Introduction and Guest Background

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 618

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John Dehlin [00:00:36] The kindly light Amid the encircling gloom Lead thou me on the night is dark. Hello and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's February 1, 2016, and something really came out of the blue today that's kind of a big deal.

John Dehlin [00:01:00] I swear I woke up this morning thinking to myself, there's got to be someone at LDS Church headquarters who's got to call a meeting and say, okay, no more bad press. Like, we've had a lot of bad press over the past several years and it's time to just stop doing or saying things that are going to cause more problems. And lo and behold, before I know It Again, today, February 1st, the LDS Church releases a news, sort of a news alert or press release news release entitled Effectiveness of Church Approach to Preventing Child Abuse.

John Dehlin [00:01:43] And it's basically, I don't know, like a 10 paragraph news release sort of explaining the church's approach to child abuse. And it holds itself out as sort of as having an approach to child abuse that is the gold standard for religious organizations. And it makes the claim that no religious organization has done more than the LDS Church for child abuse. And I was just, honestly, I almost didn't have the heart or the stomach to take this on.

John Dehlin [00:02:20] I wondered if it was just going to kind of peter out. But of course, Facebook now has exploded this week, just on the tail of last week exploding in its discussion of all the LGBT youth suicides that have been going on in response to the November explosion, where the LDS Church announces that it's no longer going to allow the children of same sex married couples to be members, and same sex married couples are now immediately subject to apostasy charges. So the first person that I thought of to contact in response to this, this latest, I don't know, disaster brouhaha, I don't know what to call it, is Matt Long.

John Dehlin [00:03:07] Some of you will know that name, others will know the name Matt. But I'll just introduce Matt. Matt. I've known Matt for several years. He's an attorney. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona. And I knew Matt because at some point, Matt worked in the area of child sexual abuse, sort of in the Phoenix area. And so also, some of you will know Matt Long because he is one of the main participants on the Infants on Thrones podcast, which is a podcast we featured before. So, technically, mat first appearance on Mormon stories. Right?

Matt Long [00:03:47] Right. I think it's my second.

John Dehlin [00:03:49] Yeah. But welcome, welcome under these inauspicious circumstances.

Matt Long [00:03:53] Yeah. I tell you, when this hit today, this really does hit close to home. And it's something that I've been passionate about and interested in for seven. Seven years now. And so when it hit, it certainly caused me to want to at least talk about it and understand it and help other people understand what it means and the impact. And of course, I was so motivated, John, in getting a very quick smackdown together to scoop you. And so to have you interview me and for me to relent is a real. It's tough for me to do because I'm the one always complaining about when you scoop us. And so now I'm ensuring that that happens. That must reflect on how much I think about you, which, you know, is. You know, I think a lot about you and value everything you're doing. So thanks for having me on.

John Dehlin [00:04:48] Well, thanks, Matt. And I am expecting infants to still do a smackdown, and I'll be the first to tune in.

Matt Long [00:04:54] I appreciate that. I'm sure we'll be able to get something together,

John Dehlin [00:04:59] but this is important, and I think your background is just really essential for this conversation. So. But before we dive in, tell us your experience and expertise so that people can understand why we're interviewing you about this subject specifically.

Matt Long [00:05:18] Sure. So I've been an attorney a little over 12 years now, I guess, and most of that time was in prosecution, and most of that time was as a sex crimes prosecutor, handling mostly child sexual abuse, but some computer crimes, anything that might have some sexual motivation. I was responsible in prosecuting those crimes both in a couple counties here in Arizona. As part of that, I happen to be assigned cases that dealt with aspects of the. Of the Mormon Church. In some cases, bishops were involved, stake presidents were involved, church members were involved, both on the offender, as an offender and as a victim. I was involved with one case in particular that got some national media exposure, and it involved some of the issues that we'll be talking about today pertaining to the policies that the church utilizes in responding to sexual abuse.

Matt Long [00:06:34] And through that experience and learning that, I have had the opportunity to go around with A law enforcement friend of mine who was also a colleague that worked on the case, and we teach at child crimes conferences throughout the country on various issues. But we've been asked to speak and present most consistently on the issues of sexual abuse within religious institutions and the reporting and response to sexual abuse. So I guess the years of doing that qualifies me to talk about this.

John Dehlin [00:07:18] Beautiful. So. So I wonder if the kind of. If the structure of this interview should be. Let's just talk about your background in history, kind of what led you into this field and what some of your experiences have been. And then in the second half, we can kind of talk about the actual, you know, the church's approach to this sort of thing and also talk about the recent news release and talk about maybe from your perspective, what some of the concerns might be. How does that sound?

Matt Long [00:07:57] Yeah, that'd be great.

Matt Long's Path to Sex Crimes Prosecution

John Dehlin [00:07:58] Okay. All right, so let's go back and talk a bit about your history and what led you to be interested in this field.

Matt Long [00:08:05] Well, I was born in the Covenant. Isn't that where we always start with Mormon stories?

John Dehlin [00:08:08] No, you have to start with your pioneer ancestry.

Matt Long [00:08:11] I do come from pioneer stock. My uncle or my great, great grandfather was one of Joseph Smith's bodyguards, as everyone else's. No, all true, but not. Not relevant, necessarily. Yeah. So. So where'd you grow up? Where'd you go back? Where I grew up. I grew up in. Grew up in Tempe, Arizona.

John Dehlin [00:08:33] Oh, wow. So you're a Sun Devil.

Matt Long [00:08:35] Loyal Sun Devil. Born and raised and went to ASU Law School and really have stayed other than my mission, pretty much has stayed here in the. In the Phoenix area.

John Dehlin [00:08:48] Where'd you serve your mission?

Matt Long [00:08:51] Micronesia. Guam.

John Dehlin [00:08:52] Oh, wow.

Matt Long [00:08:53] Yeah, it was. It was fantastic. I spent most of my time in the Marshall Islands. Well, the whole time pretty much in the. In the Marshall Islands, which is now its own. Its own mission. But it was a fantastic experience.

John Dehlin [00:09:09] And did you always want to study law, or is that something that.

Matt Long [00:09:12] Yeah, I say ever since LA Law. Remember that old show back in the 80s with Harry Hamblin and Corbin Bernson? I always wanted to be a lawyer and a trial attorney specifically. And I had a very close friend, and it was actually my.

Matt Long [00:09:29] It was a deacons quorum advisor and then my priest quorum advisor that became a very close friend and was an attorney and. And was a prosecutor as well and bit of a mentor. And I ended up going to law school with the intent of doing trial work and likely being a prosecutor. So that was always the Plan.

Matt Long [00:09:50] When I went to school, I can remember wanting to go to University of Chicago Law School, which was one of the top law schools at the time. And I may or may not maybe could have eked in if I would have really dazzled, but talked to a friend and asked what I wanted to do. And I said, I want to be a prosecutor. And he just kind of laughed and said, well, don't go to the University of Chicago. You'll be wasting money and stay around and go to a decent law school like ASU and you'll do fine.

John Dehlin [00:10:25] So you did your undergraduate and law degree from.

Matt Long [00:10:29] I did. Really? Probably a bad choice in retrospect, but it worked out for me. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone else.

John Dehlin [00:10:35] Did you know Donald H. Oaks had graduated from Chicago Law School?

Matt Long [00:10:39] I did and was a big motivator as to why I wanted to go there, because it was. This is. It was regarded as a conservative law school, you know, not like Balt hall at Berkeley. It was, you know, it was one of the good ones.

John Dehlin [00:10:53] Gotcha. Okay, so when you pursued law school, did you. You wanted to be a prosecutor? Did you have an idea of what type of prosecutor?

Matt Long [00:11:02] No, I just. I just knew that the. The people that I knew in the field, I knew prosecutors, they seemed to really enjoy it. They. I had enough friends who had been with large firms and then had gone to prosecution, and so seemed to fit both my personality, my skill set, and. And what interests me. So I definitely pursued any class, any coursework that was either a practical course, something with trial and advocacy, or criminal. I did all that then. My last year was unique to asu. Has a fellowship that I applied for and got. That's pretty unique. It's a. It's really.

John Dehlin [00:11:51] You.

Matt Long [00:11:52] Do you work as a student prosecutor? As a student attorney instead of going to class? So it was. Got actual trial work where you're working and presenting cases in the courtroom. It was a scholarship, and you got paid to do it. So it gave me kind of a bit of a jump on a lot of the other kids that I went to school with, because I had, I think, six or seven felony jury trials that I had first chaired before I graduated law school.

John Dehlin [00:12:25] That's great.

Matt Long [00:12:26] Yeah. And it gave me experience in the U.S. attorney's office, the Arizona Attorney General's office, the Maricopa County Attorney's office, and a city court. So I was able to get experience in every facet of government, both from appeals writings to misdemeanor work to federal work, as well as felony work. Yeah, it was a phenomenal experience.

John Dehlin [00:12:52] So if you're a prosecutor, you work either for the federal government, for a state, the county, or a city. Is that pretty fair to say?

Matt Long [00:13:00] Exactly. Yeah. There are rare exceptions where they have contract work for small counties or small organizations, but by and large, yeah, you're going to be working for one of the government agencies in order to prosecute.

John Dehlin [00:13:14] Okay, so tell us how after. After graduation, how that led to being kind of a sex crimes prosecutor.

Matt Long [00:13:24] Yeah, so early on, I was given some opportunities to handle some fairly serious cases early in my career and had a very, very important supervisor and mentor whose background was in sex crimes, and she's now a judge. And it just was a big influence in developing skills and becoming an attorney. And again, her background was in sex crimes, and she really allowed me to handle some cases earlier than I probably should have, helping her with that area. And I seemed to have an aptitude for it and an interest for it, and ultimately it mattered. I was told real early on that I asked, what do you want to do?

Matt Long [00:14:10] Well, I want to do homicide cases because that's the most important and that's the most serious. And a couple different people kind of said, well, you know, homicides are actually pretty easy because you've got a dead body and it's just a matter of proving who done it. Whereas with sex crimes, it can be a lot more challenging.

Matt Long [00:14:32] The evidence isn't as clear, and it really requires very skilled and capable attorneys. And so I took that, I guess, as a challenge and really pursued that and did what I could to be a part of the sex crimes unit or the special victims unit in the office I was in and really didn't look back once I had that opportunity.

John Dehlin [00:15:00] And so how many years in this domain?

Matt Long [00:15:03] So, let's see, it was from about 2007, early 2007, until 2012, that I handled exclusively sex crimes cases. And then from 2012 to 2014, I was promoted and was promoted to handle, you know, the real crimes, homicide and death penalty cases, and kept a couple of the sex cases. But my real background was in sex crimes. The longest time that I worked as a prosecutor, and then the last year I've gone to private practice and do criminal defense and victim representation, which

John Dehlin [00:15:50] has

Matt Long [00:15:51] its own rewards and struggles, I guess.

John Dehlin [00:15:54] And we'll talk about this maybe at the end, but from what I understand, you still have an interest in representing victims of sex crimes, Is that right?

Matt Long [00:16:02] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:16:03] Yeah.

Matt Long [00:16:03] And I do. I have the. Because of my background and the way I worked with law enforcement A lot of people do come my way and are looking for help in representation of sex crimes from a. And other crimes, whether they're victims of homicide and other things, but really where the need is in these sexual offenses. Kids and other victims who don't necessarily get the voice that they need, even with law enforcement and with certain prosecution offices, who don't understand how these cases develop, how they actually take place in some cases, and too often they are not investigated correctly and not prosecuted correctly. And so often I can come in and at least help out, have some influence, help them through the process, and in some cases pursue a case civilly that gets dropped on the criminal side.

Matt Long [00:17:05] So that's still continue my advocacy of kids and victims of sexual abuse that are now adults. So it was a real passion for me as a prosecutor. It continues to. To be something I really, really care about and continue to advocate, especially on behalf of victims.

Religion and Sexual Abuse: Patterns and Cases

John Dehlin [00:17:26] Okay, so why don't we start with whatever cases or situations or background you're able to talk about as it relates to. Let's just keep it broad, you know, religious, you know, sex crimes within a religious context. We don't, you know, I don't think any of us have any interest in trying to attack the church or any church. I think we're all just trying to understand how to keep victims safe. But I think the, you know, people who listen to Mormon stories are going to care about the religious context because that's the one that we all focus really heavily on. So talk about your background in cases that you can or are comfortable that tie to religion so that we can understand a bit about your background before we jump into more of the details.

Matt Long [00:18:19] Sure. So it's really important to understand kind of how we approach and how law enforcement approaches and has learned about sexual abuse. And as a shortcut method, I guess I use Roland Summits Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome. And I understand it's very controversial in how it's used and what it means.

Matt Long [00:18:44] And it's certainly not a diagnosis and it's not a profile to say that this is how all sexual abuse occurs. But it's a really nice framework to understand what I refer to, and we refer to here in Arizona as victimology or the process of victimization.

Matt Long [00:19:04] It's a little spin on. On the child abuse accommodation syndrome, but there are some principles at play. And the phases in that are that there's a selection phase, there's an engagement phase, there's a grooming phase, there's an assault phase, and there's a concealment phase. And each case takes. You see it manifest. So you see the offender that selects the victim for a number of reasons, either because they're vulnerable or they have access to that victim and they have believe that that's a child.

Matt Long [00:19:46] And I keep referring to kids and child, and that's because that's where the lion's share of my work is. But often this does apply to adult victims or those with special needs. So when I. Again, it's just a shortcut method when I say kids or children. So there's selection, then there's the engagement where the offender engages the child and anyone in the circle of influence that that child might have, parents, siblings, teachers, church leaders.

Matt Long [00:20:18] And then there's a grooming process where they start to break down physical barriers. They maybe have talk about sex or tickling or some of those things that you hear about. And that certainly happen. And then there's the assault phase, whereas actually committing the sexual offense. And then there's concealment. And concealment is where religion really can play a big role and does play a big role because the offender uses the concept of shared responsibility. And it's a really important concept to understand, is that a child as young as five and even younger in many cases will feel responsible for the abuse. They'll feel that they were a participant.

Matt Long [00:21:05] They will feel guilt and shame and remorse and fear. And all these things lead to keeping the kid quiet and concealing the abuse. It can often be a form of threats. It can be bribes. I'll buy you this. If you don't say anything, if you say something, you're police will come and they'll throw me in jail or I'll kill your pet. I'll kill your sibling. I'll do this. All these types of techniques are used to keep the kid quiet so that the abuse can continue.

Matt Long [00:21:37] Well, we see this in almost every context, but as I started working these cases, it would become particularly effective. That is the. You would see these techniques be particularly prominent in religious households and amongst the religious. Often offenders would use religion to act out and to abuse these kids. I started seeing a disproportionate number of cases involving LDS offenders and victims. And so you'd have the offender was LDS and as was the victim.

Matt Long [00:22:27] And whether it was a relative or another, a kid, a friend of a friend of a relative that happened to be lds. I saw these coming up and it was becoming at least frequent enough to say, this is different. We're seeing a larger percentage of this particular population than any other. And granted, in Arizona, there are certainly a large percentage of LDS folk. It's a large community. But that didn't explain the larger percentage of abuse cases that I was seeing in my file. And it would often come up very.

Matt Long [00:23:14] What was often interesting is how it would come up is usually either a family member of the offender or the offender himself would do everything they could to communicate the fact that they're Mormon, as if that was a defense. It was kind of this unspoken defense of, but I couldn't have committed this offense. I'm Mormon. And that was really a theme that kept bubbling up. And it was always entertaining for me because I would never reveal that I grew up LDS in many of these cases. I was very active LDS as I was prosecuting these cases.

Matt Long [00:23:56] And so I wouldn't talk about it to defense counsel or anyone else, but I just something that I observed. And I started talking to other colleagues, law enforcement, prosecutors, defense attorneys, other people that worked in this very, very, very narrow field.

Matt Long [00:24:10] And everyone kind of confirmed the same thing. They saw a pattern or saw that it would bubble up and that members of the church were on. You know, if you're looking at a percentage or looking at statistics, it's a statistically significant.

Matt Long [00:24:32] You know, you would see more Mormons than non Mormons. So what we started seeing and what I started seeing is that they would use the offenders, would use religion to select, to engage, to groom, to ultimately commit the assault. But particularly it was effective. They used religion in keeping a child quiet. I would have a lot of offenders that would talk to boys and girls that they're abusing and would reference the temple, you know, you need to be worthy for the temple as a way to keep the kids quiet and reinforce that.

Matt Long [00:25:19] We saw that in some cases we. We had right back to back, they both came in the door at the same time. Which is why it stands out, is these two men went to the temple, came back and told their daughters that they got revelation that they needed to instruct them sexually. And so they instructed by acting out. And they would always reinforce that this was something that was received in the temple.

