Welcome and Episode Introduction

John Dehlin [00:00:02] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I am one of your hosts for today, John Dehlin. It is October 2, 2023, and today we are covering the story of the allegations of Operation Underground Railroad founder and sort of, sort of central target figure of the movie Sound of Freedom, Tim Ballard.

John Dehlin [00:00:30] We're here to discuss the allegations and the rumors that Tim has been excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or the Mormon Church. And it is a very difficult and sensitive issue to discuss. And we're going to be covering a lot of different features today. We're going to be talking about, you know, a history of a little bit of the history of Mormon church text communications, the current Mormon Church's policies on excommunications. We're going to be talking about the ways the Church has handled some excommunications in the press in the past. We're also going to be sharing the intelligence that we've gathered from various credible sources, along with some of the news media coverage that Tim Ballard and his wife Catherine have already generated and some statements, etc.

John Dehlin [00:01:24] And it's very sensitive because, you know, at Mormon Stories, we often say that our focus is on systems, not people. And particularly our focus is on informed consent and transparency within the Mormon Church or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

John Dehlin [00:01:44] And we're much more concerned about the way the church systemically can cause harm than we are trying to ever call anyone out or shame them publicly. So I'm here today with Gerardo. Gerardo is a sort of like a partner in what I do with Mormon stories, and he has helped with production of this episode. Hey, Gerardo.

Gerardo Sumano [00:02:11] Hi, John.

John Dehlin [00:02:12] Thanks for joining us.

Gerardo Sumano [00:02:13] Yeah, yeah, I'm glad to be here.

John Dehlin [00:02:16] Yeah, I'm super glad to have you here. And I should say also at the outset that we have, we are revealing some new information that we gathered yesterday that points to a higher probability that Tim Ballard had been excommunicated.

John Dehlin [00:02:37] It's, it's something that could be counted as evidence that, you know, rumor, rumor and innuendo, you know, doesn't, doesn't quite reach the level of. And so we're gonna, we've already released that on Twitter and on Reddit and on Facebook. But we're going to be releasing that evidence today again, along with the statement that Tim Ballard's wife Catherine released through her PR department.

Disclaimers and Context for Coverage

John Dehlin [00:03:03] And the first thing I wanted to do is kind of provide some disclaimers, and this disclaimers are all around, first of all, you know, why we're. Why we're doing this and maybe why we're not doing this. But I. I want to just make it clear at the outset that what we are discussing today consists largely of allegations or our own opinions.

John Dehlin [00:03:28] We're certainly not. We're. You know, we certainly believe that people are innocent until proven guilty. We believe that evidence should be the basis of the way we collectively assess someone's guilt or innocence. Unfortunately, with the Mormon Church, there's a history of hiding evidence and hiding information, and they make it super hard for us to just evaluate information and evidence because they're not forthcoming and they're not transparent, and sometimes they provide disinformation.

John Dehlin [00:04:04] But. But, you know, we want to be sensitive that we're never making false allegations, both because it's unfair and unkind, and there's also legal risks involved. Other disclaimers are that the Mormon Church has already denounced Tim Ballard. We'll be talking about that.

John Dehlin [00:04:22] We're going to be showing that Tim's wife Catherine. There's a lot of people, Gerardo, that have expressed upset, that have expressed concern that we have outed Katherine Ballard, and we're going to be addressing those allegations because that wouldn't be fair or accurate. Is that your understanding, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [00:04:38] For sure, for sure. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:04:40] Yeah, yeah. So, you know, Tim's wife Catherine has already made herself. She's appeared on numerous podcasts. Numerous podcasts. We'll talk about that. But also, she made a public statement. And so those are some of the disclaimers. And I think I wanted to begin. You know, most of you will have already been following this story, but I just want to also begin that it was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that sort of drew first blood on this. They released a statement to VICE News, basically calling Tim Ballard out for morally unacceptable behavior, claiming that the Mormon Church had never supported or endorsed Tim Ballard and that Mormon Apostle El Morazo Ballard had never supported Tim Ballard either in.

John Dehlin [00:05:28] In business ventures or. Or publicly. And, you know, we've already done episodes on why that's not true. But the first and. And possibly, I don't know, you can correct me, Gerardo, only real kind of official acknowledgement that the Mormon Church has made is through this article in the Deseret News that wasn't even titled. You know, Mormon Church Condemns Tim Ballard. I believe it was called Tim Ballard Considers a Run for Senate Amid Renewed Controversy. And then the statement was sort of buried or embedd. I actually.

Gerardo Sumano [00:06:01] I actually think they didn't even quote the whole statement. They just kind of quote a couple excerpts of it and.

John Dehlin [00:06:08] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, we're going to get to our concern that, that, that the Mormon Church, unlike many of, of the past people they've excommunicated, including me, Julie Row Bundy and Sam Young, they've issued public statements on. And so, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna call in the Mormon Church to eliminate all confusion by making a public statement. But Gerardo, you gathered some, some additional podcasts that, that Tim and his wife Catherine have been on just to sort of directly address the fact that we're not kind of attacking or shaming or outing Catherine. Do you want to talk about those really quick?

Gerardo Sumano [00:06:52] Yeah. So like I said, I mean, this is something that I saw all throughout of Facebook. People being really upset that we outed Catherine's name. The reality is that she has been public for quite a, quite a time now.

Gerardo Sumano [00:07:11] And then, like you are showing on that slide, John, she's been recently going on different podcasts and making multiple statements defending, uh, his husband, her husband Tim. Like this one on Tammy Patterson, it's called four Days Ago Katherine Ballard, Love Family on the fight against trafficking. And there's another one on Tim Ballard's official YouTube channel where he reads or talks about his wife's Catherine, take on the recent controversies.

Gerardo Sumano [00:07:44] The next slide will show a couple more. This one is on the. That, that one. This is a screenshot of how she was showing that she was actually, you know, personally involved in, in one of these podcasts appearing, showing her image and, you know, like video of herself talking about the controversies and the work she and her husband have been doing, allegedly on operational ground railroad. And then this is another one called in Tim Ballard and wife Catherine Ballard on saving children and recent allegations by Adam Corolla, you know, with many, many 41,000 views.

Gerardo Sumano [00:08:25] And this one, this one was also four days ago. And then lastly, I think there's one more. Yep. On Rod. I don't know how to pronounce his name. John, on the.

John Dehlin [00:08:36] You're helping Ron Arquette.

Gerardo Sumano [00:08:39] Yep, that. And he. So, yeah, he interviewed Katherine alone. And the episode was called Catherine Ballard White of Tim, wife of Tim Ballard. And she talks about all the controversies as well and the work she's been doing by supporting her husband. So. So, yeah, lots of public comments and lots of public comments specifically about these allegations.

John Dehlin [00:09:03] Yeah. Yeah. So we're definitely not outing Katherine Ballard now. It would be fair to say that it's their story to tell, not our story to Tell. And we're going to address why we're talking about it very extensively. I'm just going to add that the main defense, and we've covered this now in a previous episode as well, the main defense that both Tim and Catherine are making is, is in response to the concerns the Mormon Church, you know, expressed about morally inappropriate behavior and, and sexual misconduct allegations that have arisen. The way that Tim and his wife Katherine are describing it is they're. They're framing it as this couple ruse.

John Dehlin [00:09:44] Couples ruse tactic where basically Tim has to go into dangerous areas where he's invited to do inappropriate things with women. So he needs to bring a fake wife along with him because his wife Catherine needs to stay home and take care of the kids. So he brings a fake wife along with him undercover and she poses as his wife so that when the bad guys asked him to do sexual things with.

John Dehlin [00:10:11] With women, allegedly, that he can say, I can't. My wife is with me. And. And of course, it's several of the women who. Who traveled with Tim Ballard as his undercover wives. It's several of those women who allegedly have now come out with an attorney and are alleging sexual, spiritual, spiritual coercion or abuse, sexual misconduct, sexual harassment. And of course, all that was reported to Operation Underground Railroad, the organization, through HR complaints and through other filings. And that's what allegedly led to Tim Ballard being fired from Operation Underground Railroad. But the point is, is that Tim and his wife are. Are publicly saying that this is all around the couple's ruse and that Tim's done nothing wrong.

New Reporting and the Couple Ruse Allegations

John Dehlin [00:11:03] I do want to just let everyone know about a new article that's just come out again from the excellent reporting of the American Crime Journal. And the title of the article is Tim Ballard's Couple Ruse is Strange Rationalization to Groom Women. And it basically talks. I believe it. It interviews experts in investigations and in child trafficking investigations.

John Dehlin [00:11:28] And it basically. I think it makes the point that you don't need to do a couple's ruse to rescue children. And in fact, it's a strange, expensive, and awkward and inefficient way to do investigations. So I do. We'll. We'll include a link to that in the show notes. But I do, I think generally American Crime Journal has done some really excellent reporting on this topic, and we really strongly recommend it. Anything you want to say about that, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [00:11:57] Yeah, I think I was just gonna add that, that there's been people who have been on these expeditions or like, you know, trying to save children's with. With Operational ground railroad who have come out and said that in actually the couple's ruse was if one of the, or if not the least effective method to save children. And this goes like completely opposite to what Tim Ballard is is claiming on all these podcasts and public comments saying, you know, that it was super effective and that's why he kept doing it.

John Dehlin [00:12:35] Yeah. And I refer you to the Jimmy Rex podcast where Jimmy talks about it a sum as well as he publicly claims that he's spoken with several, at least several, a few of the women who have alleged sexual misconduct. And also Eric Mustos, I believe is the way to pronounce his name.

John Dehlin [00:12:55] He's got an Instagram channel where he released a video. And Eric and, and. And Jimmy Rex were super close, you know, friends and allies of Tim's apparently, and even went on, as I understand it went on, jumps with them. So those are important sources to pursue. And I think also there the other gentleman that was alleged, that was accused of groping the woman in Mexico, I'm spacing on his name right now. It'll come to me in a second. But he also is a third person who has basically claimed to have spoken with the, the women who are alleging abuse. And he, he claims that the couple's ruse was not effective. I, I'm. For some reason my, my mind is blanking on his name.

Gerardo Sumano [00:13:43] Paul Hutchinson.

John Dehlin [00:13:44] Paul Hutchinson. So those are some things, things you guys can reference from previous episodes. I'm going to go ahead and just quickly tell you all what was reported to me. The first thing I want to emphasize is that there was not that reported this story to me the day after the excommunication letter was allegedly delivered to Tim Ballard.

Sources Behind the Excommunication Story

John Dehlin [00:14:06] I had probably five people reach out to me and provide me with different levels of intelligence and information. So that's the first thing. There is no one single source. There's five to now 10 sources that I've talked to who are close to the Ballard family or close to the situation.

John Dehlin [00:14:26] What did they tell me? They told me that Tim Ballard was excommunicated. They. These sources told me that the excommunication disciplinary council meeting was held September 25, 2023. But. But that similar to what happened with me, they did not deliver a verdict the evening of the disciplinary council. I actually don't even know if Tim Ballard and. Or Catherine Ballard attended the disciplinary council. Gerardo, have you heard anything about whether or not they attended?

Gerardo Sumano [00:14:59] I. I haven't heard.

John Dehlin [00:15:00] Okay. So I don't know if they attended, but I. It was reported to me that the letter informing Tim Ballard of his excommunication was September 27th and I was told around 9:45. Again, I have no idea whether those things are true. That's just what was reported to me in terms of who, who is involved.

John Dehlin [00:15:24] One piece of, a couple pieces of information that were super interesting to me was that Tim Ballard's bishop had only been called for about a month or two. He was a relatively recently called bishop. Now apparently his, the previous bishop to Tim Ballard had served for the full five year term.

John Dehlin [00:15:44] But what was also interesting was that Tim's new stake president apparently was called just two weeks before Tim Ballard was excommunicated. And in that stake president's first week of serving he notified Tim Ballard that, that a disciplinary council was going to be called. And then in the second week he, he conducted the disciplinary council and excommunicated Tim Ballard again according to reports. And interestingly the history of the Mormon Church is that a first the Stake presidency, which is a stake president and his counselors along with the 12 stake high counselors. So 15 people in the room plus potentially a stake executive secretary.

John Dehlin [00:16:30] Normally that's who would have been in the room along with Tim and his wife if she wanted to attend. That's how it was with me and Margi. It was like 16 people plus me and Margi. So not anymore.

Gerardo Sumano [00:16:43] Yeah, they changed that in the handbook.

John Dehlin [00:16:45] Yeah. Recently the Mormon Church, we, I, I believe that we and others put so much pressure on the Mormon Church to make these excommunications and disciplinary councils look so barbaric that I'll just say in all fairness, the Mormon Church rebranded excommunication and they've changed the name to I think withdrawal of membership. To me that's lipstick on a pig. I'm not going to stop calling it excommunication because I think that's exactly what it is and they just used a euphemism to make it sound less medieval and barbaric. But, but they're no longer called disciplinary councils. I think they're called what? Membership councils. Membership councils, yeah. But I, I refuse to use that language because I think that's, that's pr.

Gerardo Sumano [00:17:31] It's hard to use that language too when you're talking about the context of what's happening in those things.

John Dehlin [00:17:35] And yeah, yeah, yeah, so, so when the church changed what it called excommunications, it also changed the rules and said no longer does a, the Stake High Council need to be there. In special cases it can be just the stake president and and his council, two counselors. Now, Gerardo, I theorize that that partly that's because especially when it's apostasy. Well, I just think generally speaking, every, everyone I've ever spoken to has been part of a disciplinary council. I shouldn't say everyone. Many of the people that I've spoken to who are parts of stake disciplinary councils said it was their least favorite part of the job, that they asked detailed sexual questions when it was a matter of infidelity or breaking the law of chastity, that people were shamed, that people were humiliated.

