuse Statistics; Posting Policy; Database
FLOODLIT.org
What the FLOODLIT dataset is, what it counts, its stated inclusion criteria and disclaimers, and the aggregate figures it publishes.
Mormon sexual abuse timeline; $59 million, five years; Arizona Supreme Court says churches, not judges, decide what counts as a confession
FLOODLIT.org
FLOODLIT's case-by-case chronology of policy and litigation, its reconstruction of the West Virginia costs from court records, and its reading of the 2025 Arizona ruling.