Matt Long [00:25:51] They would communicate that in some cases to the spouse or the mother, who would then go along with it. And I get that. That just seems when I tell these stories and I talk about it, you think, okay, well, that's an anomaly. That's one case. But it wasn't. It was a technique and a strategy that would be used over and over and over again.

How Religious Culture Can Enable Abuse

John Dehlin [00:26:15] You know, as I'm thinking about, you know, people who follow me on Facebook will See that I've mentioned several times that my favorite movie, one of my favorite movies for 2015 was a movie called Spotlight, which talks about the Boston Globes investigation of the Catholic priest pedophilia scandals in, in, in Boston that the, and the COVID up that then led to sort of hundreds if not thousands of, you know, scandals all over the world uncovered originating from the one in Boston. And I guess I have to say in all fairness that this is probably. Tell me if you think this is true, that while in Arizona you'll have a high percentage of Mormons there.

John Dehlin [00:27:06] And so you're going to see a lot of Mormon instances of sexual abuse or child abuse that if you were in, let's just say certain parts of New York, you might see with Orthodox Jews. If you were in Southern United States, you might see it with evangelical or born again Christians. Is it fair to say that this is probably prevalent in most major world religions? Wherever there's a heavy concentration, there's no

Matt Long [00:27:32] doubt anywhere where there's particularly fundamental religions, those that have a more insular or isolated community, smaller communities that keep themselves from the rest, you definitely see that. Arizona, we've had our share of clergy, Catholic bishop cases. And one of my mentors and supervisors prosecuted a real big one here in Arizona. And you talk about upstate New York.

Matt Long [00:28:04] I was asked to present on these issues specifically to target some of the Hasidic Jewish abuse that goes on in that community in New York. And so it absolutely is not a Mormon problem. These guys, and I think it's important to say that these guys are, are false. The guys that use religion are manipulating not just the children, but they're using what can be a very positive thing to a lot of people in very, very nefarious ways.

Matt Long [00:28:38] So yeah, you see that in any religion that has a large community, that has an insular community, you're going to see these techniques used.

John Dehlin [00:28:52] And just to really spell it out, let's go through these five points. Is it five points and talk about how a religion might. And it's going to be obvious to many people, but let's do it. Let's talk about how religion might make each of these steps easier for a perpetrator.

Matt Long [00:29:10] Right. And I say that religion, religion is victimology on steroids. It takes what is already a tool that is used both by offenders and the impact that it has on victims. And it just accentuates it and gives it so much power. So we talk about selection, selection

John Dehlin [00:29:35] first

Matt Long [00:29:35] of all, any institution, it gives you access to children that maybe you otherwise Wouldn't have these offenders. And we talk about the myths of child sexual abuse, is that you can spot them. It's the guy in a windowless van with free candy painted on it.

Matt Long [00:29:56] That's who these offenders are, the grandpa molesters, that stranger danger. You can pick them out of a crowd. But if we go through and we look at some of the celebrities that have committed sexual offenses, they're often successful. They're articulate, they're outgoing, they're charming.

Matt Long [00:30:15] They have all these tools that you. And some of these characteristics that we value in people, and in many cases is what we value in people that we want around our kids. So it allows people to select children because they have access to them, whether it be through friends of friends or through callings. And. And think about the people that are often called to interact with kids. It's often the people who are very good with kids, that are tolerant with kids, that want to be around kids. And those could be very good people in some cases, or they could be very bad people. I tell a lot of my friends, they can always know that I'm safe, that I could be asked to babysit their kids.

Matt Long [00:31:06] And the reason why is because I'm willing to do it, but I don't want to do it. I'd rather not be around their kids. I'd rather not babysit their kids. It's not really something I'd want to do, but I'm willing to do it. Me and my wife are willing to do it. And that's how you know that I'm safe. It's the guy who really wants to be around kids that aren't his own and really seeks that out. Those are the people that.

John Dehlin [00:31:31] Not a guarantee, but a good. But a good indication. Right.

Matt Long [00:31:34] These are all generalizations.

John Dehlin [00:31:35] Yeah, yeah. You know, just interestingly, there are theories that the motivation for the church releasing this news story was because of the news breaking, that this. This guy named Mr. Wonder, who I guess had a TV show for kids in Louisiana in the 70s and then disappeared, then assumed a new name and has been living, I guess, in San Diego for a while. Like, this guy used to, like, teach children to swim. He used to work in the boy Scouts. He used to, you know, have businesses that only included children from, like, the ages of, you know, 5 to 11 or something like that. And you could just tell whether it's having a children's show, anything he could do to be near kids. Right.

Matt Long [00:32:25] You know, in contrast, a guy like that with Mr. Rogers, who to me is the. He's one of my heroes and just an epitome of what we want good people to do. So nothing we say. We understand that we are going to paint with broad brushes as we talk about these things. And we recognize there are exceptions to these things. And the biggest exception is if you do all these things that we're going to talk about but are not sexually interested in children, then you're safe. So we acknowledge that, or I acknowledge that going in that I'm not saying that if these things, these flags are there, that that means somebody wants to hurt kids. It's not, but it's a really good. It's a really good indicator.

John Dehlin [00:33:07] Sure. Just real quick, the other thing I want to say about selection, this came out in spotlight. If you're a priest, you get to know the people in your parish. You can find out where the single moms are. You can find out which families have a history of abuse or in poverty. You can learn about which children are the most vulnerable. And it's the religion and the position of authority that allows you to do that selection. Is that true?

How Predators Select and Silence Victims

Matt Long [00:33:39] Absolutely. And vulnerability is a big part. So these guys have really good radar of understanding which kid is more likely to be quiet. And it has to do with vulnerability. So you talk about maybe single mother who's looking for a father figure or a kid who's troubled and who is getting into trouble a lot. That's the kid that no one would believe. A kid who's a liar is a great target. And in these positions, absolutely, they learn who that is. And there's this concept called target child.

Matt Long [00:34:15] Too often we hear things about predators. Well, he's a predator. I've been doing this a long time. And yeah, I've met a couple predators, but not very many. Most of these guys are not looking to sexually act out on every kid possible. They want the easy prey. They're looking to be able to cut off.

Matt Long [00:34:41] A kid from the rest of the pack. And they do that by looking at the one who might be vulnerable. Now, again, I'm talking from an offender standpoint. Now flip that. Consider the impact on a victim when they recognize or at some point realize that they become the target child.

Matt Long [00:35:01] Often it results in a feeling of importance and that they're special to this person, especially a kid who's not getting that reinforcement. That's somebody that's well respected and that's liked and that's funny. And they're getting a real positive response that in many cases other kids, even other siblings aren't getting, that has real impact on the child. And that impact is ultimately it's going to cause to get that child not to tell.

John Dehlin [00:35:35] In the spotlight case, it was the priest calling the kid to be an altar boy. Right. So he would get special access to the holy rites and get prestige within the community because he was helping out the priest. Right? Yeah.

Matt Long [00:35:50] And you see that all the time. Special trips to the store, special gifts, all these things are real common. But it's an important principle because too often we, and I think this happens as people are evaluating abuse is. Well, none of the other siblings have reported, none of the other kids in the quorum, none of the other kids in the Boy Scout troop have reported. It must not have happened because otherwise they all would have been molested. That's the myth that is perpetuated still today. And it's an absolute myth.

John Dehlin [00:36:28] Okay, got it, got it.

Matt Long [00:36:29] So we go to engagement. Engagement has to do with gaining the trust of the child and the circle of influence around that child. Religion gives that person, gives an offender instant credibility, instant reliability, instant believability. And whether it because that person is a father, in some cases a mother, because they're an active member of the church, because they're a priesthood holder, because they're a member of a presidency, or because they're a scoutmaster, think how often we walk into a church.

Matt Long [00:37:06] You know, first day you move into a church and you now see who the people who are active, who are to be trusted, who the new group of friends are, and we talk about that all the time, is how difficult it can be to replace community. Whereas if you move into a Mormon church and to a ward, you're going to have an instant family, an instant ward family and people who you can rely on and you can trust.

Matt Long [00:37:32] They use that, that instant credibility in order to engage the child, the child's family and other people who might be in the child's life. So consider a primary teacher who has a daughter that's four or five years old that now decides to take her friend, another four or five year old, to the zoo or to the mall or shopping or something as an outgoing activity.

Matt Long [00:38:05] I suspect that the parents of that four year old child are going to be more inclined to let that child go with a person from the ward that they've only known for a month or two than they would somebody outside the ward. So they have that instant credibility. They're able to engage more fully and more completely that has gained the trust of the child and the child's family and other people around them easier quicker and more completely than somebody outside of the group would be able to. They'd have to work a lot harder than somebody that's in group to get that level of trust and regard.

John Dehlin [00:38:46] And as I look through all the news articles that we're posting to Mormon stories, it's bishops, it's stake presidents, it's stake presidency members, it's Boy Scout leaders, it's missionaries, a lot of just people in leadership, you know.

Matt Long [00:39:03] Yeah. And even, you know, even if they're not leaders and a rank and file member of the ward who attends all their meetings and has just a, you know, they're a good home teacher and they maybe are ward clerk or they teach and they're just doing what they're. But they're, you know, they go and they volunteer and give service and do all these things and are a presence in the community.

Matt Long [00:39:27] I believe that also gives them enough credibility to be able to gain the trust of other people. So I don't think it's isolated to a leadership position or a calling that might be regarded as a more prominent calling. But more importantly, this is somebody who's going to go to the temple, going to have a temple recommend, isn't going to do the things like drinking and smoking and some of the things that are outwardly more obvious. And so they have that instant credibility and trust with a family than somebody else that maybe has tattoos or some other things that are markers of out group position would otherwise have, Right.

John Dehlin [00:40:09] I mean even a father in a Mormon home, in a patriarchal home, a father with the priesthood can have a lot of authority, right?

Matt Long [00:40:17] Oh, absolutely, yeah. So grooming is the next phase. And this is where you break down physical barriers. And this can be done through words, through talking, through actions. And some of the more cliche are wrestling, play fighting, roughhousing in the swimming, but also really manifests itself with maybe talk that's inappropriate. So you start, maybe you're the cool parent and you start showing certain R rated movies that have certain scenes that some kids may not be prepared or should be watching.

John Dehlin [00:41:01] Matt, how does a Mormon, like a Mormon of high reputation, get away with the grooming part and still come across as a faithful member of repute? Does that make sense?

Matt Long [00:41:16] Yeah, it does. It starts very innocuously. So, you know, I'll think of an Austin Powers, right. It's a PG13 movie that has a lot of sexual innuendo to let that be played to an 8 or 9 year old that normally that wouldn't be appropriate. But it's not going to have the red flag of a rated R or a porno or something like that. So it can be started really subtly and very, very small. And then what they're looking for is a reaction. By reaction, I mean a comfort level. So you get a kid now who either likes that, likes that they're now trusted in on this thing.

Matt Long [00:41:55] That's real cool. And then you start again breaking down physically by back rubs, by putting your arm around a kid at the pew, by sitting next to them in a class or at an activity and showing them particular attention. You get a chance to put your arm around them and. And comfort them and do things that the outside world would look and say.

Matt Long [00:42:20] Not only is that totally normal, that is a guy who's magnifying his calling. Now, another caveat, I always use guy. I always use dude. In my world, I refer to offenders as male because most of them are. I happen to be one that also speaks on female abusers and the female offenders. So I do understand that females use these same techniques and often females can get away with it a lot better and a lot easier than males can. You find a female religious offender and they've got the trifecta of being able to keep kids quiet. So sorry I was.

Female Perpetrators and Abuse Dynamics

John Dehlin [00:43:08] So females do abuse too?

Matt Long [00:43:09] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:43:10] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've.

Matt Long [00:43:12] Yeah, I happen to have a handful of cases every time I poll law enforcement and other people. In one year I had five female offenders that were abusing, that were much older, that were abusing kids that were under 15. And that's a really, really weird number. But.

John Dehlin [00:43:30] So this is just a real technical question. Maybe, but how does a. Let's just say it's a priesthood leader that's respected. Well, how does he break down physical barriers in ways that would easily be perceived as violating the law of chastity or being R rated movies or inappropriate movies. It seems like to a kid raised Mormon, that's going to set off the signals of like, oh, this is inappropriate. How do they get past that with the kid without them running and going and telling on them?

Matt Long [00:44:05] Sure. And it's all part the engagement and grooming process. They work together. So we talk about it as if it's linear. It's not. We actually talk about it as if it's a cycle and it's not. There's interplay between engagement and grooming. Those two phases, you'll see them really overlap. So as they're engaging the child and gaining their trust, they're breaking down physical barriers. But it's very innocuous. It's not ways, it's ways that we'd normally say that is a loving person, that's a person who's showing care and affection for this kid. The difference is the motivation.

Matt Long [00:44:46] What they're doing is they're gauging the child's response. And so if the child is somewhat responsive to some of the physical breaking down, then they'll push it a little more, do something else. And if they're not, they'll retrench and start engaging a little bit more and gaining that trust. In some cases, they'll just bail completely and start over at selection. Say, this is not a kid that's responsive or a kid that's going to tell, I believe. And so they move to another kid.

Matt Long [00:45:16] So the reason why it doesn't draw flags is because there are no flags to this kid. This is a person who I trust, who I love, who shows me care and affection and love. And they're really responsive to these breaking down barriers. They don't just jump to, you know, let me touch you under the shirt. It's again, tickling. It's play fighting, it's wrestling, it's talking about movies, it's sometimes telling maybe dirty jokes, these types of things. And then you gauge the response. And that coupled with the engagement is what breaks those barriers down. Those barriers, they deteriorate through the engagement process and then they're gradually broken down by the grooming process until they get to a point where they ultimately introduce some sort of an assault.

Matt Long [00:46:15] And that can be in the form of an over the closed touch that appears accidental. And then you talk about it, oh my gosh, oh, that, you know, what happened here, you know, that was total accident. And then, and then it goes from there. It really is this.

Matt Long [00:46:33] It's such small degrees as to how often these kits are worked. Now, it's not always that way. If these guys work a lot quicker or have selected appropriately in some cases, or sought out the vulnerable child, they may be able to jump right to an assault. And just the status of that person alone, just the very fact as to who that offender is, might be enough to keep that kid quiet. Because at the end of the day, that kid at some point has the thought of, nobody's going to believe little old me, certainly not against this person who's a father or a mother or a priesthood holder or has a job, whatever that is, that is the thought process that goes on with the kid.

Matt Long [00:47:26] So what I try to do when we're presenting these cases and when we're training Law enforcement is. Consider the impact on the kid, on a kid who is being engaged in that way and ultimately assaulted. Consider that perspective. And we have a tough time putting ourselves in the kid's shoes.

Matt Long [00:47:48] We have a tough time, John, putting ourselves in any survivor's or a victim's shoes. We do that with rape cases. You know, well, why didn't you fill in the gap? You know what. Or fill in the blank what we would want or expect a victim to, how we would expect them to respond or react.

Matt Long [00:48:11] And it's not reasonable, it's not practical to say this is how somebody should react when they haven't gone through that process. They don't have the background of that kid or that victim or someone else. And it's really, really a challenging thing to come up and say, my dad, my uncle, my brother, my cousin brother, so, and so my teacher, you know, this person did this to me. In their mind, they, they are going to be called a liar in many cases. Again, these kids, maybe they do get in trouble, maybe they do have discipline problems, maybe they do have impulse control problems. You know, maybe they're Asperger's or autistic or all these things that can contribute to somebody not.

Matt Long [00:49:03] Or shoot. The fact that they happen to be a kid is often enough to put them in such disparate power position to an adult or an older person to make telling not an option.

John Dehlin [00:49:20] And two other things that I can think of. One is they probably really get to like this person. Like, you know, if this person's been nice to you, loving to you, maybe helped your mom, maybe helped your family out, maybe fed you, maybe gave you money, maybe showed you love and affection and friendship and was a really good listening ear, you know, your brain to your brain. That's a person that you grow to love, right?

Matt Long [00:49:44] Well, absolutely. And the phrase we always use is they love the offender, they hate the offense, they hate the. Yeah, that spin on the love the sinner, hate the sin thing. It really is. They do love the offender, especially when it's a family member. But even when it's not. When that. I'll tell you one incident that we

John Dehlin [00:50:06] had of

Matt Long [00:50:08] a victim who was abused over the course of three plus years. Was asked about a time as we were going through trying to understand certain acts and there were a lot of them. I mean there were many, many, many, many dozens. We said, okay, tell me about a time you remember. And that's code for tell me about a time of abuse that you remember. Because memory is a difficult thing with script Memory versus episodic memory, meaning you conflate incidents often. So you're trying to get free recall and the child to say, okay, this is the time I remember.