John Dehlin [00:18:27] And then if it was apostasy, like Bill Real or Jeremy Runnels or myself or others, you know, it wasn't uncommon for the person charged with apostasy to explain all the reasons that they lost their faith and why they spoke out about it. Which I think the church got concerned that that would infect other members of the Stake High Council at, you know, making them aware of issues that would cause them to lose their faith as well. So for many reasons, and probably also for logistic reasons, for scheduling reasons, the church changed that rule, making it so just the stake presidency alone could. Could conduct an excommunication if they wanted to.

Gerardo Sumano [00:19:08] What's really interesting about that, John, is that it's actually Scriptural. So the indoctrinate covenants in one of the Mormon churches Book of Scriptures, it talks really detail in detail about how disciplinary councils are supposed to be held. And that's where the instruction by God is given that 12 people have to be involved, you know, and six in favor, six against. And all that stuff that, you know, used to happen before, and now the church has decided to completely ignore the, the Scripture and, and change how it works. That, that's really interesting to me.

John Dehlin [00:19:45] But yeah, yeah, yeah. Finally, I, I want to say that, that my sources, in terms of the charges, My sources alleged that the primary reason for Tim Ballard's alleged excommunication was for what the, the terms. The term that was used by multiple sources was sexual misconduct. And we're going to talk in depth about what, you know, you know, what, what criteria in current church policy makes someone worthy or qualified for either an immediate disciplinary council or an op op, an optional disciplinary council. And what are sort of the types of offenses you can commit that could warrant excommunication?

John Dehlin [00:20:37] I, I've already mentioned this really briefly, but because this is a matter of public record, I'm just going to state that Tim Ballard stake is the Eagle Mountain, Utah Cedar Pass stake. I'm not going to use the first names of his former and current leaders. But again, I'm in it. I'm going to state that anyone can go up to a website and enter in Eagle Mountain, Utah, Cedar Pass Stake. And it informs them not only of the name of the stake president and the bishop, but also of their phone numbers. So I'm not doxing or outing anybody. This is all the church wants people to know the names and the phone numbers of, of the stake presidents and bishops or they wouldn't make it public to everyone.

John Dehlin [00:21:22] So I am not doxing anyone here, but I am going to not use their first names. Just out of a courtesy. But apparently Tim Ballard's former stake president was, I'll call him President Richards. Apparently he was called in March of 2014. He served for nine years. He was released as I said two weeks ago. And the reports that I received was, were that this former stake president, President Richards was extremely supportive of Tim Ballard by my reports, even helping him fundraise and, and Gerardo, I've covered this before.

John Dehlin [00:21:56] My pre, my stake president prior to Brian King was named Mark Jensen. And I met multiple times with Mark Jensen over more than a year when he was evaluating me for apostasy. And, and the culmination of my meetings with Mark Jensen was that he had decided not to excommunicate me and he allowed me to baptize my son Winston.

Gerardo Sumano [00:22:21] So even, well he, he didn't even hold a council, right. So he thought. My understanding is that he didn't even think there was enough evidence to hold an apostasy discipline.

John Dehlin [00:22:32] Oh yeah, that's right. That's right. That's true. And, and so I was, I was exonerated. I was allowed to baptize my son Winston. And it was, it was about a year or so after that that just before in my understanding, before Mark Jensen had finished his 10 year term and normally a stake president, a Mormon stake president serves a full tenure term. Mark Jensen was just mysteriously released early and Brian King was, was put in. And my understanding is one very early act of his administration was to call a disciplinary council on me, ironically before he had ever met me. And he threatened me with the disciplinary council and threatened me with excommunication.

John Dehlin [00:23:19] So the reason why I bring all this up, not it's not to be self referential, but it's, it's sort of mysterious that Tim Ballard's previous stake president, President Richards was, was released prior to serving the full 10 years and that, that the one of the first acts of his new state president which we're we're referring to as President hall here. Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:23:43] I'll tell you something that's not mysterious, John. So when, and I think we've talked about this in other episodes, but when a new stick president is going to be called, that's something that the area presidency, which is in a very high, high position, top leadership of the church, right below the apostles are the general authorities. So they are the ones that come, at least one of them comes to select who's going to be the next stake president. And usually they would be pretty, I mean they're, they're in constant communications with apostles and give reports to them. So they would be on the known, on what's going on in the church, especially with public figures.

Gerardo Sumano [00:24:20] And it's, it's, it's very common that they will meet several times with the new stake president, give some kind of advice, talk about some of the issues of the stake. And obviously if there's a public figure, I mean it's, it's really, really likely that, that, that the name of Tim Ballard and, and, and the topic would have come up with the new stake president, like almost. I, I, I doubt that, that it wouldn't have.

John Dehlin [00:24:46] But yeah, I consider it literally impossible that this new stake president, president. About Tim Ballard and giving marching orders before or immediately as he was called. It's also worth noting that it's been reported to me that while President Richards, Ballard's former stake president, was a big supporter of Tim Ballard and likely possibly wasn't willing to convene a disciplinary council on Tim Ballard, it's been reported to me that President hall was relatively unknown, if not known at all to Tim Ballard and his family. And I have no way of confirming that. But that's what's been reported to me.

John Dehlin [00:25:36] The, the only other thing that I think is worth mentioning, a few other things. You know, Tim Ballard's ward is the Cedar Pass Ward, as I'm told over in Eagle Mountain. There's two previous bishops of note. His immediate immediately previous bishop was a Bishop Cowan.

John Dehlin [00:25:54] His current bishop is a Bishop Eldridge. And one really interesting note that I've been told is before Bishop Cowan there was a bishop named Bishop Stott, Mark Stott. The reason why I'm mentioning his name in particular is because apparently he became an our board member either before, during or after he served as a bishop. So there is I think a 19, sorry a 2015 or 2016990 form from operation Underground Railroad. There's the name of Mark Stott and it has been reported to me that Mark Stott was his bishop and helped him organize Operation Underground Railroad. And then someone else reported to me that in the 2016 timeframe, Stott would push our from the pulpit and try to sell tickets to Operation Toussaint.

John Dehlin [00:26:43] Everyone in the ward was drunk on the our and Tim Ballard Kool Aid. So I think that's, that's interesting reporting to note. I don't know if it's true. And then the final information that was shared about his warden stake. You know, two quotes are worth mentioning.

John Dehlin [00:27:02] One quote is many in the LDS ward are recreational pilots and fly out of Cedar Valley Airport just south of Tim Ballard's home. We have seen from the ground and air when Sean Reyes has. And Glenn Beck have been to the Tim Ballard home. So it sort of gives this vision of like Sean Reyes and, and Glenn Beck flying into this local airport and then almost taxing or just shuttling briefly to Tim Ballard's home. It sounds quite glamorous, potentially. And then the other statement that was made was that many in our neighborhood and LDS ward are wealthy. The bishop would call and ask for extra donations for the Ballard family so they could build their backyard pool. Now, that sounds ridiculous. Gerardo. Can you imagine a Mormon bishop fundraising for someone's backyard pool? That almost sounds unbelievable.

Gerardo Sumano [00:27:52] I mean, you just have to listen to the people that support Tim Ballard. You know, I, I've. I've listened to interviews from the. I can't remember his first name, but Verastigi, like this guy from Mexico who produced the Sound of Freedom movie who's now running for president in Mexico. I'm like, I don't know. It's just the things that they say and how they talk is. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised that a highly. A high supporter of Tim Ballard who's a bishop would be doing this, but it's kind of outrageous.

John Dehlin [00:28:25] Yeah, it is. I want to welcome everyone who's joining us on the live streams. We're. We're live streaming this both on YouTube and Facebook. And I just want to thank everyone really quickly for all your support. Recently we have had phenomenal growth on Mormon Stories podcast. And I, I don't do sponsors.

Podcast Support and Growth Update

John Dehlin [00:28:48] I, I definitely try to never bug you with endorsements or sponsors or any of that, but there is one thing I want to do because it's how we stay alive and how we keep things going. I'm about to show you the new evidence that we have that I think is really crucial and important. But before I do, I just want to show everyone that Mormon Stories podcast, we're gratefully up to 196,000 subscribers.

John Dehlin [00:29:13] A huge chunk of those subscribers have come just in the past 12 months. So we've had phenomenal growth on our YouTube channel. And subscriptions are really important because it helps with the algorithm. The more people subscribe and view your content, the more YouTube shares it, so growth is often exponential. And also, the more subscribers you have to your channel, the better guests you can get. So the one you know, other than the other than sort of letting y' all know how you can donate to support Mormon Stories Podcast, which is through the donate button@mormonstories.org go to mormonstories.org click on the donate button. Become a monthly donor.

John Dehlin [00:29:52] That's the main way we get your support and are able to pay our staff, pay for operations, et cetera. We're transparent in our finances. We believe we're ethical in our finances. But please, become a monthly donor and then also please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Let's get up to 200,000 subscribers if we can.

John Dehlin [00:30:11] Please like this episode. It would be phenomenal if all 2700 people like this episode that'll promote the episode and commenting and sharing, all of that really helps. Gerardo, anything you want to add? Or is that. Is that enough said?

Gerardo Sumano [00:30:25] No. Well, I want to say that this takes a lot of time. You know, this episode. I mean, we spend. I spend. And you spend, John, hours and hours yesterday figuring out how we're gonna get confirmation of the excommunication, you know, because we've been working with other reporters, you know, people that have seen on the podcast as well, and it's really hard to get this. And we were.

Confirming the Excommunication Evidence

John Dehlin [00:30:48] We.

Gerardo Sumano [00:30:49] We worked so many hours doing this, so it takes time. It takes a lot of effort. I did want to address maybe, and maybe this is a good time to do it. Why. I think I saw so many questions of, well, why. Why are all these leakers just going to. John, why is the media not covering it? I'll say that a confirmation of excommunication is really, really hard to get the letter. It's only available to the stake president and. And to the person that receives it. So if the person that receives the letter doesn't want to talk about it, basically there's no way to confirm it other than the.

Gerardo Sumano [00:31:25] The. The like. Really. The only other way is the. Is this evidence that we're going to show. And media outlets sometimes don't feel like that's enough confirmation to be able to put their. Their names on the line. So but yeah, I just wanted to talk about that. But, but yeah, John, if you would just want to keep going.

John Dehlin [00:31:43] Okay, the, the. Maybe one thing I just want to, to kind of, you know, quickly note is that we're going to mention later that there's a game that the Mormon Church is playing. And this is just trailing on your comment, Gerardo. But, but the Mormon Church has been willing to condemn people publicly who have been excommunicated and stated publicly.

John Dehlin [00:32:14] And so again, I've already said this, but it's the Mormon Church's lack of transparency around this issue specifically and almost the gamesmanship that the Mormon Church seems to be playing that's contributing to so much confusion. So, so we wouldn't have to be talking about this if the Mormon Church would just, just own up to it.

John Dehlin [00:32:38] Okay, so we've got so much late breaking news. But you know, the main piece of evidence that I think is really important to share right now is some sort of investigative work that we did. And by the way, you talk about how difficult our job is and why we need support for it, I can't tell you how many hours I've spent with news media over the past two or three weeks. Whether it's with the eight passengers, Ruby, Frankie, Jody Hildebrand story, or the Tim Ballard story. I am constantly providing witnesses, evidence, insight analysis to media people. And it's, it, you know, it's a, it's a very burdensome part of what I do.

John Dehlin [00:33:27] And, and you know, that's just, that's, that's another role that we play on Mormon stories. And the Open Stories foundation is helping the media get contacts, get witnesses, get informants, whistleblowers, and also just to provide Mormon insight, history and analysis.

John Dehlin [00:33:45] So, so I just wanted to mention that really quickly we've got a few super chats coming in. These super chats are a way for you to share comments that, that have a very high likelihood of being shared here on the episode. But it's also a way for you to support what we do separate from the monthly donations.

John Dehlin [00:34:03] M. Gunter writes. John, thank you for the work you and your team have been doing between this and the Jody Hildebrandt case over the last month. Absolutely incredible. Thank you. M. Really appreciate it. Thanks to AKA the Cat Lady. She writes even if you follow Tim and or our, please listen with an open mind and then do your own research. This situation is really complicated. I couldn't agree more with you. AKA the Cat Lady. Never believe us. Never believe rumors or allegations that we're sharing. Wait for Evidence. And evidence should be your guide. And, and false allegations exist. And so I think evidence is always your best guard.

John Dehlin [00:34:40] Also, huge thanks to Anne Marie Huijink and JD France for their super chats as well. Okay, so without any further ado, let's jump to the main piece of evidence. And there's a little bit of. A little bit of background that I think I want to share and I'll basically tell a quick story and then, Gerardo, you can add anything to it. As some of you may know, we on Mormon Stories podcast have active bishops and active stake presidents and missionaries and possibly even higher Mormon church leaders and employees.

John Dehlin [00:35:19] High level, who regularly watch and listen to Mormon Stories podcast. Just this year, we've had two currently sitting Mormon bishops on Mormon Stories podcast telling their stories. There were tweets on Twitter on X where people are saying, why would an active member ever give any information to John de Lin? The truth is, it's much worse than that if you're disturbed by the information that's given to us, because it's often bishops and stake presidents and church employees and, you know, CES employees and, you know, that are. That are giving us our information and our leaks. And that's just because, again, the Mormon Church isn't transparent. And a lot of these people have either lost their faith and they don't receive the support they need for the Mormon Church, so they reach out to me for support or.

John Dehlin [00:36:05] Or they just believe in transparency and honesty and they see the church as not being transparent. And so they want to help in any way they can, even though they're currently serving as bishops and stake presidents. So anyway, Daniel writes, I hate how livestreams go on and never get to the point. So I'm sorry, Daniel, we on Mormon Stories like to provide context and we like to go deep. So we're going to try not to make this unnecessarily long.