Matt Long [00:50:45] Well, when we asked that question, the kid talked about a day where his offender took him to the movies and they just talked afterwards and nothing happened. That was a good day for him. And he specifically remembered a time that he connected with his offender in a way that wasn't abuse. And it was just heartbreaking to hear because he articulated this real care for this other person when they weren't abusing him.

John Dehlin [00:51:24] Right? Yeah. Yeah. And that's part of what makes it tricky. I can also imagine in the Mormon context, I did an episode once about a mission president who. Who ended up telling several of his sister missionaries that they were to be polygamists wives. I imagine that the scriptures and even Mormon history provide enough weirdness or we could even say inappropriateness, that that could be used as a way to religiously contextualize the abuse. Is that possible?

Chastity Culture and Its Role in Concealment

Matt Long [00:51:59] Oh, yeah. And it happens. I talked about the revelation and going to the temple, but certainly scriptures, the other piece that's. So when we talk about the assault is the assault. It's when somebody actually acts out sexually. The next part is the concealment. The thing that's so important about that is the idea of shared responsibility.

Matt Long [00:52:23] What we've experienced over and over and over again is offenders will send their victims scriptures, quotes from conference, quotes from lesson manuals. The idea of a sin next to murder has. And when I teach, when I talk to law enforcement, especially in Utah, I say, look, there's nothing wrong with chastity lessons. I'm not here to say that chastity lessons are inherently damaging or bad, but they are bad.

Matt Long [00:52:57] When you don't understand victimology, when you don't understand that a kid who's been molested, in some cases as young as 3, 4 years old, and that abuse could be going on for 10 years, they experience shared responsibility. So when they hear lessons, either in church or talks at general conference, that talk about chastity, they aren't sophisticated enough or don't have the language and the understanding to know that they're a victim of abuse. And what they believe is that they're sinful and that is used by these offenders to keep them quiet. So one instance that I had, the offender would text the victim during general

John Dehlin [00:53:48] conference,

Matt Long [00:53:50] and the offender would toggle between very dirty sex talk and things that they want to do and things that they did do and talking about sex with the offender's spouse, but then immediately would reference a talk. What I remember is general conference today. Did you listen? I thought about you a lot. It's all about serving a mission and chains and Satan and sin and repentance. Did you think about that? What do you think about that?

Matt Long [00:54:26] What such a destructive message that they're using. On the one hand, she's texting about sexual stuff and then in the next text referencing some of these religious messages about chastity. It's absolutely used and it's something that if we're going to teach chastity, it has to be taught in conjunction with.

Matt Long [00:54:50] There's a difference between chastity and consent and being a victim. But none of the lessons do that. And so I just can't imagine the number of kids that are sitting in the pews and in the classrooms that are getting chastity lessons that are experiencing immense and utter guilt because they're a victim of sexual abuse.

John Dehlin [00:55:16] Right, yeah. So the well intended lessons on chastity can end up, you know, making victims feel culpable and even increase shame. Is that kind of what you're saying?

Matt Long [00:55:32] Because they already do feel culpable. They already feel that they're a part. So one of the things that we learn is that often, especially early on, the offender will make the child the actor. So have the child do something, touch, hear, rather than. That often happens. And that has real impact on the child and shared responsibility. Well, I chose to do this. This is something I want to do. And they'll use that language during the abuse. They'll say, you don't have to if you don't want to. It's only if you want to be like big people or be like mommy and daddy, but only if you want to.

Matt Long [00:56:13] Once you say no, we'll stop. And they will use that language. And so it makes the child an actor, it makes them a participant, and it tries to inject consent to a child who can't otherwise consent. A real effective technique that law enforcement uses is when they're talking to a guy that they suspect are doing this, they try to say, well, you know, I mean, come on, she was probably kind of trying to do these things.

Matt Long [00:56:49] And they'll say yes. And I've heard offenders talk about how even as young as a child in diapers was kind of trying to turn him on and trying to do things. And this is the warped thinking, but they use that. And again, what impact does that have on the kid? What impact does that have on a victim if that's what they're experiencing in their mind and then talks about sin next to murder. And it's a difficult thing to repent from. Or if you sin, you don't have the Holy Ghost with you. In these kids minds, they can't distinguish abuse from morality.

John Dehlin [00:57:34] Right. And I imagine that sometimes it can feel good. And so if the kid actually experiences pleasure from the abuse, then that could make it even more complicating. Right?

Matt Long [00:57:49] Yeah. And look, violence certainly occurs, pain in the abuse certainly does occur, but not as often as it starts really small and, and it can be pleasurable for the child, for the victim. Even victims of rape have reported a physical response and children do as well. And especially when you're talking about kids, these offenders don't want to hurt the child because they want to continue the abuse. And if they hurt the child, the child's going to say no, not that, no, stop it, don't. Or they're going to tell somebody, oh, that hurt, it scratched. Or they will leave a mark. And that's a big thing.

Matt Long [00:58:29] These guys understand, or think they understand that they can leave evidence. And the last thing they're going to want to do is have a child complain about redness or about, you know, it hurts down there or, you know, it burns or these types of things. Because then you're going to get what's called an accidental disclosure. The child's going to say, oh yeah, this was happening. So it is. They try not to hurt, they, they try to make it pleasurable so the kid will like. And in many cases the kid does and reports that response. And again, the shared responsibility that's tied to that, if they have a physiological response or if they have an emotional response and if they like it or if they actually do feel like they want to do it again because they feel it makes them special or because that's what adults do, or it's a special secret with, with the child and whomever.

Matt Long [00:59:25] This all has an impact of making the child feel responsible in part, and an actor in the abuse which results in concealment and the child not telling.

Systemic Concealment of Child Sexual Abuse

John Dehlin [00:59:38] Got it. Okay. And then kind of where that can lead us pretty quickly is to it doesn't just become concealment of the perpetrator, there becomes systemic concealment when the church actually gets involved. Right.

Matt Long [00:59:59] Yeah. I just want to tell one other quick anecdote. In one of my cases, the offender gave their victim for their birthday or Christmas, I forget which. A very pretty nice framed picture of the temple. And it was lost on a lot of people when I came across it.

Matt Long [01:00:21] As we were working the case, some of my, the detectives and the other people that were involved in the case and I latched onto it right away and just thought, man, what a. This was sending a message, a constant reminder on his wall of you better not tell.

Matt Long [01:00:38] So you do get that in the religious context if you now feel that other people are protecting the offender or other people aren't telling because you're certainly not willing to tell. And it can be very, very difficult, very, very challenging when it finally comes out. And it's the worst secret, the idea of suffering in silence, the worst secret, the worst thing that once, especially when a kid starts to realize, hey, this is abuse, this isn't normal, this isn't right, but you're too fearful to disclose if you feel that somebody else is aware or somebody else thinks highly of the offender, that's going to make it even less likely to tell.

Matt Long [01:01:29] So often these kids, often abuse happens either in front of or near other people. So other people in the other room, other people in the room, people in the same tent, people in the, you know, somewhere nearby, that, that often happens because the kid thinks either it's normal and because if it wasn't normal, he wouldn't be doing this with, with other people around, or they have the mis, misimpression, I guess, that other people know and aren't telling either.

Matt Long [01:02:03] The other impact it has is if an offender does it in front of other kids, it's a way to groom other victims. So there's a lot of different ways that can impact a child. But telling can be one of the most traumatic experiences that a child has to go through. They often go through this idea of if I tell, the worst thing will happen. And they have this idea of just the worst event if they tell. And all too often that does happen. Either there's a very, very bad reaction by a loved one or a parent who's very well intentioned because they don't know how to cope or how to deal.

Matt Long [01:02:53] There's often a level of disbelief depending on who the offender is. And all too often there's a rush to protect the offender and not believe the child. Because these people, who again are well intentioned, don't understand this idea of victimology. They think more stranger danger, guy in a windowless van and not my uncle or brother, so and so or whoever has been in your family for so many years who's never shown any signs because you don't know the signs.

Matt Long [01:03:33] So that has real impact on the kid when either they're not Believed there's a bad reaction or some action isn't taken to protect them. And what's even worse is when action is taken to protect and defend the offender.

John Dehlin [01:03:52] Right. Isn't a huge percentage of abuse a trusted family friend? That's what I've understood.

Matt Long [01:03:57] Absolutely. I mean, it's going to be because only people who have access to kids can engage. The more involved and the longer the engagement, the more likely a child is to not tell, to not disclose. There are cases where you have zero engagement, zero grooming. Those are the tragic cases where we have deaths, you know, murders and, and kidnappings. And those certainly happen, but they happen because that criminal did not have the opportunity to engage or in some cases didn't have the ability, the mental, emotional or makeup in order to engage that child for so long. So you get the tragic kidnappings and murders almost always. You can predict that? I think so, absolutely. We're looking at loved ones, family members, the very people who nobody wants to believe would do it.

John Dehlin [01:05:09] Okay, this has been super helpful and I really like that framework because we're going to do a two part interview. You know, next segment is going to be about, I think, the church's policies and response to abuse. But before we close out this episode, I thought what we might do is just have you speak to some examples now. And it can be cases that you've been involved in, or cases that you've heard of, or cases that you're aware of if you need to protect the identity or protect privilege or whatever it is. You can mix things together. But can you give us some examples of some cases that would just sort of illustrate two or three examples of the types of cases in a Mormon context that come to your mind just to illustrate?

Case Examples of Abuse in LDS Contexts

Matt Long [01:06:05] Yeah. So I told the one about the father who came home from the temple and said, I have revelation that you're going to become sexually active, you're going

John Dehlin [01:06:18] to be,

Matt Long [01:06:21] you're going to act out sexually. And so I learned in the temple that the only way for me to prevent that and to prevent you from becoming pregnant is by having sex with you. This is what he's telling his preteen daughter.

Matt Long [01:06:38] She initially buys into that and thinks, okay, that makes sense. You're the father, you are entitled to revelation. You went to the temple. These are all things that I've been reinforced and these are my words. But she did articulate this at one point. And so it started down this path. It got to the point as she got older where she realized he was using that as a tool and manipulating the religion to commit the abuse. But at that point, it was so far in, she felt paralyzed and didn't feel that she could now tell and say, well, this has been going on for the last however many years once she realized that it was wrong.

Matt Long [01:07:28] So that was one example, and that one's not unique. There was another example of a guy who did a very similar thing wherein he came home from the temple and told his daughter and his wife that she was to be his polygamous wife.

Matt Long [01:07:48] Both mother and daughter, reluctantly, very agonized, went along with it and they deferred to him as a priesthood holder. Those are some very extreme examples, but again, they weren't unique. They happened. The idea of using revelation to convince kids to do certain things was a reoccurring theme.

Matt Long [01:08:18] It was not a unique thing. Now, whether or not they got this from church history or something else, I don't know. That was never fleshed out. But that was one example. The other examples are family friends. Family friends who are in the church have some connection to the child through their interactions at church. They become family friends, in some cases, vacation together, do holidays together, that their kids all interact together.

Matt Long [01:08:47] And in this case, the offender really glommed onto this one kid, this one boy, as early as 11 and 12 years old, and had a real interest in him and started at 11 and started abusing him. And that spanned from about the time he was 12 to 13 till the time he was 17.

Matt Long [01:09:15] And often using callings, activities, service opportunities, all the things that youth do in the church, use those as excuses to get alone with this kid. And that was the most involved case of a non relative that I experienced. And it was certainly in the Mormon context, both family members were. Both families were.

Matt Long [01:09:49] Were members of the church and started in the same ward, but then it was, or maybe they're in the same stake, then it was split and then they were in separate stakes, but still had a very close connection. Okay, so I don't know if that gives you the details. You were looking for, some examples, but

John Dehlin [01:10:08] this is going to be obvious to many people. But can you sort of end by talking about the harm and the damage that this does to the individuals and the families involved?

Matt Long [01:10:21] I mean, it's as destructive as I've ever seen. I mean, the collateral damage to both families. And it's really tragic to see the impact that it has on the offender's family, the offender's marriage, the offender's kids in some cases, as well as the victim's family, the victim's Folks, the victim's girlfriend, boyfriend, you know, the siblings. I mean, it is.

John Dehlin [01:10:52] Not to mention the victim.

Matt Long [01:10:53] And of course, the victim. I mean, the impact that. Let's see the impact that it has. And I had a PowerPoint up that I was looking at, and. And actually, this is something that one of the victims wrote in some excerpts from a letter he wrote to a judge at sentencing. And he said, I didn't like the idea of what was going on. I never wanted it to happen. I wanted to be a normal teenager. You've uncovered my darkest secret that I've been trying to forget about for a long time. I've had sick nightmares. I was a robot. During that, I was told what to do and what to say.

Matt Long [01:11:37] And the kids, or this is the victim's parents, said, you know, words are not adequate to express the pain and misery we continue to experience spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally. We've been exhausted. Tears have become our constant emotion. We're numb to feelings and terrified of what lies ahead. Our family's been shattered. We're desperately trying to put the pieces back together, and it's.

Matt Long [01:12:07] I mean, this is just the collateral damage for even not in the families you go to, other friends and people who know both sides, it becomes sometimes they don't know how to engage anyone that are touched by this.

Matt Long [01:12:25] So the kid is too often feels like and treated like something that's broken or different or will never have a normal relationship again or will never be loved. I mean, these are constant emotions and reactions that I think these kids experience and that their families experience. And so the trauma that's associated with it is just immense and. And all the more need to get some help, get the kid talking about it, get counseling, work through it. I have a very strong belief that these kids, that victims are not victims. They truly are survivors and survivors that heal completely. I've been fortunate to interact with a lot of these kids as they grow up.

Matt Long [01:13:32] They're folks. I had a great experience a couple years ago, 18 months ago or so, when somebody called me out of my office and said, somebody's here to see you. And it was the mother of one of my kids that I had gone to trial with. And she said, you know, I'm never down here. I never drive by, but I wanted to just pull over and see if you were here and just. Just wanted to give you a hug and, you know, so it was a very nice.

Matt Long [01:14:00] It was a nice moment and to see that. And then I asked how her daughter was doing, and, you know, she said, you know, she struggles, she's going to be okay. And I believe that in many cases, but not all. I've also seen kids wrecked by it, just absolutely wrecked. And, and whether it's some cases resulted in suicide, drug abuse, just real emotional, emotional problems or cutting and it has real long lasting effects, but it doesn't have to. And we, those of us who care about these kids can have a big impact on how much trauma and suffering I think they have to go through. We can help minimize that, even though we certainly can't eliminate it.

John Dehlin [01:15:00] Right. All right. Well, beautiful, Matt. Well, this has been a great kind of overview of kind of the methodology, the approach of the abuser and how it happens, some instances and the terrible impact that it has. And so what we're going to do is we're going to close off this episode and then come right back for part two where we are going to talk about the LDS Church's policy with regard to sexual abuse and its latest news release about how it's the gold standard amongst religions for, for dealing with this stuff. So I'll encourage listeners to please join us@mormonstories.org for comments or questions. Matt, if you want to join in and respond when you can, I would encourage you to do so.

John Dehlin [01:15:54] Others with experiences or feedback or insight, we'd love to hear it as well. So listeners, thanks for listening. Matt, thanks for this amazing episode and we'll see you back in just a few minutes for part two.

Matt Long [01:16:08] Yeah, thanks, John.

John Dehlin [01:16:08] All right, Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us make more like it by becoming a monthly subscriber@mormonstories.org music for this episode was provided by the Lower Lights and other sources. Cease to make Behold when with the wounded heart, anger or malice, I draw myself apart, searching my soul.

Part Two Introduction and Episode Overview

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 619

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories is a production of the Open Stories foundation and relies solely upon the support of people like you, its listeners to help keep the podcast alive or to become a member of the community. Please become a monthly subscriber by visiting MormonStories.org and clicking on the Donate button on the right side of the page under support. All contributions to Mormon Stories are completely tax deductible and go towards producing the podcast and building communities and programs of support for Mormons like you. Thanks for your support.

John Dehlin [00:00:36] The kindly light a myth encircling gloom Leave out me on the night is dark and I am far from home. Hello and welcome back to part two of my interview with Matt Long about sexual and child abuse within the LDS Church.

John Dehlin [00:01:03] Matt has been an attorney and a prosecutor working on sex crimes and childhood sexual abuse and other types of abuse and other types of crimes for several years now. You can listen to part one of this episode to hear about Matt's background a bit, his experience and what led him into this field.

John Dehlin [00:01:28] And we also talked in part one, sort of about the approach that many perpetrators use in their sexual abuse where they, you know, select a victim and they engage them, groom them, assault them, and then engage in concealment. It's a great episode. It's a really important framework. We talked about that framework generally, and then we talked about how religions, not just Mormonism, but religions in general, especially fundamentalist or orthodox type religions, can help facilitate that approach.

John Dehlin [00:02:07] And we talked about a few cases that Matt's been involved in or that he knows of where this kind of thing has happened. Now it's time to turn our attention to kind of the news of the day. And I want to begin again by kind of setting out kind of clearly what our intentions are from the start. Matt and I tried to talk to this a little bit about it last time, but, you know, obviously, you know, Mormon stories and Infants on Thrones, that's your, you know, that's your podcast with the other great, you know, co hosts you have for that show. Obviously, you know, we're known to many as sort of critics of the church.

Examining the Church's Approach Fairly

John Dehlin [00:02:53] But, but let's try and set out our motives here in a way that, that is, that goes deeper than just wanting to find the church as an easy target. How can we, how can we lay out our motives ahead of time so that we can kind of approach this as responsibly as possible?

Matt Long [00:03:11] You know, for, for a number of years, I talk about being an advocate for kids and what I want, I just want to help kids. I want kids who have the need for people that care about them and love them, to protect them. And our goal, my goal is to protect kids. And if that involves calling attention to institutions, organizations, whether that be government, private, otherwise that aren't, or that could do more to protect kids, then I think that's important. So this isn't about one specific organization. This isn't about the Mormon Church saying, well, they do this wrong. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. Maybe they do certain things that are very good.

Matt Long [00:04:00] But are there things that they could do that could protect kids even better? And if they are, I think we should explore that. We should be open to that. And. And we should be willing to say that regardless of what our beliefs are, protecting kids has to trump everything else. And if we can agree about that, then I don't think we'll have much of a quarrel.

Matt Long [00:04:28] I talk or I teach in Utah to law enforcement, social workers, medical professionals, and prosecutors that work in these cases. And I know when I present this stuff, and it's a lot of the stuff that we're going to talk about today, I know that many of these people are devout members of the church, are leaders.

Matt Long [00:04:54] And so I'd say basically what I just said, but I believe that regardless of what their beliefs are and what they do on Sunday, that these are people who are committed to kids and committed to protecting and helping kids and other victims of abuse. And if we have that as a shared motivation, then I feel pretty confident that you'll feel that what we're here to say and to talk about maybe has some value and has some merit and isn't just about picking nits.

John Dehlin [00:05:30] Yeah. And it's fair to say that you were an active, believing member before, you know, kind of before you started investigating these sorts of crimes and for many years during the time you were investigating these sorts of crimes. Is that right?

Matt Long [00:05:46] Absolutely. And I was very critical of the church's policies as it pertains to sexual abuse when I was very active, very involved, and very much a believer. And so this isn't a new. This wasn't a newfound passion or a critique. It was one that I learned very, very early on as a prosecutor and really maintained. So it wasn't. Well, I lost my faith, and now I found something to be critical of the church about. It was something that there was a valid critique, and it's something that I saw, based on my experience and training, that that could be improved in any group. Anybody who can have impact on kids has an obligation and has an obligation to protect them.

Matt Long [00:06:38] And so I would look at anything and evaluate any policies that's meant to protect kids or that impacts kids is something that should be looked at to whether or not it's, it's as good as could be implemented or if there's another way to. I keep coming back to let's, let's just protect kids.

John Dehlin [00:07:00] Yeah, yeah, that's fair. And I think we, we gave the disclaimers in the last episode that, that obviously the Catholic Church is known for, you know, childhood sex, child. Child sexual abuse. I recommend the movie Spotlight to anyone who will see it. It's an amazing movie, came out this year. Mark Ruffalo it's just fantastic. But also, you know, you've talked about, it doesn't matter. The, you know, orthodox Judaism, you know, evangelical Christianity, born again Christianity, take your pick. Any really orthodox conservative religion and probably lots of places where religion isn't involved at all. Wherever you've got a system that facilitates this sort of thing, you're going to get it. So.

Matt Long [00:07:47] And I would say any organization that has some sort of a figurehead or a leader that allows for a kid to talk to, especially in those. So you do see it more in the fundamental religions in the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church and those religions that have some sort of a policy or a practice of confession. So I have experienced a handful of cases involving Baptist preachers where an offender has come in to confess, said, I've done this. And those preachers have walked those guys into a police station and told them, in order to get right with God, I appreciate what you've done. In order to get right with God, you have to confess.

Matt Long [00:08:42] One very interesting, I think it's an interesting story. A guy went to his pastor, told him the story. He said, okay, you need to confess. He's like, okay, well, I need to go to work first and kind of quit and put some things in order. And he said, that's fine, you'll do that. And he goes and he tells his boss, I'm going to go to talk to the police because I've been acting out sexually with one of my kids. And his boss says, that's a horrible idea. You should get a lawyer. And he goes and he talks to a lawyer and the lawyer says, that's a horrible idea.

Matt Long [00:09:16] You should not go and confess. You should not talk to police. He goes back to his pastor and he says, you know, I talked to my boss, I talked to a lawyer, and they said, I shouldn't go talk to police. And he said, that's fine. I hear what you're saying.

Matt Long [00:09:31] You're going to go talk to police. If you want to get right with God, that's the only option. In fact, get in the car. I'm going to take you there. And so that pastor goes with him and he confessed and whatever happened, happened. But what I know is that kid was protected. And that kid had to, at some point, when they found out about what happened, look at that pastor and say, with this person, I'm safe.

John Dehlin [00:10:02] Right? Yeah. So some religions get it right, Is that what you're saying? Some churches get it right, some leaders get it right.

Matt Long [00:10:11] Absolutely. So it's not an indictment on religion. And I will say in many cases, many bishops do get it right, but it's only the bishops that act outside of the policies and the practices of the church. I'll tell another quick anecdote. A person that I associated with was a leader in the church, but he was also the head prosecutor in his jurisdiction. And when this is all going on, and I was dealing with it so often, I gave him a call and I said, tell me what happens in your jurisdiction. Tell me, are you having the same problems over there?

John Dehlin [00:10:50] And.

Matt Long [00:10:50] And he kind of chuckled a little bit and he said, ah, Matt, I'm sorry, you know, I'm not meaning to chuckle because it's, you know, I'm chuckling because it's sad. No, we don't have that problem. And because I'm in a small enough state and a small enough jurisdiction, the state presidents and the bishops don't call Salt Lake, they call me. And so we get it done. Right. You know, that, that highlighted, I think, the. And that might be a good example of, okay, what exactly is being done by the leadership and the hierarchy? What are they implementing? And what's the policy that causes this man, who's a good devout member of the church with a leadership calling that happens to be a prosecutor, say, I implement a different policy than what the Church implements, and it's followed. And we protect kids.

John Dehlin [00:11:48] Right. I love those stories.

Matt Long [00:11:52] Yeah. No, and the guy's a rock star. And there are a lot of them out there. There are a lot of bishops who care so much about kids that they do what they can to protect kids even when they're instructed to do otherwise. So I think that brings us to a lot of people understand what the policy is or what the handbook of instructions. And you can't have this conversation about sexual abuse in the church without just acknowledging that leaders have this codified book that says, this is how you behave and these are the things you're supposed to do when certain circumstances arise in your.

How the Church Handbook Guides Bishops on Abuse

Matt Long [00:12:37] In your sphere as ecclesiastical leader, bishop, stake president and otherwise. And they consult the handbook. And the handbook really is instructive on how they're supposed to behave and what they're supposed to do. Although it can be. It's not all in one section. So if you read the handbook, the handbook, one that is the church handbook of instructions that's given to ecclesiastical leaders, the pieces that are instructive on this issue as it pertains to particularly sexual abuse, they really are. There are a number of different sections that aren't together that provide instruction. And the one is that if somebody comes and reports sexual abuse, the directive is that they call a 1-800-number and it's referred to as the hotline.

Matt Long [00:13:31] And in the press release they talk about that it's there to provide resources to victims and these types of things. And that's maybe it does. I've never heard of an instance where they actually. They do get resources to the kids. What it really is is a 1800-number that calls the church's law firm in Curtin McConkey and a member at some point of Curtin McConkey or somebody who's trained call provides some instruction to the ecclesiastical leader. And it amounts to this. It amounts to looking at the state that the leader is calling from. And then they have a chart, they have a map of each state and it's color coded.

Matt Long [00:14:16] And the color corresponds to the law in the respective state and what the obligation is by that ecclesiastical leader in reporting sexual abuse. So this starts getting a little, I don't want to say complicated. It's not complicated. It's very easy. But it requires an understanding of certain foundational concepts. And one is the idea of mandatory reporting.

Matt Long [00:14:46] Each state has its own laws related to mandatory reporting. That is, certain people have an obligation to tell if they learn about either physical or sexual abuse of a child. The most common ones that people probably know about are teachers are often mandatory reporters. Law enforcement are often mandatory reporters. Parents are often mandatory reporters. So are depending on the state, doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, certain counselors.

Matt Long [00:15:23] These are kind of the universe of people that are mandatory reporters. The other group that is often a mandatory reporter are members of the clergy. And that's not necessarily defined in each state, but it at least does have a clergy in some states are mandatory reporters. They fall into that camp of law enforcement of teachers and of parents, that if they learn about abuse, they have an obligation to tell.

Matt Long [00:15:52] And that is to tell law enforcement if one of those people do not, they can be facing they're being charged with a crime themselves, including a felony. So there are each law, each state is very, very different. Some states do not include clergy as mandatory reporters.

Matt Long [00:16:15] They're just not on the group of people that have to report. Some states, and I think it's Kansas is one, every person is a mandatory reporter. So whether you have kids or not, whether it's your kid or not, whether you have a job that involves kids or anything else, if you learn about the abuse of a child, either physical or sexual, you have an obligation to report that to law enforcement or be subject to potentially getting a being charged with a crime yourself. So that concept of mandatory reporter is one of the first things that the person that's on the other end of the call from a bishop or stake president on the hotline, that's what they're looking at.

Matt Long [00:17:05] Are you in a state where the clergy is a mandatory reporter? But that's not the end of the inquiry because it is a little more complicated than that. If you're in a state where the clergy is a mandatory reporter has to report about abuse that they learn, the next inquiry is does that state have an exception? That is even states that were clergy have to report abuse, they may not have to report it if they learn about the abuse in the context of a confessional. And in some cases it's even more narrow. It's if they learn about the abuse in the context of a confidential communication.

Matt Long [00:17:48] Now, those two things are very different, but it's very important because I believe the distinction is, for example, Arizona and Utah. In Arizona, the clergy exception when a clergy member does not have to report is if they learn about it in a confessional. And the language that's used, as it says, if it's a topic that is enjoined in discipline.

Matt Long [00:18:18] So usually what we think that to mean is that we're talking about the offender coming in to confess saying, there could be discipline here. There could be some sort of a religious or doctrinal or theological consequences. And I'm coming to you as my ecclesiastical leader and confessing a sin, if it's received in that manner. In Arizona, a clergy member does not have to no longer becomes a mandatory reporter, that is that they are not obligated to report. They could be immune from criminal prosecution. The difference between Utah, for example, is the confidential communication that could be a lot more broad. It doesn't just have to be a confessional where you're confessing a sin or there's something pertaining to discipline.

Matt Long [00:19:06] You could be coming in and just saying, you know, I just want. I want to talk about something that's troubling me. And in that case, arguably that includes a victim, because a victim can come in to have a confidential conversation with their ecclesiastical leader and report abuse. And in that case, if it's just a confidential communication, then the ecclesiastical leader does not have to report. So that's the other piece that the lawyers at Curtin McConkie are looking at on this map. And that's why it's color coded, because it's. Are they a mandatory reporter? If they're not, then the directive they're given is to that they are not obligated to report.

Matt Long [00:19:51] In some cases, we've heard reports that they're instructed not to report. In the cases where there's a confessional exception or a confidential communication exception, they're told that. That they don't have to report. In cases like Texas, where a clergy member does have an obligation to report and there is no exception, meaning if they learn about it, whether it's in a confidential communication or through a confessional, they still have to report.

Matt Long [00:20:20] The Handbook of instructions says that they inform the penitent person that they will be reporting and that they're advised to go get legal counsel. So those are all. Those are a number of different conversations that can be had. When an ecclesiastical leader calls the 1-800- hotline number up in Utah.

Matt Long [00:20:49] It may be a very short conversation, but it's a fairly involved breakdown and analysis that's going on. To know that what advice they're to give that stake president. It's very. I think it's. My first critique is you have lawyers that are licensed in Utah that are giving advice to bishops in other states about those laws in other states that in some cases are very complex. Now, these lawyers in Utah do also associate with lawyers in the various states. They have other people that they can consult with and talk with. So. So they are doing their best to get the law right.

Matt Long [00:21:37] But this, to me, is where it becomes a little less clear. And that is in these states, there is a perception that if these ecclesiastical leaders report and there is a confessional exception, that there could be consequences. And that's not the case. And I can speak specifically in Arizona, there's a very interesting law that allows every person, whether mandatory reporter or not, to report.

Matt Long [00:22:14] And it's a permissive reporting, meaning you may report. And in the instance of a clergy member, there's a law in Arizona that specifically grants civil immunity to any person who reports sexual or physical abuse of a child. So if a clergy member should be instructed in Arizona, for example, you don't have an obligation to report because this is a confessional exception. However, you may choose to report this, and if you do, you cannot suffer any civil rights liability or have any civil consequences to you personally. That would be a more complete and precise articulation of the law in Arizona. I know that was a lot, John.

John Dehlin [00:23:10] No, it's good. It's good. Okay. So I get the idea of mandatory reporting. As a mental health professional, whenever I start with a client, I have to tell them that if they mention an intent to harm themselves or a vulnerable other person, if they mention the abuse of a child or an elderly person, they have to.

John Dehlin [00:23:34] That I'm required to report that. So I get that. And then there's the question of whether clergy is a mandatory reporter. Let me back up and try and frame this in a way that. That will help us have a.

John Dehlin [00:23:52] Have a kind of a structured discussion about it, as we're doing. But, you know, one of the. One of the. I think it's important to mention kind of who wrote this news release, because this is a. This is a media release that none of us were expecting. It kind of came out of the blue.

John Dehlin [00:24:09] But it turns out, you know, some people are theorizing that it came about as a result of this news story that also broke today about this. You know, this person that I mentioned in the last episode, this guy named Mr. Wonder, who I guess was LDS in some context. And, you know, and the church ended up having to, you know, cut him off at some level. People can read about that story. But, you know, one thing that's important to understand about this media release is that it's actually a re release. And so through the Internet, we discovered that this is sort of something that was released back around 2013 by the church.

John Dehlin [00:24:53] But then other sleuthers discovered that there's this gentleman named Vaughn Keatsch who wrote an article around 2010 that uses almost identical language to this press release. Now, it just turns out that this Von Keach is a partner at Curtin McConkey, and sort of, interestingly enough, he was brought into the first quorum of the 70 in spring of 2015.

John Dehlin [00:25:26] So we kind of have this media release that's saying even very explicitly at the end, that this is all about protecting the children. This is not to protect the church's reputation, but it turns out that it's written by a lawyer it's written by a lawyer for Curt McConkie whose job it is to defend the church.

John Dehlin [00:25:51] And it's very much sort of coming out of a very legal context. Now, of course, lawyers can be used to protect children. But before we jump into now that you've given us the framework about mandatory reporting and you know, whether clergy's clergy members have to are mandatory reporters and whether or not the confession, whether the information is given in the context of a confession or some type of confidential communication, if the church is going to claim, as they have in this press release, that they sort of are the gold standard for protecting children, What might they do differently than they're doing now? So at the very highest level, one thing I hear people say is background checks. Talk about background checks for a second. And whether or not they're conducted for leaders in the church.

Background Checks and Limitations of Church Policy

Matt Long [00:26:49] Well, my understanding is they're not. I guess I have a different opinion than a lot of people is that that background checks may prevent some instances of abuse, but probably won't protect the vast majority of them. In fact, I suspect that what they're going to be looking for is not what you're going to be finding in an LDS context. So a history of drug abuse or convictions, other felony convictions, is it debt,

John Dehlin [00:27:24] financial problems, Isn't that part of a background check?

Matt Long [00:27:28] Sure. I mean, I wonder if that would preclude somebody from interacting with kids. I suspect it wouldn't.

John Dehlin [00:27:34] Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Long [00:27:35] But yeah, I mean all those things could be done. It's not. And it certainly is a measure of protection that could be implemented. I don't know that that in and of that that's the best measure. I think some of the most recent changes of not having a man in particular alone with kids, I think that's a really good practice.

John Dehlin [00:27:59] It's a too deep policy.