John Dehlin [00:36:34] But there are other podcasts that do shorter form and please check them out, but we want to go in depth. Okay, so, Gerardo, I had the idea of us trying to reach out to one of our many active Mormon bishops because in the past there's an application called LDS Tools where members can log in to the website or the app and see who the members are of their ward and who the members are of their stake. And so once I received credible tips that Tim Ballard had been excommunicated, I. I reached out to several people that I knew were in his warder stake.

Verification Through Church Membership Tools

John Dehlin [00:37:18] And I believe you're not able to see member information for Anyone outside your warden stake. So I, I reached out to people who I knew were in the water stake of Tim Ballard and asked them to check LDS tools to see if Tim Ballard was still showing up as a member. And all the people that did that told me that he still was showing up as a member, even the, you know, even the day or two after he had been excommunicated. Which made me wonder whether the reports or the allegations had been true or it made me wonder if just the church was delayed in processing his actual status.

John Dehlin [00:37:52] Now, Gerardo, you may have a tiny bit more because you, you know a little bit more about that whole process. Is there anything else you want to say about, about a recently excommunicated person showing up or not showing up in LDS tools? And you need to unmute yourself first.

Gerardo Sumano [00:38:11] Sorry. Yes. So. So when someone is, someone has a disciplinary council and the decision has been made to excommunicate the member, he will receive a letter that the decision has been made to excommunicate him. But what the member might not know, and most people don't know, is that the sick presidency, what they can't just go in and delete the member records or go in and just mark them as excommunicated.

Gerardo Sumano [00:38:37] What they do is they send, they write a letter and these with details and send a recommendation letter to the First Presidency. And then the First Presidency has to review it and then I guess pray about it and then decide if the recommendation is accurate and if they should excommunicate the member. So it's the First Presidency, then who authorizes the removal of membership or the membership withdrawal.

Gerardo Sumano [00:39:05] And so that's why even after the member, even after the disciplinary council had been held and he had received the letter, it may have taken a couple days for the First Presidency to receive the recommendation letter for excommunication and then go ahead and say, and give the okay, basically, and then the record would be removed after that. Does that make sense?

John Dehlin [00:39:30] Yeah, that totally makes sense. Okay, so, so without any further ado, what, what I had the idea to do, and you know what, what we worked on a little bit together, Gerardo, was to see if one of our currently serving Mormon bishops or stake presidents would be able to log into their systems to see if they got any information that was different than what was showing up in LDS tools. And without going into any details or wanting to out anyone, we were able to find a Mormon bishop who was willing to do this for us. And so this is kind of the breaking news that, that we helped break and that I understand other people also had similar ideas around the same time. But what I'm about to show you is a screenshot of, you know, an application called. Is it called Member Tools, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [00:40:33] Leadership Tools.

John Dehlin [00:40:35] Leadership Tools. So I guess bishops and probably stake presidents than others I've heard. Maybe executive secretaries or clerks also have access to this application or this website called Membership Tools. And my understanding is one of the main things it's used for is when a new member of your ward is transferring in, it's the receiving ward's bishop who's responsible for importing that person's membership into the ward. Is that your understanding, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [00:41:07] Yep, that's exactly it.

John Dehlin [00:41:09] Yeah. So we had the bishop log into the Member Tools or Membership Tools application and by typing in the birthday of Tim Ballard and his name, this is what showed up. So for those who are listening and can't see, it says, choose individuals, select members to move into the ward. And it begins by mentioning Katherine Ballard.

John Dehlin [00:41:36] And it mentions. It does not mention Tim Ballard at all. And then under that lists seven children. And we've blocked out the names of the children and the ages of the children in, in confidentiality. But what's, what's interesting is it mentions Catherine Ballard, who, again, we're not outing, we're not doxing. She's been using her name very publicly. It mentions Catherine Ballard as the head of household. It doesn't mention Tim Ballard, and it doesn't mention Tim Ballard as the head of household. Now, with the, with the media people that I've spoken with, they wanted to know, was Tim Ballard ever in this system?

John Dehlin [00:42:20] Can we confirm that he was ever in LDS Tools at all? Can we confirm whether or not he was previously listed as the head of household? And could there be reason, you know, does this prove that Tim Ballard was excommunicated? And the truth is, no, it doesn't prove that Tim Ballard was excommunicated.

John Dehlin [00:42:37] All it shows is that for this person who logged in, Tim Ballard's record doesn't show up. And Tim Ballard is not listed as the head of household. Catherine is. So this, we're not claiming that this proves Tim Bowder is excommunicated?

Gerardo Sumano [00:42:51] Well, I would say something, though, John.

John Dehlin [00:42:53] Okay, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead.

Gerardo Sumano [00:42:54] It never, ever happens. The women is never, ever, ever but listed as the head of household unless the, the, the man or the dad is either not, not part of the family anymore because there was a divorce or because the father is not a member. So that. Those are the only two reasons why, why they wouldn't be held. Be listed as the head of household. My understanding is that even, even if on cases of separation where they would be separated, which we know they are not, because they keep going on podcast as late as this week together and they, I mean, they haven't built public about any separation and she has come out publicly with a statement about supporting Tim. Even in the case of separation, he would still be listed as head of household. Again, it's only in case of divorce or the father not being a member of the church.

John Dehlin [00:43:53] Yeah, we're getting some interesting comments back. One of, one of the concerns that people express is that this term head of household is even used. Why does there need to be a head of household? Why can't the husband and the wife be listed as joint heads of household?

John Dehlin [00:44:12] There's one viewer who writes alien Barbie51 writes, Women are the neck of the household. Have you not watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding? The neck turns the head. That's interesting. Also another person writes, maybe Tim withdrew his membership. So that is absolutely, you know, another possibility that we haven't considered.

John Dehlin [00:44:36] I guess just Jake reviews writes, maybe Tim Ballard was never a member to begin with. And that's possible. But we're going to show just a minute that he's telling people publicly that he is a member in good standing. So that's important for us to discuss.

John Dehlin [00:44:53] Just because he's, he's making these comments very, very publicly. So that's, that's main breaking news, number one. This is not speculation. This is not rumor. This is not new in innuendo. This wasn't passed on from outside indirect sources. You know, we've communicated directly with the bishop and the bishop. We confirmed that this person is a bishop, and this person gave us directly the information from his login. So, you know, again, we're not, we're not speculating here. Gerardo. Anything else else you want to add about that before I go on to the next slide and make sure unmute yourself.

Gerardo Sumano [00:45:36] Yeah, no, basically that. That's it. And I, I don't know if you completely read the whole thing too, John. I'll just bring it up on screen. It says at the top, choose individuals. So this is, you know, to choose who's going to be transferring into the new word. Select members to move into the word. And again, you have all the options for the family. And, and this. The bishop didn't go and kind of look up child by child. It just looks the whole household. It looks up the whole household together. And then, and then at the Bottom, it just says head of household moving into the word. And then you just select which one. And then Catherine, I mean, obviously that she would be the head of household.

John Dehlin [00:46:16] Okay, I, I do. One thing that I noticed that's seemed interesting is that it's on, it's public record that Tim Ballard, I think, and his wife Catherine report to have nine children. So I don't understand why only seven children are shown here when they report to have nine.

Gerardo Sumano [00:46:36] If some of them have moved out of the word, they wouldn't be listed there.

John Dehlin [00:46:39] Oh, so like adult children could have, could have moved out and be in different wards. Okay, so maybe the two oldest children have moved out and these are the, the seven remaining children living in the home. That makes sense. Okay, so that's the first bit of breaking news. Sorry, you know, I'm not sorry. But, you know, hopefully the context was somewhat helpful. The second piece of breaking news that we just want to cover comes from the great work and the great reporting of Adam Herberts at Fox 13 News, Salt Lake City. He shared this morning a statement from Katherine Ballard, wife of Tim Ballard.

Katherine Ballard's Statement and Timeline

John Dehlin [00:47:19] This, this press release was released by Katherine Ballard's PR firm. It was released before, you know, this episode aired. And it says the following. Here is an exclusive statement for you from Katherine Ballard. Tim and I are in touch with our local ecclesiastical leaders and such conversations as required by the church are strictly confidential and extremely personal. We are complying fully and remain committed to our family and our faith. Now, Gerardo, there are a couple interesting things about that. She's not saying Tim experience a disciplinary council. She's saying Tim and I are in touch with our local ecclesiastical leaders and are having conversations required by the church. That feels very euphemistic. It feels like something a PR firm would draft. Anything you want to say about that?

Gerardo Sumano [00:48:17] I, I. Something I hadn't considered, John, when that you brought up at the beginning of the episode and didn't consider until you brought it up was that he might not have attended the disciplinary council, which if that's the case, the letter would have come as a surprise because he didn't know or I mean, he would have had to know that it was happening, but probably didn't decide to attend and now is trying to make, to see what to do about fixing it.

Gerardo Sumano [00:48:46] But to me, just the fact that the membership has already been withdrawn tells me that the, that the, I mean, the, the process has been already accepted by the first presidency. If you remember, John, we had a couple of gay members of the church who were married.

Gerardo Sumano [00:49:06] I Think a year or two ago on the podcast and they actually had a disciplinary council and they were gonna get excommunicated. That was the decision at the end of the. Of the council membership withdrawal. And then at the end, they were. Once they communicated that with the stake president, you know, they were able to stop it before it actually happened. So because again, it's not immediate, once the decision is been made, the. The. The membership is not withdrawn immediately. So, yeah, this would. I think we're going to talk more about this, about the first Presidency involvement and stuff.

John Dehlin [00:49:43] One thing that I'm really curious about now, I should have put this timeline together. It's kind of obvious, but I didn't think about it, is compare the timeline of when the Vice news story broke. And I have it here. The Vice news story about the Mormon Church denouncing Tim Ballard's behavior as morally unacceptable.

John Dehlin [00:50:03] The. The date of that story is September 15th, and the date his new stake president was called would have been, you know, two weeks prior, you know, to around two weeks prior to last Wednesday. So the new stake president is called right around the time that the Vice news story and the church's announcement comes out. I'd be really curious to know which happened first, whether. Whether the stake president was put in right before the Mormon Church publicly denounced him or right after.

John Dehlin [00:50:39] Maybe our viewers and listeners can do some sleuthing and we'll read for your comments and share them. I would love to know the timeline there. Going back to the statement from Adam Herbert's that I feel is quite euphemistic. It goes on to say that these conversations are strictly confidential and extremely personal.

John Dehlin [00:51:01] I would say that's true, except for the fact that the Mormon Church publicly denounced Tim Ballard as having morally, you know, what. Morally unacceptable behavior. So the Mormon Church is the one that broke the confidentiality about extremely personal things. It's not me, it's not us, it's not Vice News, it's not the media. Anything you want to say about that, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [00:51:31] Yeah, well, she's making it sound like she cannot talk about it because it's com. Because the church asked for it to be confidential. And that's not true. The church. The church does ask for it not to be recordings of the actual proceedings, but they never, ever ask you not to talk about what happens on the proceeding or what the decision has been made or what the decision was. What was the decision made or. Or the letter you received or the letter not being able to be public. The church doesn't have any kind of policy about any of those things being confidential. So it's kind of weird that she is alleging that the Church asked for it to be confidential when. When they don't.

John Dehlin [00:52:10] Yeah, I mean, I bet you could say that she's not. She's just saying it to her. It's confidential. And that may be true, but I don't think it has to be confidential. In other words, it could very well

Gerardo Sumano [00:52:23] just as required by the Church.

John Dehlin [00:52:26] But I don't know if that means that they're having converse. Sorry, we keep switching back and forth. Gerardo, I'm not sure whether she means that the conversations are required by the Church or if confidentiality is. Is required by the Church. But you're reading it as that. That. That the Church requires confidentiality, right? Is that. Is that what you're saying?

Gerardo Sumano [00:52:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:52:49] Yeah. And then extremely personal. But I would add, if they felt like they were innocent or if they wanted to disabuse us of the notion that they were being disciplined or excommunicated, they could tell us. And if they wanted to, they could tell us everything. So they're still choosing confidentiality. And it's almost like they're hiding behind it because Tim is telling everyone he's a member in good standing. He's telling everyone that he's faithful and he's denying. And we're going to show this where he's denying even the Church's own statement that the Church has denounced him. So again, she seems to be hiding behind confidentiality and personal stuff when it's convenient. But then they're. They're almost. It seems like they're participating in disinformation whenever they speak publicly. And that. That. That seems problematic.

Gerardo Sumano [00:53:38] Yeah, I agree.

John Dehlin [00:53:40] The only other thing she writes is that we are complying fully and remain committed to our family and our faith, which is basically sort of a dog whistle for we're still believing faithful Mormons and we're complying fully. I would just say it's not complying fully if they're misleading the public about their membership status and. Or doubting the Church's own statements, which are denouncing Tim. So when. When. When the Deseret News and the Church PR spokesperson and ksl, when they're all sharing the Church's denunciation of Tim Ballard. And frankly, I'm Russell Ballard's denunciation of Tim Ballard, I would say you're not complying fully with. When you create fear, uncertainty and doubt and deny that the Church's statement is even authentic. Is that fair to say? Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [00:54:36] Yeah. Totally.

Details Emerging About the Membership Council

John Dehlin [00:54:37] Okay. One thing I'll say is that I absolutely love my viewers and listeners because I just got an answer to my question and one of my sources just wrote me. We are we already established that the Vice article came out on September 15, 2023. Gerardo, do you want to guess when the new stake president was called?

Gerardo Sumano [00:55:01] I'm not sure. Not sure.

John Dehlin [00:55:03] I'll give you a hint. So, so September 15th was a Friday. If you think about when stake presidents get called generally what day of the week stake presidents traditionally get called?

Gerardo Sumano [00:55:14] 17th.

John Dehlin [00:55:16] Yep, exactly. So my source, who I believe lives in the ward or stake boundaries, he writes that September. He or she writes that September 17th was the stake conference where the stake president was changed Sunday morning. So the Vice News article comes out on Friday and the stake president is replaced two days later and is given his marching orders to excommunicate Tim Ballard. So thank thanks to my awesome sources for providing me with real time information and analysis.

John Dehlin [00:55:53] I do want to share one other corroborating piece of news that I'm Even though it's a problematic blog in in some ways Even though Even though it's a problematic blog in some ways, what is asserted on this blog is important enough that that I want to share it because I've corroborated what's about to be said with other people.

John Dehlin [00:56:23] So this. This. There's this blog called Investigations and Ritual Abuse and the title is Confirmed Tim Ballard Excommunicated. And I got in trouble on Reddit because I just shared this blog post and it imported the title Confirmed Tim Ballard Excommunicated as the Reddit post. So everyone got mad at me thinking that I was claiming that some rando, weird QAnon like blog was proof that Tim Ballard was excommunicated. That wasn't my claim, that's just Reddit importing the title of this blog. But I did think that the information on this blog was worth sharing because what was shared on this blog was the following. The blog wrote that excommunication has been confirmed by key sources due to Tim Ballard's own discussions with others about his communication.

John Dehlin [00:57:20] So again, he starts out by saying that this blogger has confirmed, independent of me, that Tim Ballard has spoken with others about his excommunication. He goes on to write, Tim Ballard claimed that he was excommunicated for going to strip clubs as part of our operations. So already to his close circles, allegedly. And again, what I'm about to say is not only on this blog, but it's been independently reported to me by Multiple sources that what Tim Ballard is telling everyone is that he was excommunicated from for going to strip clubs as a part of our's operations.

John Dehlin [00:58:01] And then so he's not claiming that it was for abusing women, for harassing women, for any of the allegations related to the women who have come up to make allegations. It goes on to write Ballard further alleged that he had cleared such visits with his bishop in advance.

John Dehlin [00:58:21] If that was true, Ballard could have called that bishop to his council proceeding. But that proceeding was irregular at best, just like every other event in the chronology of Tim Ballard's fall. So this person is a supporter of Tim Ballard. He's angry that Tim Ballard was excommunicated. He is critical of the Mormon Church for the way that they handled it. And he goes on to write that he believes what I think Tim Ballard is also telling people, which is that all of this came down because Tim Ballard was rumored to be replaced. Running for Mitt Romney's U.S. senate seat and the political powers in Utah, Mitt Romney and others conspired to take Tim Ballard out before he could announce his candidacy for US Senator from Utah.

John Dehlin [00:59:09] I will add that my original report from weeks ago that helped kick all this off, I think along with Sean Ray as Utah Attorney General telling everyone that he was about to endorse Tim Ballard for Senate even though he didn't name Tim Ballard. You could read that tweet that was attributed to Sean Reyes where it was clear that Sean Reyes was set to endorse Tim Ballard for Senator. It was revealed to me that that Tim Ballard had been telling people that Jesus himself had appeared to Tim Ballard and told Tim Ballard to run for Senate that Jesus was coming soon and that Tim Ballard should announce his Senate candidacy, US Senate candidacy on October 10th.

John Dehlin [00:59:56] So if that is true, and if Tim Ballard is going to obey Jesus and if Jesus hasn't changed his mind, we should have Tim Ballard announcing his run for US Senate in the next eight days. But anyway, that, you know, the conspiracy now, I guess the spin now is that Tim Ballard is telling people he didn't commit adultery, he didn't do anything wrong. He basically went to his bishop, said Bishop, sometimes I have to go to strip clubs to do my underground work. He probably is going to claim that he told his bishops about the couple's ruse.

John Dehlin [01:00:30] And, and we have it reported that he told people broadly, including his undercover wives, that Elder M. Russell Ballard had imp. Had approved of the couple's ruse and even of some limited form of sexual contact. And, and it's reported that that was the main trigger that led M. Russell Ballard and the Mormon Church to denounce Tim Ballard. Was the.

John Dehlin [01:00:55] The allegation that Tim Ballard was using Mormon apostle on Russell Ballard's name to justify his alleged sexual misconduct with his fake. Fake wives. Anything you want to add about all of this, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [01:01:10] No, not really.

John Dehlin [01:01:12] Okay. All right, so. So, you know, we'll see if Tim Ballard is making this excuse. The one thing I would say is, Gerardo, do you think there's any chance Tim Ballard was excommunicated for going to strip clubs?

Gerardo Sumano [01:01:32] No, there's no chance. And I think we're gonna. We're gonna show some slides here. And I mean, I may be a little bit repetitive because we're going to talk about it, but I think there is a lot of.

Gerardo Sumano [01:01:45] I mean, not everybody has the time or interest to go and read the handbook of instructions and really learn what are the reasons for that someone can be excommunicated over. And so I've seen a lot of speculation and a lot of misinformation going around on the Internet on, oh, maybe he was excommunicated because of affairs with, you know, cheating on his wife or whatever. Like. No, in fact, there are very, very specific reasons why someone should or could be excommunicated from the church. And they're listed on the handbook of Instructions. So we're gonna analyze those. Yeah. Your response to your question. There's no, uh, I mean, I.

Gerardo Sumano [01:02:29] There's a. There's a chance I could be wrong, but according to the Hambock of instructions, everything I've heard, and, you know, I, I talk about this a lot on the podcast. My dad is a super believing bishop. And, you know, I. And has been a stake president.

Gerardo Sumano [01:02:45] Sorry, in stake presidencies. And I've. I've known about these proceedings for a long time and we talk about it, you know, constantly. And whenever I have questions, he's always willing to answer because it's public information. The havoc of instruction is public.

Gerardo Sumano [01:03:00] But, yeah, according to my understanding, and, and according to the havoc of instructions, there's no way someone would be excommunicated over. Over going to strip clubs.

John Dehlin [01:03:14] Yeah, yeah, I think that's. That's also very, very unlikely. I do think it's likely that he talked about the couple's ruse and going to strip clubs with his former bishop. One person makes the point that if his former, you know, I guess this was in the article, that if his former bishop had known, he should have been invited to the disciplinary council to testify on his behalf at his excommunication. I do think I do want to share a couple comments. You know, we've got, we've got the conspiracy theorists in the, in the chats. TDW writes, this has Mitt Romney weasel juice all over this.

John Dehlin [01:03:56] I think that's interesting. T. TW writes, mitt Romney is totally behind all of this. So you know that. That's interesting. I don't think so. Some other people write, you know, Julia writes, geez, this sounds like Chad Dabel. George Washington. Hey, Duke writes BS I don't think you would be X for going to strip clubs. We agree that doesn't make any sense.

John Dehlin [01:04:26] Jennifer H. Writes, clearing with bishops for strip club visits. It does sound bizarre. But apparently he cleared it with M. Russell Ballard. That's what Tim Ballard is telling people. So, you know, Bishop's pretty low level. And then Coco B. Is asking, what is the name of the old stake president?

John Dehlin [01:04:45] The former stake president, his last name is. Is. Is Richards. And if you, if you text me, I can give you his first name. But we're trying to not unnecessarily dox people. So Coco, be. Feel free to text me and I'll. I'll give you that information. Okay, so that's kind of.

John Dehlin [01:05:11] So that's kind of the news. And now we're going to give some analysis. Gerardo, you've done a bulk of this analysis. And, you know, we could have shared all this at first, but it would have made it an hour before we got to the evidence. So I put it behind.

John Dehlin [01:05:26] But we're not just doing this again, systems over people. We want to shed a spotlight on the Mormon Church and the way that it can harm people sometimes. So the purpose of this episode is not to call out Tim Ballard, not to shame Tim Ballard. It's to specifically shine a spotlight on what the Mormon Church is doing. And so that's going to be an intro into these next slides. Gerardo, you've got a couple slides on why you wanted to talk about this. And then I'll, I'll. I'll give a slide or two on why I wanted to talk about this.

Gerardo Sumano [01:06:00] Yeah, so, and this was based on some of the comments that I was reading on Facebook of people being upset about, you know, releasing that screenshot and, and, and, you know, saying that it's so unnecessary. But I feel, I mean, I think just like you, John, I feel really passionate about this. And here are some of the reasons why. So, yeah, here on the slide, I, I wrote some of them and I Think, I mean, the first one is that Tim Baller has denied any wrongdoing. I think we all know that.

John Dehlin [01:06:31] And can I just add, didn't in his rant, he said it's all false. Didn't he say. Yeah. That the church's statement was all false. Like all of it. Just completely denied all of it.

Gerardo Sumano [01:06:43] Right, right.

John Dehlin [01:06:44] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:06:45] So that's everything is false. He, he, yeah, he keeps raising an alt right conspiratorial narrative that none of the allegations are true, that these are bad people and pedophiles that are trying to take him down.

John Dehlin [01:07:00] Which, which again, this defense that anyone who criticizes me as a pedophile, it's like the Salem witch trials, accusing people of being a witch. It's like the red scare, the McCarthy red scare of the 1950s. Like, that's a really bad defense and it's a really harmful defense. And I just want to call that out.

Gerardo Sumano [01:07:21] Yeah, I agree. He, you know, he has accused, Buys News and other media outlets, has conspiring against him and lying about the official church statement that denounced him. He has publicly denied that the church official state officially released a statement condemning him and has raised a conspiratorial narrative about the statement. And this is a big issue for me, you know, John, because, I mean, the church did. I think we've talked about this, how the church was a little bit sketchy with releasing this to some media outlets and then, but not doing it publicly. Especially when they have publicly endorsed Tim Ballard before and publicly sold their, his books and publicly talked about him in, in, in, you know, in talks in their universities and stuff like that.

John Dehlin [01:08:15] Yeah, yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:08:17] And so, yeah, Tim Ballard has not clarified or publicly accepted the official church statement even after Destroy News and multiple media outlets have independent, independently confirmed the statement, which, you know, so many people that follow him are still believing that that statement is false and that there's no way he could have done anything to, to make Ambrosel Ballard the apostle, upset. If you go to the next slide, John, do you want to say something?

John Dehlin [01:08:52] Oh, yeah, I just want to say here's, here's, here is the Sally Tribune article that just says LDS church didn't denounce me. Tim Ballard fires back. So it's just a way to visually illustrate that Tim Ballard is just denying everything and that's just irresponsible.

John Dehlin [01:09:11] Address the allegations specifically. Don't just say any. Anything you hear that's negative about me is false. And anyone who makes an accusation is a pedophile and a child abuser. Just Deal. Deal in the facts. That's what we try and do on Mormon Stories podcast. It's what I try and do when, when I'm attacked and it's what I hope to ever do if I am attacked with credible, with credible allegations. I just also wanted to share the Deseret News article.

John Dehlin [01:09:39] Tim Ballard, former CEO of Operation Underground Railroad, issues response to church statement as well, you know, and, and again, he's just denying everything. So that was just a way to visually show that he's complicit.

Gerardo Sumano [01:09:55] I mean that also making that article made me pretty upset on the third paragraph of that article of the Desert News. I mean.

John Dehlin [01:10:02] Oh, that's right. I was going to read that. He writes, I'm a faithful member in good standing in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I believe in Jesus Christ, the Holy Scriptures, and I believe in our faith with my whole heart. That will never change. Now to me, that's a very important dog whistle. But first, Gerardo, why is, why is that important to you?

Gerardo Sumano [01:10:23] Well, keep in mind that this is right after the Desert News has received confirmation, you know, that the statement of the church was official, that it came from the church, that it was approved by the highest ranking leadership of the church. And, and then here they are, you know, the next day or two days later, writing an article and quoting Tim Ballard, you know, with very little pushback, you know, or even asking, com, why didn't they ask comment from the church, you know, hey, what do you have to say about this? Because Timber is saying this is false anyway. And then here Tim Ballard is, is, is claiming that he's a member in good standing.

John Dehlin [01:11:04] Yeah. And for me, that's a dog whistle to say I'm faithful, I'm a believing member. And it's relevant because if he's going to run for Senate, he's certainly going to have a hard time winning if he's an excommunicated member out of favor with the brethren. So if he had not, and I just believe if you're one of the 100 US senators in the United States, you wield an incredible amount of power. And the more power you obtain in public office, I think the more open you should be to public scrutiny. And so if you believe in, in psychics, if you've been misrepresenting, you know, your role in saving children, if you've been exaggerating your, your successes, if you've been misappropriating funds, and, and again, if any of the allegations are true about sexual misconduct, certainly if you're announcing to become a US Senator.

John Dehlin [01:11:57] It's important that people know and in the state of Utah, it's important to know whether you're an active, faithful member. And if you're not, the Utah should know that because Utah is predominantly, or at least I, I would say the voters in Utah are predominantly actively faithful Mormons. They deserve to know the truth, I think for sure. Okay, let's go to your next slide. Gerardo.

Gerardo Sumano [01:12:19] Last one for me, I think.

John Dehlin [01:12:20] Okay, go ahead.

Gerardo Sumano [01:12:21] Yeah. Tim Ballard has publicly announced that he's a. Again, this is. That he's a member in good standing. And all the same, I think you're on the wrong side, John. One before.

John Dehlin [01:12:33] Okay, one before. There we go.

Gerardo Sumano [01:12:35] Yeah, there. Nope, I don't think we're looking at the same one there. That one. All the statements and conspiracy theories raised by Tim Ballard combined with his statements that he remains a member in good standing keep driving support to his questionable organization by people who just don't know the truth or are believing that the church statement is false. So this is another reason why we're talking about this communication where we're looking for evidence that he was excommunicated because he won't talk about it publicly and the church won't release a statement either. And the. The next point. The church has a history of publicly announcing the exclamation excommunication of public figures on the progressive side, but is now trying to walk a careful line with its conservative side by not publicly announcing the excommunication of Tim Ballard.