Matt Long [00:28:01] Yeah. And I think that's a good policy. The windows is certainly a good policy, but really that's going to protect kids in a place where they're already probably more protected. That's not where the somebody that's too deep, for example, is still going to be able to use the techniques we talked about in the last episode of Engagement, grooming, selection, all those things, and is just going to be able to go off site or use another opportunity to have access to the kids. Although I certainly wouldn't say I'm against background checks, I'm a little skeptical if it would really reveal that much.

John Dehlin [00:28:45] Certainly not cure alls. And while the windows and the too deep are nice policies, you're saying they're not also going to be cure alls, right?

Matt Long [00:28:56] Yeah, certainly not. And let's face it, I don't know that there's any. This is something that we're never going to be able to cure absent locking the kids up and not having them have access to other people. We've got to vet people ourselves. We've got to be very vigilant.

Matt Long [00:29:17] Be cautious of who you trust, you know, your kids around. Be cautious of overnights. I mean I'm not a fan of overnights. I just, I don't think sleepovers make a lot of sense until the kids get to be a certain age and even then probably don't make a lot of sense because I think a lot of problems, you know, kids get into trouble in sleepovers even if they get older. So that's one personal policy I have and we have in our family is, is only in the rarest of circumstances do sleepovers happen, for example. But now you look at, in the church context, sleepovers are mandatory in some cases for activities and certain events like

John Dehlin [00:30:05] girls camp and scout camp, certainly

Matt Long [00:30:11] all those types of activities where, you know, so that's my own personal policy that gets, is if when our kids were involved is there had to be an exception. The idea of establishing having a situation where a adult is ever in a one on one relationship or in a one on one context in an interview situation. I think since the and horrible message to kids in their inability to say no, their inability to or to their. That they start understanding very early on a particular power structure. The idea of an adult is the person to listen to. You're going to be, you know, be, you know, they're going to ask you certain questions and in some cases they're going to be questions of a sexual nature. I think that in and of itself sends the wrong message. Sends the wrong message to kids.

John Dehlin [00:31:15] So you're referring to bishops interviews or bishopric interviews or stake presidency interviews where people, where young people are alone, male and female, with priesthood leaders being asked questions of a sexual nature.

Matt Long [00:31:28] Yep. That as well as chastity lessons. I think we give too much, I guess, discretion to the leader or the teachers that are talking about those. And it gives them an opportunity to talk about things that we really wouldn't want maybe talked about in a certain way. And it happened in our church experience where we went and visited my parents ward and stayed for the three hours and my kid came home and I can't remember how old he was, probably under 10 and referenced something about blowjob and I thought what the, what are you talking about? And his very well intentioned older, this grandmotherly woman just had no concept and was doing the best she can trying to talk about this Shasti lesson and just went places that shouldn't happen.

Matt Long [00:32:27] That's an anomaly. Those are things that, but anytime you have something without that just allows people to kind of, I guess evaluate things on their own and say, well, I'm going to talk about this or I'm going to do this. There's, there's potential problems, but especially those things. I think chastity lessons are problematic and the what is reinforced to kids when they're one on one with a, a male, always a male, always somebody that's in a very position of power talking about things like masturbation, other people touching what you do with your hands, what other people do with their hands, and in some cases sex before the kids are ever equipped to really understand what they're talking about.

John Dehlin [00:33:10] Okay, now I think it's fair to say that the LDS Church has a heavy influence on the laws that are passed in Utah. And I also think it's fair to say that the majority of child or sexual abuse cases within the LDS Church happen in Utah. That may be a stretch, but I'm saying that that makes sense to me. And so I think it would be instructive to look at Utah law to try and understand when the church talks about gold standard, the extent to which it really is fighting to protect the children versus sort of fighting to protect its own interests. And of course everyone should, you know, everyone needs to protect themselves from spurious lawsuits or you know, people who intend to do them harm.

Utah Mandatory Reporting and Clergy Privilege Laws

John Dehlin [00:34:01] But would it be worth talking about the laws in Utah as it relates to mandatory reporting, clergy confidential communication and to talk about then how that often plays out and whether that really is in the best interest of the children?

Matt Long [00:34:18] Yeah, sure, why not?

John Dehlin [00:34:23] So what do you know about that?

Matt Long [00:34:26] Well, I know that Utah has a clergy exception. That my understanding is the clergy members are mandatory reporters in Utah, but they have the confidential communication exception. And I'm trying to confirm that, but I'm almost positive it's been a while since I've usually every time I present I try to go back to the state that I'm at and talk about the different nuances with each law. But I know they have a clergy exception to reporting child abuse.

John Dehlin [00:35:01] Okay, so what does that mean? So if, you know, if a 12 year old girl goes to a bishop and says my daddy's been abusing me, what does that mean in Utah, the bishop does or doesn't have to do

Matt Long [00:35:20] so, just like with, as I explained before, regardless of where they are, they are trained. They do get training. The training amounts to a DVD that they played. And in the dvd, it's very, very short. It says, this is very serious things we care about, protecting kids. We want to do this. If anyone comes to you to talk about sexual abuse, call this number. And so they're given access to and knowledge about the 1-800-number, what's referred to as the hotline number, that is their training.

Matt Long [00:35:56] So in Utah, a bishop or stake president hears about something from a victim, from a mother, from a sibling, from anyone, and they call the 1-800-number. And then if it was obtained through a confidential communication, they're informed that they don't have to report. And again, my understanding, I don't want to inject too much and say, okay, I know exactly the words that are used when these lawyers talk to these ecclesiastical leaders, because I don't. I know what has been reported to me by ecclesiastical leaders in certain instances. And the report is, it's not a soft direction. It's not, oh, you don't have to. You're not to report.

Matt Long [00:36:47] You have an obligation to maintain confidentiality. And that goes back to the handbook, the Church Handbook of Instructions, where it does refer to, there's a section on confidentiality, and it says, under 6.5 under church discipline, it talks about confidentiality, and it says, bishops, stake presidents and their counselors have a solemn duty to keep confidential all information that members give them in confessions and interviews.

Matt Long [00:37:21] So to say that it's a confidential communication, or to say that you're not to report this in the context of it being a solemn duty, and in some cases, the idea of it being a doctrinal or a theological principle of maintaining confidentiality, that's the background and the context when bishops are told this is a confidential communication and you're not to divulge it from their perspective, I believe it's not a legal concept as much as it is a religious one, when really it's not.

Matt Long [00:38:01] When you talk about confidentiality, we're talking about a legal concept. But I don't believe that the bishops really grasp that piece of it. They see it as a religious one.

John Dehlin [00:38:12] Now, I'm looking at a document called Clergy mandated under child welfare.gov and it says, this is as of 2013, November. And I don't know if it's changed since then, but it has a grid, and it has Utah listed under clergy, not enumerated as mandatory reporters but may be included with any person designation. And then it, that's in the row. And then the column it says privilege granted but limited to pastoral communications. So what would that mean? Translate that for us.

Matt Long [00:38:47] Right. So that tells me that they could be mandatory reporters, but not when they receive it from a confidential communication.

John Dehlin [00:38:59] And so is it fair to say that when a bishop or stake president reads the handbook of instructions or calls the hotline, that confidentiality is often emphasized which leads to a perpetrator not being reported? Is that fair to say?

Matt Long [00:39:20] Oh, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:39:22] Okay. And so could the church argue that that is, could the church argue with any credibility that it's doing that sincerely for the benefit of the victim?

Matt Long [00:39:35] Well, let me say that the church does articulate that. So I've had a number of conversations with attorneys from Curtin McConkie where we've gone round and round and around about this philosophy. And in every instance they are adamant that their policies that prevent the reporting of abuse to legal authorities is designed and does protect victims. They believe it, they preach it, they believe it. And I believe that they're well intentioned, albeit misguided. So they will say that if they didn't or if they did disclose the abuse in these states that they believe that kids and, or the offenders would not come in and confess.

Matt Long [00:40:35] And they believe that. They believe that they get these reports because these people know that whether it be the offender or the victim know that it will be kept confidential. And they believe that they then can provide resources to the family, provide resources to the victim and stop the abuse. So they say that. I think in the press release they've said that to me personally and I do know that is their philosophy.

John Dehlin [00:41:06] Yeah. So the logic is that if all the youth know that the bishop won't report, then they'll feel more comfortable talking to the bishop. The bishop will talk to the parents, make sure the abuse stops and the kids will be protected versus just letting the abuse continue by staying silent because they fear that this will hurt their parents in some way. Now I have to tell you that I've experienced something like that as a therapist where a parent either doesn't want to ruin their, a child doesn't want to ruin their parents marriage or they don't want to have their dad thrown in jail where he'll lose his income, or they're worried about what the dad might do to them or to other siblings or to the other parent if reporting happens.

John Dehlin [00:42:02] And so I have talked to clients who are only comfortable talking if they Have a sense that they won't be reported on. And sometimes clients can get very angry when you do make that phone call. How would you respond to that?

Matt Long [00:42:21] Sure. So the first is, I acknowledge that as a real issue. In many cases, kids that do tell teachers, cops, friends, family members do not want it reported. They want the abuse to stop. They want somebody else to share that burden with to help them. So I acknowledge that as a reality. But my response to it is, how dare you?

Matt Long [00:42:52] How dare you put that burden on a child to make that decision? How dare you put something so complicated and so weighty on a child? How dare you ask the child, do you want me to report? How dare you put that child in a position of having to make that decision? They came to you because you're the adult and you're the person that should be better equipped to take that from them and make that decision that they shouldn't have that was forced upon them by an offender to take that from them and make the decision for them. Because of course, that child doesn't want bad things to happen.

Matt Long [00:43:35] They want the abuse to stop. But I believe very strongly that the abuse is not going to just stop because somebody told or because somebody goes, sees their bishop as counseling every week for the next two years. That abuse will continue at some point, either with that victim or with another one. And I think my position on that is borne out more than success stories of a religious leader not reporting to law enforcement and just saying, well, I'm going to take care of this myself.

Matt Long [00:44:17] So that's my response is it's unfair and improper to put the burden of whether or not to tell on a child who's already dealing with something that they shouldn't have to deal with.

John Dehlin [00:44:35] Right. Okay. But the, and if, and if, let's just say that, you know this, you know, the perpetrator is reported and it leads to really unhappy things for the child and the child is angry that, you know, even if you made that decision for the child, but then bad things happen in that child's family as a result of the reporting. What would you say to that?

Matt Long [00:45:05] Bad things are going to happen because of the offender, not because of the child. And that's the thing we try to communicate that good counselors are certainly going to communicate and good law enforcement and judges and good lawyers. I think anybody who deals with that kid, CPS workers and all these people, that bad things are going to happen.

Matt Long [00:45:27] The family is very likely going to be, there's going to be a divorce, the kids are going to be taken from the home. In many cases, the dad may lose their job and may go to jail and may go to prison and there be real, real consequences that are associated with that. But there are real consequences.

Matt Long [00:45:48] If there are real and different consequences. And if the abuse is not reported and is not ferreted out and action isn't taken, the trauma that the kid, I believe, will experience by having the mother and other people in the family protecting the offender and supporting the offender can. Can often be worse than some of the other consequences. You know, Do I have all the answers?

John Dehlin [00:46:24] No.

Matt Long [00:46:25] Is law enforcement in the criminal justice system the best. The best mechanism to deal with these types of problems? No, not always, but I believe it's very good at stopping the abuse.

John Dehlin [00:46:40] Yeah. Okay. So for you, the church sort of doing what it can legislatively and procedurally with church policy to maintain confidentiality and to not report probably isn't. I guess I hear you saying that maybe they think what they're doing is in the best interest of the child, but you suspect that it's more to limit liability legally. Is that what you suspect?

Matt Long [00:47:17] Oh, I have a. No. Yeah, I believe that strongly that. I mean, the lawyers that are being called are lawyers that defend the church. These lawyers don't represent these bishops or stake president presidents individually. Their client is the church.

Matt Long [00:47:40] And so you've got stake presidents and bishops who are calling the organization that they volunteer for their attorney. And their job is to protect the liability, to protect the assets of the church. Now, a good friend of mine who was a detective and is now now a supervisor asked this question to Curtin McConkey. They said, Look, I understand your job is to protect your client's assets. And the attorney's response was, well, if by assets you mean people. And he kind of nodded his head. He said, well, wait a minute. He said, you're a lawyer. Your job is not to protect people. That may be the church's job, that may be a religious institution job, but his lawyers.

Matt Long [00:48:30] Your job is to protect the assets of the church and limit liability. That's your job. If you don't do that, you're committing malpractice. If you don't do that, you're a very bad lawyer. So you can't, on the one hand, as a lawyer, say, no, my job is to protect these kids. No, your job is to reduce liability. I'm a criminal defense attorney.

Matt Long [00:48:54] When people come to me and hire me and pay me money to represent them, my job isn't to make sure they're convicted or to do everything I can to make sure that. The state or the law enforcement has their way. My job's to protect that person and do it ethically and do it morally and do it legally. And I think. I don't believe those things are mutually exclusive.

Matt Long [00:49:22] And that's their job. Their job is to protect the church, protect the assets of the church, to reduce liability, to ensure that they're not sued. Their job is to do that. And if they don't do that, then they're bad lawyers. So to say that they're anything but, that is just. It's disingenuous at best, and it's an outright lie at worst, because otherwise you wouldn't be a lawyer.

John Dehlin [00:49:48] Right.

Matt Long [00:49:49] That's your responsibility. So, yes, that is what they're there to do because they have an arm of the Church. They have an arm of that firm. And in some cases, those attorneys that are responding to abuse, that are writing these policies or implementing these policies, those are the very people that are defending the church. If somebody sues them for not reporting or for. Or some sort of negligence, even if that relates to a slip and fall at a church building, these are the attorneys that are defending the church. So if that's their job and they're defending the church to prevent someone from collecting money, then wouldn't that be a motivation, Wouldn't it be a necessary motivation of that attorney in advising the bishops? It's obvious to say it's anything else. Again, it's just. It's disingenuous.

Evaluating the Church's 'Gold Standard' Claim

John Dehlin [00:50:46] Okay, so when you see this language about, you know, the Church's approach is the gold standard, the church's approach to child sexual abuse, what things come to your mind immediately in terms of. Of how that might not be the best way to describe it?

Matt Long [00:51:10] Well, number one is, I should say this from the Church's perspective. They're right when they're the measuring stick, when they're the ones that say, this is what's good and bad, then it's pretty easy to say, well, we're the gold standard. But you're also the ones that are measuring. So it's a little weird for the Church to release a statement saying, you know, we're the gold standard of this. It's like, you know, John, infants on thrones, that's the gold standard. The gold standard in Mormon podcasting, and I don't think anyone can debate that. What do you mean you quadruple our listenership? You know, numbers has nothing to do with it, John. We're the gold standard. I mean, it's It's a little.

John Dehlin [00:52:02] That's a title that others should bestow upon you, not you on yourself. Right, right.

Matt Long [00:52:09] And it's meaningless without some sort of, you know, some sort of data or criterion to say, well, we're basing it on this. So I did find that really offensive, but especially when you really get in the weeds of what happens and some of the details in what's going on.

Matt Long [00:52:32] And one example of that is the Catholic Church has a very, very specific order with what a confessional is and what it means. And if a bishop or someone in the Catholic Church that's authorized to receive a confession, a confession deviates, allows other people in, does something outside of what's been codified, it's not a confessional. It doesn't meet the definition of a confession. It's very rigid. And so you know what it is the Mormon Church, you really don't.

Matt Long [00:53:13] In some cases, you might include the. And these are specific instances that I'm aware of, instances of where a person has come in and confessed and said, I have sexually abused this child. You have bishops that have brought in spouses and said, you need to now tell the spouse.

Matt Long [00:53:36] And in some cases other people. And in any situation, legally, once somebody else is involved, they're now is no confessional exception. For example, and this may get a little tedious, and if it does just cut me off, that's fine, I won't be offended.

Matt Long [00:53:55] In Arizona, there is a spousal privilege, marital spousal privilege, where if I tell my wife something, hey, I just killed this guy, she can't reveal that or she can't be forced to testify about that. Right. The exception is as it pertains to sexual abuse. So if I tell my spouse I molested our daughter, I cannot prevent her from testifying. There is no spousal privilege as it pertains to that. The only time that my wife can be prevented from talking about that, from testifying to that, is if I say that in front of a bishop.

Matt Long [00:54:44] So in Arizona, a bishop has greater protection or communication to a bishop has greater protection than does a communication with your spouse. A communication with a bishop has a greater protection than my communication with my therapist, with my psychiatrist, with my psychologist, with my doctor. So consider that. So I forget my point now.

John Dehlin [00:55:13] Yeah, so I mean, we're talking about gold standard. We're talking about.