John Dehlin [01:13:20] And I should just add, Gerardo, that we're going to show that it does it on the conservative side too, whether it's the Bundy guy or Julie Rowe. The church has made a couple statements on its conservative side as well, but. But they're not full throated. Anyway, I just wanted to give that disclaimer.

Gerardo Sumano [01:13:37] Yeah. And then if the church has indeed excommunicated Tim Ballard, it bears a responsibility to disclose this decision. Just that it as it publicly endorsed him and his organization for numerous years. And the members have the right to be informed of that. If the church has changed its stance regarding Tim Ballard, the members have the right to know. I think transparency is essential.

John Dehlin [01:14:01] Yeah, absolutely. And Gerardo, just quickly as you scan through these bullets, did you cover all these bullets already? Did you get them all? I just want to make sure because I think we got out of order on our slides a little.

Gerardo Sumano [01:14:13] Oh, sorry. Yeah. So these ones are. Are more about the excommunication. Its. And then these are like while the majority of cases, local leaders typically handle excommunications. There is a significant body of evidence and historical records that show that high ranking leaders do not take excommunications of public figures lightly and they often play a central role in orchestrating them. So this is another reason why we think it's important to, to show this. Right.

John Dehlin [01:14:40] Yeah. And, and people won't know the history. We're going to be talking about the September 6th next week. But yeah, the Church has a history of top leaders pressuring presidents to excommunicate people, but then legally or for PR reasons, not wanting to have their fingerprints on the excommunications. And then to be able to blame the local stake presidents for the excommunication and say we had nothing to do with it. And the September 6th and my excommunication were perfect examples of where the direction came from on high. Right. But the, but the church tried to blame it on the local leader. And that's a problem.

Gerardo Sumano [01:15:17] Yeah. Because this can also get dismissed as to like, well, the Church does support Tim Ballard, but then, but then, you know, maybe a French bishop or a state person who didn't know much about him.

John Dehlin [01:15:28] And that's, that's exactly what I think the conspiracy crowds will say. Right. Just like they say it was a rogue PR representative in the church that, that released the Tim Ballard statement. They're going to say it's a rogue stake president that excommunicated him in spite of the fact that he was called two days, he was put in place two days after the Church released a statement on Tim Ballard. It's going to be hard for them to make that argument. Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:15:52] And that's why I wrote the next bullet point, that in any case, even if that's true, what the conspirators, I think saying the withdrawal of membership requires final approval from the First Presidency and is highly improbable that they made the decision to excommunicate Tim Ballard without careful consideration and then contrary to popular belief, and I think this is another reason why we're doing this episode is to explain that excommunication in the Mormon Church is reserved for what the Church deems the most serious sins. And we put serious since quotes because here on Mormon stories, we don't believe in, believe in, in sins. We believe people make mistakes, but not, but not, you know, this idea of sins like the Church would, would teach and instances of sexual misconducts or affairs are rarely the primary reason for excommunication.

Gerardo Sumano [01:16:45] And then we'll provide evidence to support this claim. And then again, I think it's essential for people to grasp the true implication of Tim Baller excommunication, particularly in light to reports suggesting that he's alleging that he was excommunicated because. Because he was visiting brothels. You know, I think people really need to understand that that's highly improbable.

John Dehlin [01:17:07] Yeah. Thank you, Gerardo. I'm just going to call out a comment from our dear friend Lila Tuller. Lila writes, everyone smash the like button. We have, you know, something like 800 likes and like 3300 people joining the live stream. It would be great to get over a thousand likes so that YouTube will help share this episode far and wide. So please like this episode. Please please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thanks so much for the super chat donations. Thanks to Chrissa Okamura Kim147 asks when we'll have limb packer on. Chris, we KMB, we've had limb Packer on, but we would love to have him on again.

John Dehlin [01:17:53] We'll make sure that happens. Scrambled Egg says, go on and on. John, I love it when you spill all the tea and give complete context. Thank you. Scrambled egg. Ray Allen writes, interesting that the church will not excommunicate a murderer until they are convicted in a court by a jury of his peers. But not in Timmy Ballard's case. Yeah. Gerardo, is that you're understanding that. That, that Lori Valo and Chad Dabel, you know, were in prison but had not been excommunicated yet. Is that your understanding?

Gerardo Sumano [01:18:25] Yeah. And that's actually on the, on the Hamburg of instructions as well. We're not going to show that screenshot, but the Hamburg of instruction says that there needs to be a conviction and then the, the, the civil, the, the proceedings of, of the law have to take place before an excommunication happens. So the, the evidence would have had to be overwhelming, uh, in my opinion, for the stake president to decide that. That he merit. Merited an excommunication.

John Dehlin [01:18:58] Yeah. All right. And really quickly, thanks again to Chrissa and Kimberly and I know some of you may be annoyed that we call out the super chats. I'm just gonna say we, we need financial support to do what we do. And we're, we try to be ethical in our, the way we manage our finances and transparent and we try not to do. We. I don't feel like we do shenanigans or unethical things. So we need your support. So that's why we do it. All right, so I'm going To just add a couple more reasons why we're talking about Tim Ballard's alleged excommunication.

Why Mormon Stories Covers This Topic

John Dehlin [01:19:33] Number one is transparency. You know, one of the core missions of Mormon Stories podcast is what I call informed consent. Mormons raised in the church are not taught the truth about its history or its doctrine or its culture or practices. Things are withheld from them. And we think that's wrong. People outside of Mormonism are not given the true scoop about Mormonism either. So we believe only full transparency and, you know, allows informed consent. So we, we believe on Mormon Stories podcast that excommunications are medieval or barbaric. I've included a list of all the excommunications that we've covered on Mormon Stories. We've covered my own excommunication.

John Dehlin [01:20:14] Jeremy Runnels, Kate Kelly, Sam Young, Lee and Cody Young, Mark Oslin, Sam Pinson, Jared Lusk, Gina Colvin, Dust Johns, Amy and Jake Maloof, Clay Christensen, Elizabeth Grimshaw, Marisa and Carson Calderwood, Denver Snuffer. And also the couple that you mentioned, Gerardo. For some reason, their blog didn't come up when I covered it. But we cover excommunications on Mormon Stories podcast because we hate them. We think that they're medieval and barbaric, they're spiritually violent, they're culturally violent, and we want them to go away. And so we, we cover it again, not to shame Tim Ballard, but because we want to, you know, cause the Mormon Church to improve its practices to get rid of these things.

John Dehlin [01:20:58] We, you know, we've already talked about the church labeling Tim Ballard and his behavior is unacceptable. I think it's fair to say that it's outrageous of the Mormon Church to label his behavior as morally unacceptable without a fair trial. And he hasn't even been convicted in a court of law yet. And I don't know what evidence was presented that that would have formed the grounds for his excommunication. But if they didn't do their due diligence to make sure that Tim Ballard wasn't falsely accused, which I'm not saying he was falsely accused, but I am saying evidence should rule the day in or out of the church, then it's outrageous that the church publicly shamed him.

John Dehlin [01:21:41] I'll say it again. The Mormon Church has issued public statements on several people that they've excommunicated. I'm just going to share. You know, here's the release on February 10, 2015, where the church announced from Church Newsroom, or whatever it's called. Church responds to John Dehlin's public comments. The church has the responsibility to correct the public record. Why in the world Mormon Church was it crucial for you to correct the public record, in your words, for my excommunication. There it is right there. Published in LDS newsroom. But. But you don't do the same thing with Tim Ballard. I'm also going to show that, that with the Bundy.

John Dehlin [01:22:25] I don't know which Ammon or Cliven, I, I get them all confused. But here's the Mormon Church issuing a statement around the Bundy excommunication. And then in viewers and listeners can tell me which Bundy was excommunicated or if it was multiple Bundys. And then here is the church denouncing Sam Young for his excommunication and then Julie Rowe for her excommunication as well.

John Dehlin [01:22:55] So. And thank you to fair Mormon, or fair lds, whatever they're called these days, for providing that information. So anyway, the church has been inconsistent about its willingness to denounce people. But, but I think that begs the question as to why the church isn't going to do what it's done in the past and issue a formal statement from its newsroom stating and clarifying what's going on. Gerardo, you were laughing for a second. Why are we laughing about the fair

Gerardo Sumano [01:23:27] letter to say, Latter Day Saints or whatever they're called, providing us with information.

John Dehlin [01:23:33] Yeah. Yep. All right. So please, Mormon Church issue a formal news release. And yeah, and again, I've already made the point about Tim Ballad are running for Senate. Allegedly. I think that's important. Okay. So from here, and that's the point that I wanted to make, Mormon Church, why no official statement about Tim Ballard? Stakes are high. You're literally causing disaffections on the right and left over this. It just. Please, Mormon Church, I beg of you, issue an official formal statement about Tim Ballard or frankly, you risk him becoming the next US Senator from Utah.

John Dehlin [01:24:16] I think, I think if regardless of where you stand with Donald Trump, given all the allegations against Donald Trump, if Donald Trump can become President of the United States, Tim Ballard could easily become US Senator from Utah if the Mormon Church doesn't speak up. And if the Mormon Church thinks that Tim Ballard is morally reprehensible, then it has a duty to correct the record and let its members and the state of Utah know not only, not only what it believes about Tim Ballard, but to demonstrate the evidence for why it believes it.

John Dehlin [01:24:55] Because a U.S. senate seat is extremely serious. Okay, so, Gerardo, now for the final part of this episode. You've done a really awesome analysis of the Mormon Church's handbook as it relates to disciplinary councils and excommunications. Is there anything else, Gerardo, you want to say before we go to your analysis?

Walking Through the Church Discipline Handbook

Gerardo Sumano [01:25:19] No, we can jump right into it. I'll try to go as quickly as we can. Just not bore people here.

John Dehlin [01:25:25] Okay. And tell us why you felt like this was important to talk about. And I hope our friends in the media particularly will pay attention. But, Gerardo, why is this important?

Gerardo Sumano [01:25:36] Again, I think Tim Ballard is gonna. Even if a public statement ends up coming out from the church that he was in fact excommunicated, the narrative among conservatives and Tim Baller cons supporters is probably going to be that he was excommunicated based on, you know, just some little thing like going to brothels or. Or maybe taking a shower with. With a. A person that was not his wife, when in reality that. That's not there. There. According to the Handbook of Instructions, there's no way that would have been. That could have been a reason for an excommunication. And, and I think it's important for people to know, okay, what are the reasons why people are excommunicated in the Mormon.

Gerardo Sumano [01:26:20] In the. In the Mormon Church. And they're very, very specific. So that's why I think it was important to just go through what the Handbook of Instruction says, because this is what rules. Whenever a stake president or bishop are going to take decisions on discipline, disciplinary matters, this is what guides them to make those decisions.

John Dehlin [01:26:42] All right, so I'm just gonna quickly. I. I like to share feedback and even criticisms. Jesse Nashville James writes, Your YouTube channel is becoming like the national. National Esquire magazine. I think Jesse means National Enquirer. I'm just gonna say I believe I've talked about this in previous episodes. I believe it's important to talk about Tim Ballard not because of the scandal, not because it's titillating, not for the views, but because truth matters, and truth in Utah matters. Conspiracy theories damage everyone.

John Dehlin [01:27:21] And U.S. senate seats matter. And people who claim to be saving children, if they're exaggerating their claims, if they're taking credit for other people's work, if they're misappropriating funds, then that's unethical. It harms children to run an organization claiming to save children in a. In a allegedly super unethical and deceitful way. So if you care. If you care about trafficked children. I had a family member over the weekend. There was a. A wedding in my family I won't go into details, but a family member said Tim Ballard saving children. Anyone who goes against Tim Ballard must, must be a pedophile, because who would oppose the saving of children?

John Dehlin [01:28:15] I'm going to just say this again. If you care about trafficked children, if you care about abused children, then you should care. If Tim Ballard is misappropriating funds, exaggerating his rescues, taking credit for other people's rescues, and, and diverting nonprofit money into his for profits. And you know, as the face of child rescue, if it's true that he's sexually abusing women, all of that should concern you. If you care about children, along with the fact that truth matters and, and, and the US Senate seat from Utah should matter. So if you don't get why we're covering this, if you think that we're covering this just to be a tabloid journal or even just because we want clicks and views, you're wrong.

John Dehlin [01:29:08] We've been covering Tim Ballard for multiple years now. And we've been doing it at our own, in some ways at our own expense because historically, every time we covered the truth about Tim Ballard, we lost donors and we lost support. So for people claiming that we're doing this to be a tabloid magazine, consider rethinking that, because that's not what this, what this is about. Okay. Gerardo, do you want to jump in?

Gerardo Sumano [01:29:37] Yeah. So I think as I was just giving that a brief explanation of what we're gonna see, someone commented sexual contact can absolutely get you X. I again, that's not my understanding. That's not what the Handbook of Instruction says. And if anyone has any evidence against that, I, I, I would love of love it to be provided because again, I, I don't see it anywhere, I've never seen it anywhere on Handbook of Instructions.

John Dehlin [01:30:08] Let's jump into it.

Gerardo Sumano [01:30:09] All right, sounds good. All right, so, so this one is, these are, you're going to be seeing screenshots from different sections of, of the membership council section in the, in the, in the handbook. This is the first one purposes of church membership restrictions. So this is why a membership restriction or withdrawal or excommunication could happen.

Gerardo Sumano [01:30:33] And this, the purpose, number one is to help protect others. It says victims, especially from people who have predatory behaviors like physical harm, sexual abuse, substance abuse, etc. And then the second one is help a person access their repentance through Jesus Christ. And then the third one is protect the integrity of the church. I think we covered this on More Mystery several times. So we, I always bring it up that this is one of the main interests of the Mormon Church is to protect its good name, or what they call their good name. And so this is why they would hold a disciplinary council and, and, and assign restrictions. Did you have anything to say, John?

John Dehlin [01:31:18] Oh, let's go ahead and go. So just to summarize, the church excommunicates people to protect others, to help them repent and to protect the integrity of the church. And I would just say if Tim Ballard has engaged in sexual predation like has been alleged, then that would qualify for protecting others. Especially if he's using EM. Russell Ballard's name to justify it. I'm sure they would want him to repent. And in this case, because the Mormon Church has sold hundreds of thousands, I'm guessing Tim Ballard books mentioned him in multiple talks from general authorities, mentioned him in the, in the deseret news over 200 times promoting his operation Underground Railroad, his books, et cetera. And it's been well established that M. Russell Ballard and Tim Ballard were buddies. I do think that all three of these main justifications likely apply to Tim Ballard's alleged excommunication.

Gerardo Sumano [01:32:18] Yeah. Yep.

John Dehlin [01:32:19] Yeah. All right, next slide.

Gerardo Sumano [01:32:22] Yeah, so here we. If this one's. This section is called Serious Sins that are not Confessed or are Denied, which is probably what's going to happen or happen in this case. Right. Like Tim Bar has denied and probably keeps denying all wrongdoing. So what happens is those instances. And I just wanted to point out this, this phrase of. Or words used here, serious sins. And we talked about this earlier on the podcast and we're gonna. The. The handbook has a really specific definition for what a serious sin is and we'll talk about that. But then it says a bishop or stake president typically learns about a serious sin through confession or from another person.

Gerardo Sumano [01:33:05] He may receive promptings about a potential serious sin through the Holy Ghost. If he feels prompted that someone may be struggling with Zen, he may schedule an interview. During the interview, he shares his concerns and avoids any tone of accusation. And I'm trying to paraphrase as much as possible just so you know, but you can go and read it for yourself. If a member denies committing a serious sin that the bishop or state prison has information to support a membership council may still be held and, and see that it says it may still be held. Right. It doesn't require it. However, a spiritual impression alone is not sufficient to hold a council.

Gerardo Sumano [01:33:44] So they need evidence. It says the leader may gather additional information if needed and he follows the guidelines in 32.4.3, and we're gonna read those guidelines, okay? And this one is about, okay, how, how the bishops or stake prisons gather information.

Gerardo Sumano [01:34:05] And it just talks about, you know, before the council, the bishop, the strict person, gathers as much information as they can or they need information from members. Confession is often sufficient. So, so if someone confesses, that's enough. But information may also come from family member, another church leader or victim or a participant in the sin.

Gerardo Sumano [01:34:27] When gathering information, the bishop or sacred should only use methods that are appropriate for priesthood leaders. So they should not keep a watch on a person home or record him or, or her without consent, nor should use any practice that are illegal. And then it says false accusations are rare but can occur. Priesthood leaders should be cautious when there is limited information besides one person's word.

Gerardo Sumano [01:34:52] So this is important to me because it, it's, it talks about, you know, what happens when there's just one allegation and it says that that's not enough, one person's word. It's limited information. And priesthood leaders should be careful. Right?

Gerardo Sumano [01:35:08] So then what happens? You know, for example, a member who is accused of adultery may deny the charge, but the Scripture explained that every worshall established against him or here by two witnesses. So two witness is the minimum required.

Gerardo Sumano [01:35:22] So it needs to come from two separate sources. And this could include the knowledge of a participant and some other reliable source. And at times previous leaders may need to wait to act until more information becomes available. So yeah, that's all important because again, the people that would have accused him of, of some wrongdoing would have had to be multiple people. And we'll read in other parts of the handbook that they need to be members of the church.

Gerardo Sumano [01:35:49] They can't be just any, you know, John Doe on the, on the street. And he has to be clear through their own bishops and sick presidents. So it's a whole process. It's not like anyone just can come and give an allegation and then the bishop, you'll get automatically excommunicated. There's, there's a whole process for it.

John Dehlin [01:36:06] And I'll just add it's very possible that the women who are some of the women who accuse, who are accusing Tim Ballard of inappropriate sexual conduct could be members likelier members could have talked to their bishops or stake presidents and then those bishops or stake presidents could have fed information. And if, if Tim Ballard's disciplinary council was anything like mine and other apostates, it's very likely the church has been gathering evidence on Tim Ballard through the strengthening the church members Committee, you can look that up. It's, it's literally a thing. It's like the Mormon Church's own, you know, CIA, FBI or kgb. The Mormon Church

John Dehlin [01:36:46] has a Strengthening the Church Members committee that gathers intel on its own members, puts it into a big folder, and then when necessary, sends that folder of evidence to the stake President so that the member can be disciplined. And so it's possible that testimonies from these alleged victims were aggregated and used as evidence in, in Tim's disciplinary council.

Gerardo Sumano [01:37:12] Yeah, yep, agree. And then the next screenshot shows this is called overview of the setting. So who, who, who is the one that's going to hold the disciplinary council? The bishop or the sick person. And basically what it says is that if it's likely that the membership is going to get excommunicated or get their membership withdrawn, how it's called now, they, it needs to be a stake membership council, which means the state President and his councilors are going to hold the council. And that's what happened in this case because he, he had, he was likely to get his membership withdrawn. So, so because this was a stake membership council, it indicates us that this had to be a serious sin.

Gerardo Sumano [01:37:58] And we're gonna again read in a moment what the list of serious sins are. And that's really important because it really narrows down what would be the reasons for the council and the reasons for the, for the excommunication.

John Dehlin [01:38:16] And as we've already reported, Tim Ballard had a stake membership council and it was only the stake presidency, three men that would have done his disparity council.

Gerardo Sumano [01:38:27] Right, right. Okay, so the next screenshot shows this here, here it is the severity of the sin. And here is the, the definition of serious sins. It says serious sins are deliberate and major of offense against the laws of God. Categories of serious sins are listed below. And, and here are the five categories. Violent acts and abuse.

Gerardo Sumano [01:38:52] Sexual immorality. And there's, there's a, and then there's a reference there or, you know, a link. Because sexual immorality as it's defined, as it's shown here has a very specific definition. I think a lot of people might think, oh, you know, cheating on your wife or, or adultery would be sexual immorality. Well, for this one, for this one here, that's uh, a serious sin category. The church has a very specific definition that I'm going to read in a moment. And then the next one is fraudulent, fraudulent, fraudulent acts, violations of trust and some other acts. And then if you go to the next one, John So just to repeat.

John Dehlin [01:39:35] Just. Just to repeat the. The most serious sins are violent acts and abuse, sexual immorality, fraudulent acts, violations of trust, and then other acts. And I would have to say this is new because just a few years ago when the November 2015 policy came out, you know, there was a list of like, things that required mandatory excommunication. And things like rape and incest were not on the list, but same sex marriage was. And. And we embarrassed the church about that very strength, strongly and forcefully. And I can see that this is an update from the. The fallout and the aftermath of the November 2015 policy.

Gerardo Sumano [01:40:22] They even removed apostasy from here, which is really interesting. They. They put it in its own category later on a different section of the handbook where it explains what apostasy is. And it says right there that apostasy requires a disciplinary council. But they didn't. They don't put it here for some reason. I don't know why, but anyway.

John Dehlin [01:40:45] Okay. All right, let's go to some somebody's. I don't know if you like this or not, Gerardo. Somebody is already writing J.C. wright. Sounds like Tim did all of them. So when you're looking at this list, Violent acts and abuse, sexual immorality, fraudulent acts, violations of trust. Is that how you read it, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [01:41:07] No, you have. I mean, we don't know which one. Which one of these categories he was accused of, he was accused of. But it kind of narrows it down because again, the. The rumors that's going around is that it's a brought. He visited a brothel. Well, that's not here. That's not part of this category. And again, if you go to the next slide, there's a very specific definition for sexual immorality.

John Dehlin [01:41:33] Here it is.

Gerardo Sumano [01:41:33] So sexual immorality has another 1, 2, 3, 4. Four different categories or what?

John Dehlin [01:41:42] Would you want me to read them?

Gerardo Sumano [01:41:43] Yeah, please.

John Dehlin [01:41:44] Okay. So this is what the Mormon Church defines as sexual immorality, incest, child pornography, plural marriage, and sexual predatory behavior. So incest. A member membership council is required for incest as defined in 38610. Withdrawing a person's church membership is almost always required. Again, those of us who criticize the Mormon Church get to take credit for that because that's new. That's just in the last few years. It used to be that incest and child abuse was almost likely to be swept under the rug and not lead to an excommunication. So incest, child pornography. A membership council is required if a person is involved in child pornography, plural Marriage.

John Dehlin [01:42:32] A membership council is required if a person knowingly enters into a plural marriage. Some plural marriages may occur in secret with the spouse not knowing about one or more other spouses Withdrawing A person's church membership is required if a person knowingly enters into plural marriage. And then the final one is sexual predatory behavior. A membership council is required if an adult repeatedly harms people sexually and is a threat to others. What's not there is pedophilia. What's not there is child abuse. Right. And I'm just trying to understand why in the crap would it not say that. That molesting a child is. Is sort of always required.

Gerardo Sumano [01:43:14] We have a. We. I remind you, John, that one of our bishops that, that, you know, contacts has told us recently, just in the past weeks, that he has been in several disciplinary councils where there has been a child abuser in question, and the child abuser was not excommunicated. So this is. Again, I'm racing this because this is how serious stake presidents and bishops take these instructions. If it's not outlined here, they're likely not going to excommunicate the member. And again, I'll re. I'll just say one more time in the list that John just read, there's not cheating on your wife. There's not brothels. There's not, you know, masturbation or whatever. They're fake tattoos. You know, there's very specific definitions of what merits a serious sin.

John Dehlin [01:44:15] This is also really important. And I'm just realizing this now. If you actually look at the text again, there's even a hierarchy within these four. It's saying that child pornography is required. So child pornography is required, and plural marriage is required if a person knowingly enters into a plural marriage and if the person is sexually predatory. But check this out. Incest says is almost always required. So, so the church is saying there are instances where someone can engage in incest and they won't be excommunicated. Can anyone explain to me what the exceptions would be of incest that would allow a. An adult who is engaged in incest to not be excommunicated? That's just completely bizarre to me.

Gerardo Sumano [01:45:13] And again, this goes again, more to my point, John, that excommunication is reserved for very, very, very serious sins. The only exception, the only exception is if you have been someone that was committed the sin, and I'm saying air quotes while being a bishop, a stake president, uh, area authority or general authority or mission president. That's the only, the only reason why you would be put into this category of serious sin. And. And those the church calls a violation of trust. And they're under what. What's right there? Outline as some other acts. But. But Tim Ballard was neither of those. So.

John Dehlin [01:46:00] Okay. Yeah. Really quickly, Nick Johnson writes. Maybe it's nepotism. And that's possible that like some apostles, children or grandchildren have been involved in incest. Or like other children or grandchildren of super wealthy members. And they want to have an exception for the super rich and powerful. I'm just speculating, but I'm just. I can't imagine when incest wouldn't be. Have mandatory excommunication. All right, let's go to the next slide. Gerardo, this is interesting. Keep sharing.

Gerardo Sumano [01:46:31] Yeah. So this one is when a membership council is required. And then I think this is just repeating the same thing of what. Of what the church considers a serious sin. Again, for some reason, child abuse is not in the category of serious sin. But they will include it here on when the membership council is required. So they're not telling you, hey, this merits excommunication because it's not in the category of serious sin. But it may. It requires the membership council. And then the state person can make their own decision. But again, what you won't find here is brothels. You won't find fake tattoos. You won't find cheating on your wife. It's. There's a very specific list.

John Dehlin [01:47:17] I'll read them. It's murder, rape, sexual assault conviction. So if there's allegations or like a credible victim, but you're not convicted in a court of law. I guess sexual assault doesn't rise to the requiring of a membership council. Child or youth abuse, abuse of a spouse or another adult. Predatory behavior, violence, sexual or financial incest. Child pornography, plural marriage. Serious sin while holding a prominent church position. Or most, but not all felony convictions. So again, yeah. The difference between that latter list and the former. It seems like the latter list includes everything that's in the former, but it lists some other things where it's not. So I don't understand totally the difference between the first list of four and the second list. Yeah, go ahead.

Gerardo Sumano [01:48:19] So the first sin. The first. Sorry, the first list is the. The. The. The sins that require a withdrawal of membership, basically, you know, or almost.

John Dehlin [01:48:32] Or almost always require. Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:48:36] And then the second list is when they require the membership council. And then it's up to the bishop or stake president to determine whether the member will be excommunicated or not. Again, that's why we have reports of bishops who have been in disciplinary councils with child rapers or rapists and who have not been excommunicated because he's not on the list of serious sin.

John Dehlin [01:49:02] I would say it's almost guaranteed that the majority of child abusers in the Mormon Church have not been excommunicated because there's tens of thousands just in the Boy Scouts alone, let alone, you know, all the other young girls that have been sexually abused, based on the reports to me. Okay. Anything else about this slide, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [01:49:21] No, that's it.

John Dehlin [01:49:22] All right, let's go to the next slide.

Gerardo Sumano [01:49:24] This one is a little table, a pretty table that they, the Church has put together now on the new handbook of instructions to make this a lot easier for bishops and Sikh residents because it's very convoluted. But this just basically shows when the membership council or the disciplinary council is required versus when it may be necessary. So basically when the bishop and sick president have to do it, the Church requires them to do it versus when they have the choice whether or doing it or not. And when they are required to do it is again on the cases of the list of serious sins or, or, or the list that we read earlier.