Matt Long [00:55:20] Oh, yeah, no, sorry. So that's one example of in some cases, the bishops have called in the actual victim and has said, now you need to apologize. So you've now got a victim that's come in that now is part of the confessional, that instead of breaking the confession, they now become part of it. You now have a bishop that has effectively made the child even more a party to the secrecy and the confidentiality of the abuse. That happens over and over and over again. Because there's no real standard. You want to talk about gold standard. There is no standard for what a confessional is. In some cases, there's no standard for what a confidential communication is.

Matt Long [00:56:08] So a bishop can bring in a counselor and that now doesn't waive the privilege. A bishop, and this one has happened over and over and over again. So in the church handbook of Instructions, it says, and I'll get the sighting if people know I'm not just pulling this out.

Matt Long [00:56:30] It talks about when there is, let's see here, if someone else is involved. So if there's a very serious transgression, then bishops, oh, that's also under that confidentiality that I just cited, 6.5. If a bishop becomes aware of a serious transgression and it's against a member of another stake, then they're instructed under the church handbook of Instructions to contact the ecclesiastical leader of that other person.

Matt Long [00:57:06] In a very specific case that I had dealings with that happened, an offender went and confessed to their bishop and told the bishop who the kid was that that they were acting out sexually on that bishop checked the handbook and called that victim's bishop and told him, okay, here's what's going on. You need to be aware.

Matt Long [00:57:31] This person came in and confessed and it's to a member of your congregation, okay? He's aware of that. Under the church Handbook of Instructions, that other bishops now becomes part of the confessional of the offender, even though that bishop, now bishop, his responsibilities to that kid, that victim, a couple weeks later, many weeks later, that victim showed up with his father to talk to the bishop to tell him that this has been going on.

Matt Long [00:58:05] That father was told by the bishop, the victims father was told something's going to happen. He believed that the bishop was going to call police for him. And that happens a lot where members come to their bishops seeking help and believing that they're going to take action and call police. Well, this bishop didn't call police. This bishop did nothing.

Matt Long [00:58:30] This bishop didn't even call Salt Lake to inform them that a victim, now this victim has come and told him that he's been being abused for the last three years. He didn't do that because he was now part of the confessional Circle of the offender. And he didn't call Salt Lake because the offender's bishop already did and informed this other bishop, the victim's bishop, that he was instructed not to report.

Matt Long [00:59:01] So this victim had no resources, had no one, got no help from anyone, because the church handbook of Instructions turned his bishop into a part of the confessional of his offender. And what the church needs to ask itself, what I'd ask the Church to ask itself is, what are you doing to these kids, these kids who sorely need their ecclesiastical leaders, these kids who need salve for the trauma that they're going through?

Matt Long [00:59:38] Where are you for them if you're going to make their own bishops a part of the confessional of the offender? So, gold standard in a way. Not when you don't have actual standards of what a confessional is, what a confidential communication is, and when you specifically have policies designed to enlarge the circle of who can be part of the confidential communication.

John Dehlin [01:00:10] Right. Yeah, that's really important. So what other ways do you see the Church's handling of this as not sort of meeting the gold standard?

Matt Long [01:00:32] Well, the Church could do a couple things. They could use their position as a religious leader and as somebody that has keys and stewardship in order to make sure that the offender does report. If they're not going to. If they're going to say no, we're going to stand by this confidentiality.

Matt Long [01:00:58] We think that's a principle that's really important, and we want people to know that then I believe they could use more influence like the Baptist pastor that I talked about to say that I'm telling you as a religious leader that repentance cannot happen without full confession.

Matt Long [01:01:20] And full confession requires you to talk to law enforcement as well. And again, we go to the Handbook of instructions and under 6.6, seeking forgiveness and Disclosing Information. There's a section on it, John, and it talks about the repentance process. As part of the repentance process, transgressors should seek forgiveness from the people they have wronged. The repentance of a married person who is involved in a sexual transgression usually includes confessing to and seeking forgiveness from a spouse.

Matt Long [01:01:55] A young unmarried person who commits a sexual transgression should be encouraged to inform his parents. Repentance may. May include disclosure to government authorities. So right there it gives them an out of that somehow, despite what we've been taught about repentance, that when we talk about serious offenses against children, it may require the disclosing to government agencies.

Matt Long [01:02:25] And I think that's real problematic. You could absolutely change that policy to say you must. That is necessarily part of the repentance process. One of the arguments that Curtin McConkie gives is they say this is doctrinal, this is theological, that confession is a necessary component, and that's a really important piece of our religion. And I said, well, wait a minute. If you're so concerned with the soul and the repentance of a person, then wouldn't that mean that it has to be full repentance? And so if it's doctrinal and if it's theological, then you should be able to. And if the person's truly repentant and truly wants to get right with God, then they shouldn't be concerned with some of the worldly consequences.

Forgiveness Without Legal Accountability

Matt Long [01:03:17] But it sounds like what the offenders want and what in many cases the church is reinforcing is the idea that you can be forgiven completely without suffering real consequences for your actions and for the trauma that you caused. And I don't think that's consistent if you want to call it doctrinal or

John Dehlin [01:03:44] that

Matt Long [01:03:47] it's a theological principle. And again, let me. I get the idea that going to jail, some of these things, some of these consequences that are associated with the criminal justice system may not be ideal, may not be the best. They get it wrong often and cause real problems. So let me acknowledge that that happens.

Matt Long [01:04:12] It happens from time to time. I don't think that's a reason to not at least start down this process of allowing the kid to tell, to protect the kids, to stopping the abuse and getting some of the resources that are needed.

Matt Long [01:04:33] I just don't. I guess I could be persuaded otherwise, but I don't think that the best response is, well, because the criminal justice system isn't perfect. And it is far from it that the answer is we don't disclose the abuse. In a ton of cases where abuse is disclosed, that doesn't result in a conviction. It doesn't result in a prosecution or an arrest. It often doesn't. But it does allow the kid to go through the process of telling of getting a medical exam.

Matt Long [01:05:11] So I want to talk about that for a second. Getting a medical exam, what a critical component of. Of mental health getting a medical exam as part of the investigation is. And that seems weird, right? It's so embarrassing. And it can be traumatic, and it's a somewhat invasive exam, and it's not an internal exam just so people are aware. It's an external exam.

Matt Long [01:05:37] It's not like an OBGYN visit or anything like that. But when they do that, when these kids go through that exam, Almost, I mean, 99% of the time what they're told afterwards is, you're normal. Nope, nothing there. No disease, no injury, no problem, you're completely normal.

Matt Long [01:06:01] There is a real relief that many of these kids experience when they hear that. So going through the process of the investigation and the exam is not just for forensic purposes or for law enforcement purposes or for evidentiary purposes. It's also for physical, medical, and emotional and mental health of the child.

Matt Long [01:06:24] And that's lost on people. Too often, I think it's lost on the church to understand how critical that component can be and to allow that to play out.

What Happens When Abuse Is Reported to a Bishop

John Dehlin [01:06:36] Yeah. Something that I'm hearing from these accounts that are rolling in now are how people perceive that what happens is they, you know, they somehow report to the bishop. And a lot of people feel like they're pressured to not report it to authorities. And what's worse is they, a lot of people get the sense that there's kind of a slapping on the wrists or, you know, kind of maybe they're released from a calling or, you know, spoken to in sort of harsh ways, but, you know, not even excommunicated in many instances, no disciplinary action taken. And people just get the sense that it's almost swept under the rug. Do you get that impression with the cases you have been involved with or seen?

Matt Long [01:07:38] I mean, absolutely. I mean, the cases that I'm involved in, I see there's prosecution, these guys are going to prison. You know, especially if I, you know, if I was involved in a, as a prosecutor, it was very likely they were going to prison.

John Dehlin [01:07:51] But

Matt Long [01:07:53] the, but absolutely the idea that. But it goes back to engagement, John. It goes back to how effective these guys were at engaging bishops and other church members. There is a belief this is a one time thing, this is a good guy, this is an anomaly. This guy isn't a predator. This guy's not going to hurt other kids. That's the belief, that's the mistaken belief. And that goes back to engagement. They have so much credibility, which is why these bishops and other ecclesiastical leaders are so willing to, to give them a pass. The other thing that they don't understand

John Dehlin [01:08:35] is

Matt Long [01:08:38] almost always, almost always children disclose in a piecemeal fashion. The idea that they give you a little bit, okay, he touched me over the clothes on top. And then they gauge the reaction they're looking for. They're looking for a neutral response. And if they get a neutral response, they may give a little More. A little more piecemeal. So often the bishops think they know the extent of the abuse, but almost always don't. They don't understand how long it's been going on. They don't understand the extent of the abuse, how involved it is. And you know, I hate to compare abuse. I hate to say, well, if it was only an above the close touch, that's not as bad as it could have been.

Matt Long [01:09:27] No, all abuse matters. All abuse is traumatic. All abuse must be stopped. But the point is that too often the bishops don't understand the extent of it because of under disclosure on the part of the offender, under disclosure and piecemeal disclosure on the part of the victim. And so it's easier for them to say, well, I can take care of this myself, this wasn't so bad. And to convince the victims, you don't really want this to happen to your family and we can take care of this. And yes, that does happen all the time. But I attribute it to the.

Matt Long [01:10:06] Again, we go back to the victimology, the engagement, the level of engagement that these guys use, as well as the level of shared responsibility these kids feel to cause them to either not disclose fully under disclose or piecemeal disclosure. That has real impact versus I'm going to say something very graphic because we talk about real things.

Matt Long [01:10:28] A kid is most likely to underdisclose and in many cases not disclose things like anal sex. And maybe there would be a different reaction if the bishop realized that that was going on. My gosh, this is something that we need to stop versus oh, it was something that seemed a lot less serious. And to think that that's not a reality is just.

Matt Long [01:10:53] It's misguided and it shows a lack of awareness and a lack of understanding of the reality of what goes on in these situations. And I think it reflects a lack of understanding on the church's part to even allow a bishop to make that call, knowing that too often offenders and victims under disclose and don't disclose at all. So we don't know what the extent of the abuse is.

John Dehlin [01:11:19] So you're saying oftentimes, possibly when a church member or priesthood holder is turned in for abuse, one of the reasons they're not excommunicated or disfellowshipped is because the bishop doesn't understand the full extent to the abuse.

Matt Long [01:11:39] I believe that's often the case. I believe that's always. That's also why you get bishops and stake presidents, whoever's involved, willing to

John Dehlin [01:11:50] want

Matt Long [01:11:50] to keep the family intact. Because I'm sure they're thinking, you know, I think one of my good friends, an old prosecutor, talking about their religious. They had a case involving and oh, shoot, it was a Hindu, a Hindu shaman. Is it a shaman?

Matt Long [01:12:13] One of the. Real high up. It was a very famous, very, very high profile case out of, out of Texas. And a friend of mine prosecuted it. And she tells the story about, you know, a witness there that was involved that just refers to it as. It was just a little bit of a booby grab.

Matt Long [01:12:32] And that was the reaction that some of these people had. Like, well, you know, all he did is grab her chest. That's it. And I think that reaction does happen, particularly from males. That there's. And that goes to the patriarchy that contributes to this is there's an ability, I believe, that males have by and large to associate with other males and to maybe give a pass than otherwise would happen.

Matt Long [01:13:10] And I believe that if the church had women that were in leadership positions that that would go a long way towards protecting kids more and at least would take real steps in stamping out abuse. I believe that to my core.

John Dehlin [01:13:28] I can also imagine, you know, they don't want this guy to go to jail. They don't want to have the family lose their primary source of income. They don't want to break up a marriage. They don't want. Maybe they know this person and they really like him and have tender feelings for him. Maybe the person is truly repentant or shows remorse. And then I'm sure they also don't want a big scandal in the ward. They don't want all the back and forth. Maybe they feel like it hurts the victim to have all this become public knowledge where disfellowshippered excommunication would trigger a lot of that awareness and gossip. And maybe they also don't want to see the Church's good name besmirched. Honestly, I can think of 20 reasons why a bishop wouldn't want to not only report but not have any disciplinary action administered to the perpetrator.

Matt Long [01:14:28] Absolutely. But I'm not going to give them a pass because they're not trained. Of course they have those beliefs. They don't understand the issue. Of course they have those beliefs. They're not trained in victimology. They're not trained in victim childhood trauma and in PTSD and in, you know, disassociation. They're not trained in that and all that's involved in that. So I'd expect that reaction. That's not a pass.

Comparing LDS Policies to Other Denominations

Matt Long [01:15:03] This is where other to Talk about the gold standard, John. Other religions have mandatory training on counseling on any of these issues they might encounter as an ecclesiastical leader. So to say that the church is the gold standard on this issue and yet the only training that they're provided is a 1-800-number to call is just.

Matt Long [01:15:32] It's not. I don't want to be too harsh. I think it's a misstatement when you can look at, I dare say the Universalist Unitarians and the community of. The community of Christ and these other churches whose, in order to become a pastor you have to do certain things.

John Dehlin [01:15:57] Sometimes it's years of training, right?

Matt Long [01:15:59] Yeah, years of training, certainly training on counseling. And one aspect, they're going to get some training on

John Dehlin [01:16:07] victims and abuse.

Matt Long [01:16:09] Victim abuse and mental health and trauma counseling. Yeah. And so I believe that they believe that and that they're earnest in their belief. These are not guys who are thinking, I want to do everything I can to protect this offender and allow him to continue the abuse. That's the unfortunate result because of their lack of training and understanding about these issues. How do you identify abuse if you don't know what abuse looks like?

Matt Long [01:16:43] And this goes back to the victimology and the selection and grooming and engagement. How can you know how to deal with those issues if you don't understand what the myths are? And these are some of the myths that you've expressed. So I accept that what they're doing, they're doing with good intentions, but it comes from a place of ignorance. And so I can't give them a pass because they're ignorant or because they're being instructed. So I have to lay the blame at the feet of those who I presume know better, and the people who are either instructing the policymakers or the ecclesiastic, the religious leaders at the highest level, those are the people I blame because it feels like, and I think I said this as we were talking earlier today on the phone, is I think that they are operating as if we're in the 80s or as if we're in the 70s.

Matt Long [01:17:46] And in their minds they've made real progress from how things were in the 70s and the 80s. So that's true. I think they think they're the gold standard if you're applying a different standard, but in 2016 to say they're the gold standard.

Matt Long [01:18:09] I think it's objectively false that other institutions and organizations understand these issues and the complexity of these issues better, so they're better equipped to handle it and they implement policies that are really there to protect kids, because if they were the gold standard, you wouldn't have all these reports. And they are many of kids who were repeatedly abused after the bishop was aware and after the bishop supposedly had stopped it and had a conversation in counseling, disfellowship or whatever with the offender. Too often other siblings, other victims have happened after the abuse has come out. It happens too many times and there's too many instances of that to say, well, this is an anomaly.

John Dehlin [01:19:02] Let's do a quick rapid fire response to some of the main paragraphs in this statement, just at a super high level. So one of the things they do is they basically say, you know, no religious organization has done more. I think you've already addressed that. I think you could probably argue that a lot of religions have done a lot more in terms of training and preparing and implementing policies to help prevent abuse.

Matt Long [01:19:33] It goes on to say, let me take that real quick and let's say, let me accept your statement as true. Let me accept that you are better than every other religion that's out there. You're still not good enough. And you're not good enough because there's too much abuse that happens and too much repeated abuse that happens after your bishops become involved. So I don't think that's a great thing to say, well, I'm better than all these other religions. Whether it's true or not, the question should be, can we be better? Is there something we can do to protect kids even more? And if you're not asking that question, you're asking the wrong question.

John Dehlin [01:20:13] Yeah. Okay, so even if it's true, it's still going on too much. So to sort of have this victory lap as some are interpreting it maybe is inappropriate.

Matt Long [01:20:26] Right. It's akin to me to last week somebody writing an article saying, well, we don't think that there were 32 suicides since the, since the policy. We think it was closer to, you know, 24 or 12 or 2 or 3. I wouldn't pat yourself on the back.

John Dehlin [01:20:45] Yeah, right.

Matt Long [01:20:47] Let's stop it. You know, and that's, that's the wrong.

John Dehlin [01:20:50] What do you say to this paragraph that talks about how many times, you know, child abuse has been mentioned in general conferences, denounced as a bad thing, you know, and the church has a zero tolerance policy for abuse. What's your response to that paragraph?

Matt Long [01:21:08] Well, I've spent some time going through talks, lessons, devotionals. I've spent quite a bit of time trying to find that just to reinforce it with some of my victims to counter the Damaging lessons that they've been taught and the stuff that's been reinforced that has contributed to their trauma. And I haven't been able to find anything. So I've spent some time looking for it and I can't find it. So I'd like them to cite me.