Gerardo Sumano [01:50:09] Murder, rape, sexual assault conviction, childhood sex abuse, violent predatory behavior, incest, child pornography, plural marriage, and sexually predatory behavior. And then on the list of maybe necessary. And this can confuse people a little bit because here in this list where it may be necessary, you will find the adultery, fornication, same sex relations, and all other sexual relations outside of legal marriage. So you'll see that that here again, it's on the list of may be necessary, which means that it's not considered a serious sin.

John Dehlin [01:50:48] It's optional.

Gerardo Sumano [01:50:48] It's optional. And then, but then later we're gonna find out that for membership withdrawal or for excommunication is reserved only for. For the serious sins. So the fact that it's listed as maybe necessary means that it's. The Church does not consider it, you know, like a big deal or for or. Or something that merits excommunication. That's a better way to put it.

John Dehlin [01:51:14] One thing I'm noticing, I'm not seeing change, you know, transgender surgery or transgenity, transgender identity transformation as being anywhere on this list that seems like it's a change from previous years. Is that your understanding, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [01:51:30] They, they have put it somewhere else on the handbook book. It's is weird. I don't know why they did that. They did that with apostasy and they did that with transgender.

John Dehlin [01:51:39] Yeah, because I was excommunicated. For apostasy. And look at that. It's nowhere on the list. What the crap like what. What I was excommunicated for isn't there anymore. So. So we've already talked about when a membership council is required. I'm just gonna go back and reiterate when it's. I guess. Is this saying that fraudulent predatory financial behavior requires a membership council? Is that what it's saying, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [01:52:08] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:52:09] Like embezzlement of church funds. Of course the church is going to excommunicate you for that serious sin while holding a prominent church position. So obviously, if you're like a general authority or stake president or bishop, it's likely going to make you more likely to be excommunicated. I think that's for tarnishing the church's good name. The church doesn't like that.

John Dehlin [01:52:30] For doing anything that would make people question the inspired nature of leaders. I'm guessing why they make it more serious. And then most family convictions, but not all. Let me just read, you know, read the things where a disciplinary council is optional. Right. Attempted murder. So it's optional.

John Dehlin [01:52:52] For a disciplinary council within the Mormon church is optional if you attempt to murder somebody. So as long as you don't actually murder them, you may not even get punished for it. Sexual abuse is optional. So if I'm reading this right, sexual abuse. A disparate counsel is optional if you sexually abuse a child, and that includes harassment and assault. A disparity counsel is optional if you abuse your spouse or another adult.

Gerardo Sumano [01:53:24] Sorry, I'm gonna correct you right there. Child or youth abuse are on its own category on the left.

John Dehlin [01:53:30] Then why does it say optional?

Gerardo Sumano [01:53:32] Sexual abuse? Sexual abuse of another adult is optional.

John Dehlin [01:53:37] But that's confusing because they're under. Right there. Membership council may be necessary. It says sexual abuse.

Gerardo Sumano [01:53:45] Yeah, but. But not of youth. Of it. Or child.

John Dehlin [01:53:48] But it doesn't say that. So that's confusing because somebody could read that, a bishop could read that second column and say, oh, it's sexual abuse. I don't have to call a disciplinary council. So I think that's confusing. If it's adult sexual abuse, they need to clarify. I think.

Gerardo Sumano [01:54:03] Yeah. And let me say this again. All this that you're reading right now is it would be extremely rare that any of this would merit an excommunication just because they are not required. And then there's a. Again, we're going to read in a little bit a list of what's required for. Sorry, what merits. Merits an excommunication.

John Dehlin [01:54:26] Okay, keep Going, yeah, so, so again, adultery. Adultery. Disciplinary council is optional. Fornication, it's optional. Same sex relations is optional. That's good news, right? Like that means that a non married LGBT person doesn't necessarily now have to be excommunicated or even have a disparate council by their bishop. And it should be handled privately. Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:54:50] And if you remember, that's the issue we brought, we brought up with Douglas and his husband when we cover the story on Mormon stories was that they were trying to, the bishop was trying to excommunicate them. But, but then the, the handbook of instruction does not require it anymore. So we were telling the bishop, you have kind of like a vendetta against them because you're not required to do this. You're choosing to do this. And then once we put it that way, the bishop kind of backed off and didn't excommunicate them.

John Dehlin [01:55:19] Yeah. Nick Johnson writes this. This is a major leadership roulette situation. And that's true. It's just leaving too much discretion up to the local leaders. But I've seen, you know, I remember the day when same sex married couples were excommunicated and it was mandatory. And the church has not gone back and apologized for that or corrected it.

Gerardo Sumano [01:55:42] And remember. Sorry, I interrupt you again, Sorry. But they didn't change a lot. Like adultery, fornication, same sex relations, they stayed on the same category. So what they did, if you remember, is they made sexual. Entering in a same sex marriage, they made that into apostasy. So they said marrying in the same sex marriage is apostasy, which put it in its category, in the category of requirements required. So in reality, you know, not a lot change other than they, they said, oh, never mind. I guess same sex marriage is not apostasy, so we will just remove it. And that's how they were able to kind of put it back.

John Dehlin [01:56:25] Okay, so other things that are optional, sexual relations outside of legal marriage. So now if you are a, an adult, single adult having sex, a disciplinary council by your bishop is optional. Even if you've been endowed, even if you've served a mission, it's now optional. Go make sure and tell your bishop or stake president that. Hey, bishop and stake president, you don't have to be holding a disciplinary council. The handbook itself says that it's optional.

John Dehlin [01:56:55] Cohabitation, civil union, same sex marriage, pornography use, again, all optional. Robbery, burglary and theft and embezzlement are optional disciplinary councils along with perjury. So it's okay. It's not necessarily a Excommunicable offense to lie under oath. I wonder why that's okay.

John Dehlin [01:57:20] Yeah. And then embezzling church funds. It's optional. It says anyway, I think we get abortion. It's optional. Abandonment of family responsibilities is optional. That should be mandatory. Sale of illegal drugs is optional. I think that's probably good. And then other serious criminal acts. Okay, Gerardo, let's go ahead and let's go to the next slide.

Gerardo Sumano [01:57:46] Yeah, so the next.

John Dehlin [01:57:47] Sorry, I gotta pull it up. Keep talking. I'll pull it up. Give me one second.

Gerardo Sumano [01:57:50] So the next slide just is talking about the sick president being over membership councils in the stake that he gives approval if a bishop wants to hold. That doesn't apply here. That the bishop. The. The bishop needs approval from the stake president to hold a disciplinary council. And then my whole. And then. Yeah, so they must give approval before the war membership council. That's. That's it. Basically. Basically this does just explains that the state president has the authority to do this.

John Dehlin [01:58:24] Yeah. And I think. I think, you know, what we tried to do since Kate Kelly since 2014 is to publicize disciplinary councils to the point where it embarrasses the church because we believe they're so awful. So I can see why the church would want to avoid the pr. The public relations blowback of these barbaric and medieval practices. And so I can see why the church would say, hey, don't go above your pay grade. Let the stake president decide. And in addition, I imagine that the stake president guaranteed is going to speak with their area authority and probably with Kurt McConkey before a trigger gets pulled on anything that could, you know, affect the church's image in any way negatively. All right. The statement for victims. You want to talk about that?

Late-Breaking Intel and Listener Reactions

Gerardo Sumano [01:59:16] Yeah. So we just. We just received some intel from. Not sure if we can reveal the stories, but he says he was asked for his sexually inappropriate behavior with his female operatives. Confirmed some went to their bishops or sick. Prison and delegation were forwarded to general authorities. And this is what we're going to read right here.

Gerardo Sumano [01:59:40] So obtain statements from victims. So what happens? You know, the. The member is denying that he did anything wrong and then says when a church a member is a victim, such as insist child abuse, spouse abuse or fraud.

Gerardo Sumano [01:59:55] The bishop or state person contacts the person's current bishop or stake president and these leaders determine whether. Whether it would be helpful to give the victim an opportunity to provide a written statement about the misconduct. And these statements may be read in a membership council and Ch. Church leaders do not have the authority to initiate contact with victims who are not members of the church. So again this, this further proves that you know, this had to come directly from, from members of the church through their bishops or stake president. So you had to be vetted twice.

Gerardo Sumano [02:00:27] Kind of like the allegations, right? Through inspiration I guess. And then any communication with the victim for this purpose is made by his or her current bishop or stake president. If a victim provides a statement, this leader gives it to the bishop or stake president who holds the membership council. And then so yeah, that's pretty much it.

John Dehlin [02:00:49] Let me go and read a couple comments that have come in because they're kind of fun. Diana R. Writes, maybe Delin can get his membership back since apostasy isn't a reason anymore. I love that. Diana. Let's get, let's, let's bring John de Lynn back as a member of the church.

John Dehlin [02:01:07] T. Lotus writes lying to the sec. Is that optional? And that's referring to the Mormon Church lying on its tax forms. Apparently that's optional for disciplinary council. And then, and then Yaya Kelly writes because white collar criminals are normally higher earners.

John Dehlin [02:01:26] Life according to two writes, my bishop committed financial fraud and there was no counsel. He is still the bishop. The stake president would not even address it despite having all the evidence stating criminal case hadn't finished. Thanks for sharing that.

John Dehlin [02:01:42] Rachel D. Writes, I hate having to catch up but this is good info. Glad you are enjoying it. Rachel. Those are just some of the comments coming in. We really appreciate all the comments coming in and of course any super chats that people are willing to throw our way.

John Dehlin [02:01:59] That's, that's how we keep the lights on. Language of Horses writes, what about those who run improper multi level marketing organizations? Are they on the list? I don't think so because I think the church makes stake presidents out of new skin CEOs. That's at least been true in the past.

Gerardo Sumano [02:02:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:02:20] So I think the Church likes multi level marketing organizations. That's, that's just my impression. Okay Gerardo, let's. Should we go to the next slide?

Gerardo Sumano [02:02:30] Yeah, so I guess. I promise we're almost done. And the last slide, the last two slides are going to be really really important. So just make sure you, you hold

John Dehlin [02:02:42] on, hold on for the end.

Gerardo Sumano [02:02:43] Yes. Then this one says if the member denies the misconduct he or she may present information to the council. This could be written or the member may ask persons who could provide it relevant information to speak to the council. So he could have people, you know how he's posting videos on his Instagram of people who are. Of women who support him and saying that he never did anything wrong. So he could have brought all of these women, including the tattoo artists to come and testify on the membership council.

Gerardo Sumano [02:03:13] And such person should be church members unless the bishop or sacred have been determine in advance that a non member may attend. And each. And then, you know, it just talks about that, that he can have people testifying on his behalf. So it's not all. It's not like the stake president or the bishop are gonna take these allegations in FA at face value. Uh, again, like we've read before on the handbook, it has to come from multiple people. It. And then it has to be vetted not only by Tim Ballard's sake. Presley has to be vetted through their own stake presidents and bishops. And according to the reports, general authorities were involved as well.

Gerardo Sumano [02:03:57] So the evidence would have been kind of, kind of overwhelming according to this. And then the, the next slide, John, this is the, one of the most important ones because this one shows what are the reason, what are the reasons why someone might get excommunicated?

Gerardo Sumano [02:04:19] Because remember all that we talked about, we talked about why people may get a disciplinary council, but this one shows why the decision to excommunicate my, my, you know, my come. And it says withdrawing a person's church membership is required for a murder and plural marriage. And it almost always requires for instance, incest as explained. And then it says as directed by the Spirit, withdrawing persons membership may also be necessary as follows. And here are four bullet points for those whose conduct makes them a serious threat to others, for those who have committed especially severe sins, for those who did not demonstrate repentance or of serious.

Gerardo Sumano [02:05:05] Again the word serious. We already said, we already talked about what those serious sins are for those who do not demonstrate repentance of serious sins and for those who commit serious sins that harm the church. So Tim Ballard would have had to follow fall into any of these four categories and you, I mean you can just decide which one he pro. You know, and it's. Yeah. So I think that's why this slide is very important. Again, there's not brothels here mentioned. There's not adultery or fornication. It's very specific about what, what are the four reasons why someone might get their membership withdrawn?

John Dehlin [02:05:51] Okay. And also isn't that, isn't that slide basically saying that, that the stake president can do whatever they, they feel at the end of the day that, that the state president, if, if the spirit dictates, you know, what's a Severe sin, especially severe sins. Right.

Gerardo Sumano [02:06:12] If they already already met the list of serious sins.

John Dehlin [02:06:15] I know, but it just seems like it's basically this is a catch all saying if the stake president feels something, they can kind of do what they want. Right. If they don't demonstrate repentance. Right. Of seriousness if they harm the church like that last one. If they commit sins that harm the church. I think there's a big concern that because the church promoted Tim Ballard so much, because it was well known he had a close relationship with Apostle M. Russell Ballard, that it really harmed the church for Tim to get into so much trouble with sexual scandal with, with the psychic, with potentially embezzling funds, with the federal investigation into his finances, and with allegedly telling people that Elder Ballard himself approved of the couple's ruse.

John Dehlin [02:07:04] Those are all things that could, could potentially really harm the church. And, and basically question the inspiration and authority and judgment of, you know, the, the most single, the most senior apostle that isn't in the first presidency. So don't you think that's relevant, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [02:07:25] Yeah, but I think I disagree a little bit with you just because in the, in there, it's, it's the worst serious is there. And my understanding is that stake, this word serious, you know, is specifically defined already on the handbook. And yeah, it says since I harmed the church, but the word serious is there and it even gives a link to what those serious sins are. And we already read what those are. And, and so, you know, I don't think it's as open as like, oh, the, the stake president can decide based on inspiration. It has to fall, it has to fall into one of these categories. But, but yeah, that's, that's my understanding and that's my opinion.