John Dehlin [01:21:44] They're Saying More than 50 articles have appeared in church publications condemning child abuse.

Matt Long [01:21:49] Sure. I suspect it's a throwaway line that, for example, I know they say things like during chastity lessons and morality lessons. And then they say, but of course, victims of abuse aren't, you know, that's not a sin. You know, it's usually a throwaway line is what I've seen. And I always jump up and say, well, what does that mean? These kids don't understand what it means to be a victim of abuse. So I accept that they say it in very kind of high level. And, you know, it's probably along the lines of, is there anything in relation to your family that's not in keeping with the teachings of the church? In their mind, they're asking specifically about abuse and physical abuse and sexual abuse. But that's the language that they're using.

John Dehlin [01:22:40] Okay, because I was willing to just say, I'm sure that 30 to 50 times they've mentioned this in general conference talks. But you're saying I was just willing to concede that as likely true. But you're saying that from the research you've done, the language is often too vague and not clear enough.

Matt Long [01:23:02] Yeah, absolutely. I would love to see a lesson on shared responsibility. I think that would be so valuable in the church and you could do it in a very in level that doesn't require crude language or doesn't require. I think you could do it at the primary level and talk about consent and, and talk about your body as your own and you get to decide what happens with your body. These types of lessons are so important and they don't happen.

Matt Long [01:23:35] One of the things that we teach, and I'm sure you do as well with your background in the mental health about how kids get to say, no, go hug your grandma, go hug your uncle. No, I don't want to. Then the idea that you force them to sit on your uncle's lap or sit on your cousin's lap to somebody they don't know or they're not comfortable with that, that's something that needs to stop. So those types of lessons could happen. And if they were to have those types of lessons, then I'd say absolutely. This is a great example of teaching against sexual abuse, of empowering kids over their own bodies.

Matt Long [01:24:19] But those lessons don't happen. So, no, I do reject it. John, of the 50 that they're citing, I suspect that it's a one line throwaway of. And of course, sometimes there are things that are done to children that are just abhorrent, that cannot be tolerated. To say that is meaningless unless you act out.

John Dehlin [01:24:46] Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, that's good to know. I wouldn't have known that. Okay. It also, it makes this really stunning line. While clergy abuse cases continue to grab headlines, the church has had almost no child abuse problems with its clergy. And that's just. I've. I just spent 15 minutes Googling and I, I probably found five or 10 just in that. And that's just the ones that, that are. That I was able to find in 10 minutes by Googling. Like, what's your response to that statement?

Matt Long [01:25:21] Just what yours is. I don't know why they'd say that when it's without any. Some sort of quantification. I mean. And again, I guess my reaction is, okay, let me accept that as true. Why are you patting yourself on the back until it's zero? I don't get that. To say what they're really saying is, well, we're better than the Catholic Church. And I guess if that's what we're doing, there's no need to compare because I don't think that's valuable. But yeah, I accept that you haven't released one bishop from one ward and called him as a bishop in another ward after he's abused kids to allow him to abuse kids in a different ward. I accept that that has happened. And in some cases, the Catholic Church took a different position and allowed these bishops to stay in positions of authority after abusing kids.

John Dehlin [01:26:16] But

Matt Long [01:26:19] it's a weird line unless you can say we have zero abuse amongst any members of our ecclesiastical leaders in the history of time. Otherwise, I don't understand it, John. I was baffled by it.

John Dehlin [01:26:37] Well, yeah, I mean, it's one thing. Yeah, you're making a good point. It's certainly the most responsible position to take. Is any, Any is too much. And then of course, it's probably a little bit, you know, worse to sort of say we're better than the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church has. That's kind of a low standard, some would say. Right, but. But the impression that this is leaving is that it almost has never happened.

Matt Long [01:27:04] And that's patently false.

John Dehlin [01:27:05] I just think it's. It's probably happened hundreds and hundreds of times, at least, if not more. So that's. It feels a little bit. It feels very misleading to me to say almost no.

Matt Long [01:27:19] Right. Well, I'd ask, does that include your missionaries? Because we know that's happening. So your missionaries are clergy. Your missionaries are representatives of your church. Your missionaries have go through a rigorous vetting process and yet are committing these types of offenses. So I don't think it serves anyone by saying this when, as you said, anybody can Google and find a handful

John Dehlin [01:27:47] of

Matt Long [01:27:49] many dozens just in the last decade of bishops, stake presidents. And then again, what do we classify as clergy? Former clergy? We just had a stake president and a former bishop, former stake president here in my area that was arrested for prostitution. So does that count because he was no longer an active. You know, what's the. I don't. I don't understand the line. I thought that was a. I just don't understand why they put that in there. I don't think it's helpful.

John Dehlin [01:28:30] Yeah, it feels. It feels misleading.

Matt Long [01:28:33] More importantly, John, again, I keep asking. I would encourage people to always ask this question. What impact does that have on the victim? What impact does that line have on the victims of bishops and of stake presidents and of mission presidents and of other ecclesiastical leaders that are identified as clergy? Why do you insist on turning the knife in the gut of the victims that have experienced real and extensive abuse, either directly or indirectly, from these bishops? Why would you not think about those victims, knowing that that must have impact on those people here? You have contributed to the trauma of these survivors by putting this line in there. And it offends me.

John Dehlin [01:29:30] It almost signals to members that it's not a problem in the church. And then, yeah, it's incredibly invalidating to those who've experienced abuse by clergy, you

Matt Long [01:29:39] know, but do you also think, John, this is a true question, that part of the reason to put that in there is for fear to try to make sure that people don't stop doing things like bishop interviews, stake president interviews. Is this a way to say, hey, you're safe if you're with our clergy? If you're with a bishop or a stake president or somebody else, you're safe, so don't worry about that. Do you think maybe there's a measure of inoculation?

John Dehlin [01:30:11] Yeah, the whole paragraph is about how intensive the vetting process is and how carefully screened they are and how they can be removed at the drop of a hat and that there's just a zero tolerance approach.

Matt Long [01:30:27] It does feel a bit like it's more of a swipe. They're creating more of a comparison with the Catholic Church without stating it explicitly. Well, there's, you know, they don't get paid and we can just remove them. There's no long internal process. I feel that that's even mentions that they're married.

John Dehlin [01:30:49] Right. Yeah. Right.

Matt Long [01:30:50] No, you're right. That's a great catch.

John Dehlin [01:30:52] Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Long [01:30:54] This paragraph should maybe be titled how we're different than the Catholics. How spotlight does not apply to our situation.

John Dehlin [01:31:02] Yeah. The second paragraph, the paragraph after that, that says all bishops are married and most have children, often young ones. You know, as if married people with children don't abuse. Right.

Matt Long [01:31:15] And that.

John Dehlin [01:31:16] It's a great point, John.

Matt Long [01:31:18] It goes back to the myth of what an offender is to say that they're not the prototypical offender. I say they are. They're exactly who you would expect the offender to be.

John Dehlin [01:31:30] And then it says the bishop has no incentive, financial or otherwise, to do other than protect his church family as he does his own. Well, that's really interesting. As if, you know, that a lack of an incentive program should make us feel better.

Matt Long [01:31:51] Well, I think what's interesting about that

John Dehlin [01:31:52] is

Matt Long [01:31:56] it's trying to establish the idea that the bishops are the ones that are making this call and they're not. If the bishops were provided the tools and the training to ultimately use discretion and make a decision, then this paragraph would have meaning. But the people that are directing what the bishops do are the people that have not just a financial interest, but have a specific. Have been hired. And they're specifically hired to protect the Church's assets and prevent liability. So it really is a little disingenuous to say as if the bishops are the ones making this call when it's the lawyers in Salt Lake that do. So let's turn it on its head and let's say this. Do the Church's lawyers have an incentive to protect the Church and to protect finances and assets? The answer has to be yes. And if they're the ones directing it, then what conclusions can we draw?

John Dehlin [01:33:05] Yeah. Yeah. It goes on to talk about all the different things the Church is doing to prevent abuse. It talks about the two deep policy. It talks about the windows and the doors, and it talks about how abuse on Church properties is really rare. But that seems, again, to be sort of policies to protect the Church from liability. What I would love to see there are all the ways that the Church is teaching parents and individual members how to avoid abuse, how to be protected from abuse, how to protect themselves. From abuse, how to recover from abuse. And I don't see. I think that goes to your point about how those efforts don't seem to be as active. Right?

Matt Long [01:34:04] Yeah, absolutely. And they have the ability to do

John Dehlin [01:34:09] that in seminary, all that time in seminary, in Sunday school, in priesthood, like all that church education. Why not have intense modules every year about self empowerment, about good touch, bad touch, about, about, you know, authority, about saying no, about, you know, there's a million things that can be done to strengthen the members against the risk of abuse. Right, Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. This, this next paragraph is kind of really, it rubs me the wrong way. It says basically, we have so many millions of members, 5 million members in the US alone, the church cannot monitor its members private lives. The church is not a police force nor it should be. You know, local clergy are really busy. You know, there's much they don't know about the lives of their congregation members. What's your reaction to that paragraph?

Matt Long [01:35:08] Well, all the more reason to not make that call since you don't know. I think they make my point for me when I said, when I talked about the under disclosure and the piecemeal disclosure. Right. So a better course of action is let's just report and let's get the professionals and those with real training to make this call. You are admitting that you are in the worst position to exercise that judgment, right?

John Dehlin [01:35:41] Yeah, that's a good point. It goes on to talk about the one, the 24 hour helpline, which in your experience, from what you've heard is much more about kind of a legalistic approach to protecting the church from liability than it is a support line to provide the mental health resources for the victim to heal or to get the child the further protection they need to help prevent further abuse. Right.

Matt Long [01:36:11] Yeah. I talk to people at least every other month throughout the country and I've yet to hear of an instance where that hotline resulted in social workers or counseling for the victims. Every report I've got, it pertains to whether or not the ecclesiastical leader is to report or not.

John Dehlin [01:36:37] Yeah. It goes on to talk about the legal and personal issues about reporting abuse, that laws vary, that victims sometimes want confidentiality. And then it makes this point that I made to you earlier. Abuse victims themselves often demand confidentiality. And you know, we've already addressed that. You know,

Matt Long [01:37:04] you think, yeah. The other thing I say along those lines is they do always say, well, they wouldn't report. They act and they don't act. They've said this explicitly, that is the lawyers is that Kids are somehow sophisticated enough to understand whether or not their state is mandatory reporting or not.

Matt Long [01:37:27] And I don't think that's really, that's really fair to say. Kids are coming to a person that they trust in order to unload this burden because they trust that person, not because they think, oh well, I would never go to that person if I knew they were going to tell.

Matt Long [01:37:47] I guess I'd like to know of those instances where a kid, I suspect what we're dealing with in most cases here are going to be teenagers coming and saying, I do not want anyone to know, I don't want my folks to know, I don't know, I just, I need help, I want you to counsel me. And you know, in that case, I think that rare, I think often they're looking at a very narrow scenario and saying, you know, this is what this policy is meant to protect against while allowing what is the lion's share of instances that don't meet that, that narrow exception to go unanswered and not addressed.

Matt Long [01:38:29] It's as if they, what they almost want to do is pretend that every instance of abuse involves an 18 year old guy on a 16 year old girl and we certainly don't want that kid going to prison for the rest of his life. Okay, I can get behind that concept, but that's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about establishing a policy to go after an 18 year old kid who might be having sex with a 16 year old. We're talking about people who are committing real significant abuse and causing trauma on kids and other victims.

John Dehlin [01:39:09] What do you think they mean by saying the church routinely reports child abuse to law enforcement and even when reporting is not mandatory, the church usually finds a way to get abuse reported while still respecting the victim's desire for privacy?

Matt Long [01:39:24] Yeah, the second part I don't understand the first part I do because the church is in so many states where they have to, where they have to report. So that's a big piece of it. The other one about the church handbook does talk about encouraging members to report. It does, it does include that as language. And I don't doubt that in some cases they have convinced the offender to report. So I believe that does happen.

Matt Long [01:39:58] It's just rare because the offender's not going to, because they understand some of the consequences. So that second piece, I've yet to experience that or hear of that. And I guess the response would be, well, of course not. You only see the ones that you know where somebody is getting involved with Law enforcement. So while I think that in the eight, nine years that I worked in sex crimes that I would have. You know, I've seen five Baptist preachers that have convinced the penitent congregation members to report, but I've never seen an LDS bishop that's done that.

Matt Long [01:40:43] I did get some. We have gotten some reports over the last year that in Arizona, some bishops have been instructed to report. I would like to believe that in places where the Church believes that there are law enforcement and prosecutors who are ready and willing to charge that, that will be their decision in that case.

Matt Long [01:41:16] I can't take personal credit for it. Certainly I'd like to, but that certainly may have influence if they think that somebody will charge them.

John Dehlin [01:41:30] Yeah. The part about what I think is important, maybe partly about that, you know, that little last couple sentences of that one paragraph, is that in the one state where the church has what many would say is a very strong hold over the state legislature, they could certainly make reporting mandatory if they wanted to, even for clergy. And they. They don't. Right, right, right.

Matt Long [01:41:58] And so I had a cup. I had. I had the opportunity to meet with one of the managers or one of the partners for Curtin McConkey that are over child abuse. Spent a couple hours in an office alone with him.

Matt Long [01:42:19] He, myself and another attorney. The way it came to be was kind of interesting. Yeah, please got a minute for that story? So I was prosecuting a case that got some attention. I started talking to Curtin McConkey and they started kind of basically saying these. Some of the things that are in this release were some of the things that they were saying, look, we think that it protects kids and that we can actually help get the abuse out and protect the kids and all these things. And they started kind of going down this path of.

Matt Long [01:42:57] I felt that they were maybe not being entirely straight with me and they didn't know that I was a member of the church. And I finally stopped the young attorney I was talking to and I said, look, I need to stop you.

Matt Long [01:43:13] I'm not going to play games with you. I'm just going to shoot you straight. I'm a member of the church. I have book one. I understand how the church operates and confessional, and you're saying some things that just aren't really consistent with how I understand the church to be. And he kind of stopped and said, well, okay, thank you, Mr. Longall. I'm going to call you back in just a little bit. Okay, that's fine.

Matt Long [01:43:36] A few minutes later, and within a half Hour, I get a call from one of the partners, and he tells me, I have just spoken to the First Presidency they have authorized me to bring, to fly down on their plane tomorrow to meet with you. Do you have some time?

John Dehlin [01:43:56] Wow.

Matt Long [01:43:57] And I said, no, I'm not going to do that. I've already told you that I'm making a decision on whether or not to charge these bishops. I'm not going to have a meeting with you to try to have you influence my charging decision. I think it's inappropriate and I'm just not going to do it. However, after I make a decision, regardless of what happens, I'd like to have this meeting with you, and I'd like to sit down and talk to you about the policy and some of the concerns that I've seen in this case. And he said, absolutely. And then he actually did make good on that.

Matt Long [01:44:34] But it was very weird that once they found out I was a member of the Church, they used that. I felt that they attempted to use my membership as maybe having some influence. And that left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.

Matt Long [01:44:52] But we had this meeting. I had an opportunity to sit down and hear about all their philosophies and the basis for their policy and all these things. One of the things I explained to them is when we talk about mandatory reporting, it's very narrow. Nobody is saying that as a bishop, you should be required to testify on behalf of the state or against the person that has come and confessed. Nobody's suggesting that. And I think that's what the belief is, that that's what we're protecting, but we're not. What we're saying is to report is very, very narrow. It requires you to contact either CPS or law enforcement and.

Matt Long [01:45:34] And say, I happen to be aware that there's a situation of abuse, it's sexual in nature, this is the victim, that's it, and then walk away. You don't have to say who you are, you don't have to say how you got that information. You don't have to say that there was a confession, that he told me he did it. Then you allow the police or whomever, the CPS maybe, to go talk to the kid and then we see if there's a disclosure or not. Yeah, this is happening. No, it hasn't. Whatever happens, happens.

Matt Long [01:46:06] But nobody's requiring that bishop to tell or to say he confessed or to testify or do any of these things. So I submit that the Church can maintain the confidentiality of that communication, that they can protect the Penitent and still report abuse and protect kids. It doesn't have to be an either or proposition. They can do both if they're willing to.

John Dehlin [01:46:37] Right. Well, that's fascinating. You had that meeting and you had those interactions.

Matt Long [01:46:44] Yeah, it was interesting.

John Dehlin [01:46:47] Yeah, I bet.

Matt Long [01:46:48] Yeah. And I walked away with a firm belief that these guys are doing what they think is right. But it's based in a lack of understanding about victimology and about the realities of abuse. Now they'll tell you, of course we understand it. We've been dealing with it for 20, 30 years. But you've been dealing with it from a certain perspective.

Matt Long [01:47:17] Defense attorneys who do nothing but defend sexual abuse cases, they may know a lot about it. They've been defending it for 30 years. They have a different perspective about victimology and victims than do other people. This doesn't make me more enlightened or anything, but I happen to have a unique experience both as a prosecutor and as a defense attorney, having represented offenders and yes, I've represented child molesters and sex offenders. And I currently represent them. And I have no problem doing it because I do it honestly. I think I attack the right issues. I go against my law enforcement. Some of them are friends, and point out things that they could have done better.

John Dehlin [01:48:08] And

Matt Long [01:48:11] I think. I strike hard blows, but I never strike foul blows. But, you know, so that's. That. That was. That's a bit of a.

John Dehlin [01:48:25] No, that's good.

Matt Long [01:48:26] You know, I guess it's a little divergent, but so I believe that these guys are well intentioned, just as I'm well intentioned when I defend these guys. I have no desire in hurting these kids or in causing trauma to these kids, but I have a perspective that. That I think helps me do it. I don't think they really do.

John Dehlin [01:48:48] Yeah, yeah. Attorneys have a job to do. Right.

Matt Long [01:48:51] And yeah, as does Curtin McConkey. John Kurt. I don't fault Curtin McConkey for doing their job and for doing their job effectively. What I fault them is for doing their job and saying that they're doing something else. To say that their job is to protect kids when it's just not. That may be hopefully a convenient benefit of doing their job. I know they hope that that's the case, but if those things compete, a kid and protecting a kid and protecting the liability of the church, their obligation is to protect the liability of the church. And to suggest it's anything but that is just, you know, it's just wrong.

John Dehlin [01:49:44] Yeah,

Matt Long [01:49:48] they should be sued for malpractice. If they don't protect the Church.

John Dehlin [01:49:54] Right, Right. Yeah. So to say. And that's how this essay ends. One final point. The Church has not taken these measures to protect its reputation but to protect children. Mormons are well known for their love of children. And I don't think any of us are going to say that these men don't love children. I think they do. I just think maybe we would say the evidence doesn't show that their emphasis is on the well being of the children as much as it is the protection of the assets of the organization. Right.

Matt Long [01:50:28] Well John, let me go to the handbook again and this may surprise a lot of people. It did me. In fact when I first read this a number of years ago, I'll just say I got angry. Let me just say that in the Church Handbook of Instructions it talks about disciplinary council procedures in again section 6.6.10.3.

Matt Long [01:51:02] So this is a church that wants to protect the victims, that wants to reduce the trauma to the victims of sexual abuse. And in the Handbook of Instructions the bishops are. There's a section on communicating with aggrieved victims and it says that when there's an aggrieved victim, such as for incest, child abuse or spouse abuse, the presiding officer of the upcoming disciplinary council contacts the victims current bishop or stake president. If the victim's current bishop or stake president already knows the situation, the two leaders determine whether it would be helpful and appropriate for the victim to be given an opportunity to provide a written or oral statement about the known or alleged misconduct and how it affected the victim.

Matt Long [01:51:46] John, they are concerned and don't want the victim to tell law enforcement or CPS or other people about the abuse because these victims want to keep it confidential, they say, or that it could cause other trauma. And yet these lay leaders who have no training on the topic are instructed to go and confront the victim to see if they will provide an oral or written statement to a disciplinary council when this man may not be held accountable anywhere else.

Matt Long [01:52:29] That must be struck from the Church Handbook of instructions. If the Church's statement in the release about protecting victims and being concerned with victims is going to stand. I can't. I can't abide by a policy that prevents victims from talking to trained professionals who know how to talk to kids and yet expose them to possibly disclosing one of the most secret, private, painful things that they experience to 15 relative strangers at a disciplinary council.

Matt Long [01:53:12] It is so backwards and so damaging as to it demonstrates a lack of understanding about victimology and the real trauma that they are causing by their very policies, even if we're not talking about the reporting stuff that we're talking about.

Matt Long [01:53:35] And along those same lines, on the disciplinary council, it does say that the offenders are. They explain to the offender that a refusal to confess reflects a lack of contention and repentance, preventing justice and mercy from operating fully for the good of the transgressor. Now, I pointed out to this attorney at Curtin McConkie that they could have that exact same language in the section that talks about encouraging the offender to report, but it's not there.

Matt Long [01:54:10] That would be another way to make it even better. Use the same language that you use in the disciplinary council as you would and when you encourage the offender to report. But it's not in there. To me, the fact that it's not in there, again, reflects a certain perspective and maybe reveals where their real interests lie.

John Dehlin [01:54:37] Yeah, I didn't know about that. That's, that's fascinating and kind of troubling. Real quickly as we're kind of wrapping up, it talks about how, you know, there's a zero tolerance policy and that the church disfellowships or excommunicates members for child abuse. We've already talked about how many of the people writing in say that their perpetrators were never punished as far as they knew.

John Dehlin [01:55:10] I think it's worth mentioning the church's recent policy change as it relates to same sex married members that, you know, what does it say? You know, what does it say to, you know, victims of sexual abuse? That, you know, the children, that same sex married couples are automatically ruled as apostates and are automatically excommunicated, and that that's such a grievous sin that their children aren't even allowed to be members yet not only is pedophilia not automatically an excommunicable offense, it's not labeled as apostasy, but their children are totally allowed to be baptized and members in full standing. Do you think that that sends the wrong message as well?

Matt Long [01:56:09] Well, that. But the part that jumped out to me on that policy, it again highlights a lack of understanding that the policymakers have about sexual abuse and victimology. Because if you recall, the policy talked about all the most serious transgressions and it used an interesting term. It said forcible rape. And in 2016, the fact that the gold standard of abuse would have a term forcible rape to distinguish it from what fun Rape. You know, the kind that doesn't hurt, the kind that isn't traumatic.

John Dehlin [01:56:58] What about statutory Rape.

Matt Long [01:57:00] Well, statutory rape, when we talk about consent, that's what we're talking about is these kids. If we're talking about statutory rape, this is an inability to consent. That's what makes it statutory rape. So forcible rape is the same as non consensual rape.

Matt Long [01:57:16] So, okay, let's go further, John. Let's go with what about date rape? Is that forcible rape? Because often date rape, it starts with consensual behavior that then leads to either a freeze on the part of the victim after she's either communicated through body or word or whatever to stop, but then just freezes. So was that forcible rape or are we just talking about violent rape, or are we talking about.

Matt Long [01:57:51] Again, this demonstrates people who are just not trained in sexual offenses to distinguish forcible rape from. I've handled what are classically referred to as either statutory rape cases or date rape cases. And I've talked to victims who have gone through them. They've experienced real trauma. And to try to distinguish those and say, well, that's really worse than this one, or that's not on the same level as a serious transgression just demonstrates a lack of understanding of sexual offenses and victimology. So to me, it was less the comparison to the LGBT parents, which certainly is there. And there's got to be some impact. And I've heard it.

Matt Long [01:58:46] I've heard it from victims who have said, but my dear dad's not, you know, my dad did all these things to me and my sisters and he's not excommunicated. So I have heard real, you know, people talk about that. To me, it was the other part of what they included in there that shows such a lack of awareness and understanding.

John Dehlin [01:59:06] Yeah. Okay. Well, I think, I think we've given this a really solid treatment and I've loved your insight and perspective. I think it's going to help a lot of people. I think the way that I want to end the penultimate ending, I'm going to read you the last sentence of this media release. I'm going to have you respond to it, and then I'll have you end by any closing thoughts you want to make along with sort of your, you know, any final beliefs or values that you want to share. I'll read you the sentence. It says, the LDS Church's deep concern for children has led to a system that is highly effective at preventing abuse, protecting and helping victims, ensuring that church clergy comply with the law, and disciplining and expelling abusers. So what is your Summative response to that victory lap that this media release seems to be taking.

The Recent Church News Release and Its Implications

Matt Long [02:00:06] Yeah, this release, it triggered me a little bit because it's very reminiscent of a press release that the church chose to give regarding one of my cases a number of years ago where they had some of the similar language that we do not tolerate abuse. The primary goal is to protect the victim.

Matt Long [02:00:33] And in my case, in my press release, they said that the church leaders were instrumental in reporting abuse, getting the abuse reported to law enforcement. So that last part reminds me of that. And what I'll say about that is what I tell people when I teach on this issue. And I put that quote up there, the press release from my case and my law enforcement friend, his line is, I'll steal it. As he says, I don't use this word very often, but that is an outright lie.

Matt Long [02:01:14] My response is, they know what they should be doing. They know what they should be saying. And that's evidenced by they're saying the right things. What I'd ask them to do is, is implement policies and practices that actually support and advance the ideals that you're articulating.

Matt Long [02:01:39] If you have a zero tolerance of abuse, then don't tolerate abuse. If your goal is to protect kids, protect them. It's that simple. You know the right things to say. It's just a matter of implementing them in practice.

John Dehlin [02:02:02] And it's fair to say they're better than they were 20 or 30 years ago. Right.

Matt Long [02:02:06] I will give them. They have progressed. They've also progressed a lot more on racial issues than they did from 78. How's that? I don't know if that's the standard, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:02:25] Right. Yep. Well, it's a weighty topic, and I'm grateful that there are people out there like you, Matt, that are trying to fight the good fight. Where can people learn more about what you're doing if they want to seek you out?

Matt Long [02:02:39] Yeah, well, we. So one of the things. When I left prosecution, it wasn't an easy. It wasn't an easy decision. It's something that I considered a bit of a calling. I think I was very good at it. Someday I'll tell the story of how that came to be, but I went into criminal defense because that's certainly where my skills lie and where my background and experience is, and it's been very rewarding. I mean, I very much enjoy what I do as a defense attorney.

Matt Long [02:03:15] But one of the things that I was committed to is recognizing that some of the same issues that we deal with as prosecutors in sex offenses still need to be fought in the civil world. And too often, attorneys and the legal system isn't really equipped to understand these issues in order to defend and protect kids. So that's the one thing I was committed to doing, is take the skills that I have as a prosecutor and in understanding these issues of sexual abuse and of talking to kids and of being able to present this information to juries and applying it in a civil context.

Matt Long [02:04:00] So that's one of my main practices, in addition to criminal defense, is victim representation, and especially victim representation as it pertains to sexual abuse. So at my firm, I've been.

John Dehlin [02:04:13] Sorry about that. Keep going.

Matt Long [02:04:16] In my firm, I have been given the blessing to establish a practice where we represent victims. And in many cases, that's pro bono work and providing resources and advice in helping victims navigate the. The court system as they progress through prosecutions and through preparing to testify and all the thing that's involved in that is to have a resource to be able to answer questions and to explain that process, possibly interface with law enforcement and prosecutors and to protect their rights as victims. Most states have victims rights, and we can protect that and help that. But in also being able to pursue lawsuits against offenders, institutions, and other, you know, and other people who might have had some negligence and have some liability in the abuse, you know, we represent girls in particular on rape cases where fraternities are involved, or schools, other schools, you know, high schools and junior highs and elementary schools, where some protections should have been in place and followed and warrant by teachers or other institutions, whether it be restaurants and certainly religious institutions, where maybe something should have been done differently and could have prevented some of the abuse.

Matt Long [02:05:48] So we're able to. We have resources nationally. So if you're not just in Arizona and other states, you know, hit me up, give me a call, and if I can help, I will. Because you talk about principles protecting kids, Protecting and helping victims of abuse is something that I've lived by for the last certain last decade of my life, and it's something that I intend to continue doing. So you can reach me directly at my firm's number. 488-331-1133. And heck, I'll answer questions, and if I can help, I certainly will. And if it's not an Arizona case, I'll find somebody that can help.

John Dehlin [02:06:36] What's the name of the firm again?

Matt Long [02:06:37] It's Roly, Chapman and Barney.

John Dehlin [02:06:39] Okay. And they're based out of Phoenix?

Matt Long [02:06:42] Yes.

Closing Reflections and Words of Encouragement

John Dehlin [02:06:43] All right. Well, this has been fabulous. Why don't you just close us off with a bit of an inspirational, you know, testimony from whatever values or perspective you want to share. If you wanted to leave people with something uplifting, what do you have to share as you close from wherever you stand now?

Matt Long [02:07:06] Well, you know, it's a story that I tell when I close my presentations to law enforcement and attorneys and other people. And so if you'll indulge me, I've told it before on Infants on Thrones, but I think it embodies some of my values. And the story is. Was told by a mentor of mine who handled some of the worst of the worst cases that I've ever seen.

Matt Long [02:07:34] And he once got an injury. He was one of the smartest, one of the greatest attorneys I've ever been fortunate enough to rub shoulders with. And he's the reason why I have some of the skills that I do in court. But he was on a. He was on a ladder, and he. Getting a balloon for his kid. And as smart as he was, he wasn't completely smart, but he fell off there and hit his head.

Matt Long [02:08:01] And he was. He was taken to the hospital, and it was a serious enough injury that they took him to another. Another county in another city. And he finally was waking up. He was in a coma for a little while. And he woke up, and they started running the protocols on him, you know, and as they. They ask him different questions and say, you know, what year is it? And he was able to answer it.

Matt Long [02:08:25] And then the nurse is asking her, okay, you know, do you know where you are? And he. He answered, tucson. And she said, no, you're actually in Phoenix. He's like, oh, okay, it must have been a pretty bad injury. And she said, yeah, it was. And so she started asking him more questions, said, do you know how old you are? Do you know what year it is? All these things. And then she says, do you know what you do for a living? And he looked up at her and he said, I'm a dragon slayer.

Matt Long [02:08:49] And she kind of looked at him. You're not supposed to react, apparently. And she says, okay, well, how long have you been a dragon slayer? And she says, well, most of my adult life, since law school, really. She says, okay, so you believe that dragons exist? And he says, oh, yes, I know they exist. I've seen them.

Matt Long [02:09:10] And she doesn't really respond. And his response is, now, I understand this troubles you, what I'm telling you. And she says, oh, no, no, no. I'm not worried about it. He says, no, I understand it troubles you, he said, let me tell you this, I'm very happy, very happy that you in your life haven't experienced dragons.

Matt Long [02:09:30] But know this, that if the day should come where you encounter a dragon and you have the need of a dragon slayer, either me or one of my brothers and sisters will be there. So I tell that story when I talk to other people as a reminder that when it comes to these kids, they experience dragons.

Matt Long [02:09:57] These kids experience real fear, real trauma, real loss of hope, and they stop believing that there are people that can help them. And often it's true. But if just some of us would step up and let those kids know that not while I'm here, not if I'm around, that I will be here for you.

Matt Long [02:10:35] We can be the dragon slayer for each one of these kids. And once you do it, if you're willing to do it, man, the experience is really unparalleled. And so that's my goal. That's what I want to do and what I want to be.

Matt Long [02:10:53] I want to be that to kids when they need it, that they know that if they come here, if I'm around, they're going to have a measure of protection that they didn't have. And the people that I associate with here in Arizona in my life, they embody that.

Matt Long [02:11:14] And that can be applied to me, to these, you know, the LGBT kids that are dealing with so much and that feel that they don't have hope to these kids who have, the people that are in their life, their loved ones that should be protecting them the most don't. And too often that includes their religious leaders. So maybe not what you expected or what you were thinking about. For me, that that's what matters.

John Dehlin [02:11:45] I'm inspired. All right, Matt Long, Infants on Thrones. You can hear them there. Excellent podcast. And you can check them out. We'll put a link up to, you know, your contact info. But, Matt, thanks for all you do and thanks for sharing 3 plus hours of your time to help us learn more about this issue.

Matt Long [02:12:05] No, it's great. It's.

John Dehlin [02:12:06] It's.

Matt Long [02:12:08] Yeah, it's something that I've been. I've been meaning to do this for infants on Thrones for about three years, John, so.

John Dehlin [02:12:17] Well, I'm sure you guys are going to have an amazing smackdown and we'll be the first to tune in.

Matt Long [02:12:23] I appreciate that. It definitely. I'm sure there's more to be said and a lot of stories to be told here as you're getting and I'm getting is how people want to respond to this was not their experience, what the church is articulating. So, absolutely, we're happy to continue to lend a voice to the people that deserve it.

John Dehlin [02:12:48] All right, Matt Long, thanks so much. And keep fighting the good fight, Dragonslayer.

Matt Long [02:12:53] Yeah, thanks for all you do, John.

John Dehlin [02:12:54] All right, take care, all. Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us make more like it by becoming a monthly subscriber@mormonstories.org music for this episode was provided by the lower lights. Wounded heart, Anger or mouth I draw myself apart Searching my soul.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.