John Dehlin [02:08:09] Well, all I can say to you is that calm diet, calm tie, dye says, nailed it, John. So I, I, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Okay. So it, you know, people can read it and, and draw their own conclusions. I think your analysis, you're, you're almost always right, Gerardo. When you and I disagree, you're almost always right. So I'm going to guess you're probably right. But we've given a couple different opinions that you can consider. And let me go ahead.

Gerardo Sumano [02:08:36] Let me just make my point. I, my point is that, and this is my opinion, if he was excommunicated, he had to be excommunicated because he was considered a sexual member. He said adultery, someone who repeatedly harms people sexually and is a threat to others. That's in my Opinion from all that we've read from the category of serious sins. That's the only one that he there would. Based on the reports that we've gotten, the stake president and the first presidency would have had to consider Tim Ballard to be someone who repeatedly harms people sexually and is a threat to others. I mean, it's clearly defined there. But again, that's my opinion. And it's formed based on what the handbook instructs and assess.

John Dehlin [02:09:28] Okay. All right, let's go ahead and go

Gerardo Sumano [02:09:32] to the next slide, the last one. Again, we talked about this already, but it is where it says that the First Presidency has the final decision or authority over membership withdrawals. So the state president sends a recommendation to them, and they're the ones who give the final approval of the membership withdrawal.

John Dehlin [02:09:54] And I think that's really important because for the conspiracy theorists that are going to want to claim that it was a rogue stake president, that, that the church, you know, the first presidency in the Quorum of the twelve certainly wouldn't approve of it. By definition, excommunications, according to this policy, are always, you know, done under the final authority of the. The LDS Church First Presidency. Is that your point?

Gerardo Sumano [02:10:22] Yeah. Yep.

John Dehlin [02:10:23] Okay. All right. Do you want to cover this is last slide. Something you want to talk about? Violations of trust?

Gerardo Sumano [02:10:28] No, no. I mean, people can go read it. It's 32.6, 1.4, but basically just lists who are the. The people who might. Who might face excommunication if they commit adultery. And Tim Ballard is not listed there because he didn't have any of those callings. But.

John Dehlin [02:10:47] Yeah, yeah. So. So if. If people are speculating that they had cause to excommunicate him because he violated the trust of M. Russell Ballard. That's not a thing according to the manual.

Gerardo Sumano [02:11:00] Right?

John Dehlin [02:11:01] That's not a thing. Okay, I'm gonna read some of the super chats or some of the questions. My good friend Diana writes, is it possible that Mormons that work for our are going through church disciplinary hearings, Matt Osborne or even Sean Reyes? I think those are good questions. I don't know what behavior, you know, they might qualify for, that there was some fraud going on. We don't know what people like Reyes or Osborne would have done, whether they were involved in the couple's ruse, whether there are any sexual allegations. I haven't heard of any. I. I read somewhere in the comments someone saying that Paul Hutchinson was excommunicated.

John Dehlin [02:11:44] I don't know if that's true or if that's speculation, but That's a good question from Diana that I don't know the answer to, but I, I would love to find out, so thanks for asking it. Ben writes, have these alleged incidents with Tim Ballard led to the divorces among the victims? If so, how many rescues make up for broken families? That's a good question. It has been alleged by people like Jimmy Rex and I believe Paul Hutchinson and maybe Eric Mustos. Mustos. I don't know how to pronounce that. It's been alleged that, that, that Tim Ballard has broken up families, that some of the women that went on the couple's ruse with him are alleging adulterers, you know, full on sex and adultery and that Tim broke up their marriages.

John Dehlin [02:12:31] I don't have any evidence of that. So that would just be allegations at this point. Yeah. A couple other quick super chats. Kathy writes, in the 70s, my dad was excommunicated for cheating on my mom. A public excommunication at Stacker meeting. Very humiliating for my brother who was old enough to understand he earned his membership back. Parents are still Mormon. Yeah. That's interesting because those who want to talk about confidentiality and excommunications, it used to be the Deseret News would publish excommunications like weekly or monthly in the Desert News. And if you go back to go back to old Desert News articles, you could read sort of the excommunications of the week.

John Dehlin [02:13:12] So that's interesting. My old friend, Justin Rich. Justin, I haven't seen you in a while. I owe you a text. Justin writes, can't they remove membership for any reason? I thought this was a recent change, like the rebrand away from excommunication. Yeah, Justin, I think the real answer to all this is their club, their rules, like. Gerardo, it's fine that you want to read all the, the handbook. We know the handbook has been changed a gazillion times, that a lot of those changes you just read are almost super new. And that at the end of the day, the church is always going to craft the language broadly enough to where they could do whatever they want.

John Dehlin [02:13:48] At the end of the day, that doesn't mean they're not in violation of the spirit or the letter of the law of some of their policies. But let's face it, if the church wants to excommunicate you, you're gone. Do you disagree with that, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [02:14:03] I disagree that someone is high profile like him. I, I would think like someone remotely, you know, in Oaxaca with a recently like stake, you know, called Stake president who was baptized like three years ago. Maybe someone as high profile as Tim Ballard with a membership with a, with probably someone with a stake president that's probably been member their whole life and being in leadership positions I, I, I tend to disagree but but yeah.

Glenn Beck, Closing Thoughts, and Donor Thanks

John Dehlin [02:14:32] All right. A couple other things. Mr. Awesome writes Mormon Stories podcast. This morning on the radio my spouse was listening to Glenn Beck. Glenn Beck says he will be releasing report from that his producer did tomorrow. He said the money was okay. I don't know what any of that really means. I can confirm through my one of my many sources that Glenn Becky, according to my source was devastated to learn this news about Tim Ballard. He feels betrayed. And I learned last week that Glenn Beck was was preparing a response. So that's interesting because Glenn Beck's initial reaction was to attack the Mormon Church for its statement about Tim Ballard and then then Glenn Beck within I don't know, half a day deleted his tweets and and apparently is going to come out against Tim Ballard soon if if those reports are accurate.

John Dehlin [02:15:32] Vintage Post Mormon Channel gave a super chat and wrote beautiful. I love it. Thanks for this. Thank you for the super chat. Vintage Post Mormon Channel Also Julianne Murphy writes thank you John and team for such such excellent coverage. This is so incredibly important. Understand truth and the reality of what's going on. Thank you Julianne.

John Dehlin [02:15:52] A couple other thank yous. Leslie Jean writes can't thank you enough for all you do love Mormon Stories podcast. Thanks David Berry yeah a couple other super chats. They're coming in. So Fronia writes the church doesn't excommunicate priesthood holders for just sexual improprieties. However, I personally know a few women that have been excommunicated strictly for breaking the law of chastity. Thank you. So free Ona. I know that's true as well. And Gerardo, that goes to my point that at the end of the day it's their club, their rules and if they want to get you, they're going to get you. That's my belief.

John Dehlin [02:16:27] You know, Glenn Paul writes John and mst. I I should say by the way Gerardo, that my, my excommunication, I didn't meet criteria for excommunication for what I had done. I wasn't teaching false doctrine and at the time that apostasy was an excommunicable offense. That was a requirement and I wasn't doing it.

John Dehlin [02:16:49] So anyway, Glenn Paul writes John and Ms. Team, thank you. I've consumed hundreds of content hours over the years. Sometimes I align with you, sometimes I don't. Either way, you've offered me an opportunity to be heard, questions to table, hard questions and carve my own path. Your work matters. All the the best.

John Dehlin [02:17:09] Thank you, Glenn. Paul Deende07 writes, if those allegations are true, which I believe so Tim Ballard needs to be shamed. I'm not a big fan of shaming people, but I understand, I think what you're saying. Thanks for the super chat. Melo writes, thanks for speaking at Excommunication. The first Mormon I met was a lovely man who had been shunned by even his children after coming out. I'm guessing his gay 10 years before, before the church said he was perfect example of being gay.

John Dehlin [02:17:39] Yeah, I'm going to say, believe it or not, I think excommunication hurts the Mormon Church. It's bad look. It's a bad look. It's. It's. You don't get these people back, you often lose family members and friends in the process and it just looks barbaric and medieval and, and violent. So I, I actually am, am trying to help the Mormon Church by criticizing its excommunication policies. Joanne Randall writes, never Mormon from Cape Town, I'm guessing South Africa. If the reason for excommunication is so important to the church, doesn't this detract from the actual allegations?

John Dehlin [02:18:17] So let me, let me read that again. If the reason for excommunication is so important to the church, doesn't this game, and I'm guessing what she means by this game, the game of playing cat and mouse about coming out with the statement denouncing Tim Ballard, doesn't that count? And mouse game detract from the actual allegations? And I would say that they do. Doug Vincent writes, invite Tim to come on the show. Let him address it all head on. Gerardo, what do you think? If Tim Ballard is willing to come on Mormon Stories, would you recommend that we interview him?

Gerardo Sumano [02:18:51] Yeah, I'm sure.

John Dehlin [02:18:52] I mean, some would say that's giving voice to a predator, a voice to someone who's manipulating the people who are that evil don't deserve a voice, what would you say?

Gerardo Sumano [02:19:04] Yeah, I would have to think about that. I'm not sure.

John Dehlin [02:19:07] Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure either. Also, if some, if. If like Paul Hutchinson wanted to come on, I'd have to think really hard about whether I wanted to bring them on. All right, well, you know, this is an open invitation. If any of you know Tim Ballard, feel free to reach out to him and tell him that we're willing to Consider interviewing him for Mormon Stories podcast. I'm not going to promise it. You can email us at MormonStories gmail.com Tim Ballard email me at MormonStories gmail.Com and we will consider interviewing you. Other things really quickly. We know that there's big stories coming out in the days and weeks ahead. Feel free to tune back into Mormon Stories podcast. I'm a little bit tired of covering this. Tim Ballard and eight passengers. Jody Hildebrand, Ruby. I'm exhausted. Gerardo, are you exhausted?

Gerardo Sumano [02:20:01] Yeah, yeah, it's been, it's been a lot for sure.

John Dehlin [02:20:05] Yeah. Yeah. So I, I, I, I wish these stories would go away, honestly. But as long as they're important, we want to cover them. See, really quickly, I want to say this again. Sparkling Dragon rights. Make sure you all hit that like button. It would be amazing if, if you could do that.

John Dehlin [02:20:27] Last I checked on Mormon Stories podcast, we were still. We're up to 197,000 subscribers and now this episode has 1.4 thousand likes. So Gerardo, we went over a thousand. I want to thank. That's about half of our viewing audience at its peak. I want to thank everybody who liked it. Please do subscribe to this YouTube channel. It helps with the algorithm. Please like this episode, share it. Thank you for your super chats. And also of course the main way that you can support Mormon Stories podcast is by going to MormonStories.org and then clicking on the donate button. And I'm just gonna. Gerardo encourages me to actually show people this there.

John Dehlin [02:21:14] On the Mormon Stories Podcast Web2 Web Website MormonStories.org Click on the donate button. Select the monthly amount that you want to donate. Type in your own amount. We do company matching. If your company does company matching, you can do that there.

John Dehlin [02:21:29] You can make one time donations and annual donations as well if you want. But that's how we keep the lights on. So we would really appreciate your support. Gerardo, do you have any final words?

Gerardo Sumano [02:21:40] I sent you a link. John, can you, on the private chat, can you, can you share that with the.

John Dehlin [02:21:46] Yeah. Well, tell me what this link is. I didn't know what it was. It looks sketchy.

Gerardo Sumano [02:21:49] So that one will show the our subscribers live as they, as they as people click subscribe.

John Dehlin [02:21:54] Okay, so this is.

Gerardo Sumano [02:21:56] There you go.

John Dehlin [02:21:57] All right, so what does this do? This shows 196000 subscribers.

Gerardo Sumano [02:22:01] Yes. So if someone hits subscribe, it should, it should show it live.

John Dehlin [02:22:05] So right now if somebody hits subscribe, it's going to show it. So if you're in the viewing audience and you want to see your. Your subscription in real time show up on this chart. Should we just wait until at least it grows by one?

Gerardo Sumano [02:22:20] GERARDO it might not. It might be wrong or.

John Dehlin [02:22:25] Come on, people. Come on, people out there subscribe. Subscribe to Mormon Stories podcast right now.

Gerardo Sumano [02:22:31] We're almost in.

John Dehlin [02:22:33] We're exhausted. We want to go home. Please go to YouTube right now and subscribe so at least one little blip happens. Nobody's doing it. Gerardo maybe we exhausted.

Gerardo Sumano [02:22:45] It might not be live.

John Dehlin [02:22:47] Maybe everybody has already subscribed, or maybe people are afraid to. But maybe we're not going to get that today.

Gerardo Sumano [02:22:56] Anyway, regardless, when the episode started, we were at 195. I checked. So. So, so we got almost a thousand subscribers on this.

John Dehlin [02:23:05] Yeah. All right. Well, we, we remind everybody that when you subscribe, it grows our channel. It helps with the algorithms, and it makes other guests more likely to come on Mormon Stories when you do. So all of that really helps. Joseph Almond says that he subscribed and it's not showing up. So maybe this chart doesn't work.

Gerardo Sumano [02:23:26] Gerardo yeah, maybe it's delayed. We'll need to find a better one.

John Dehlin [02:23:30] All right, well, thanks for trying, Gerardo. All right, everyone, thanks for joining us. Gerardo, thanks for helping to make this episode possible. Also thanks to Julia, who does the time codes and show notes and the shorts. Thanks to Maven, who helps moderate the chats. Thanks to Brooklyn, who does the editing, Clint and Carrie, who are on our board. And thanks to all of you who donate to make this possible. Thanks to Diana, who's been helping a little bit with some intelligence behind the scenes on the Tim Ballard stuff. Thanks to everyone who's been covering Vice News, Lynn Packer, ADAM Herbert's of Fox 13, Utah, KSL, and all the, you know, all the journalists that are covering these, these issues. It's a, it's an important month for Mormon news, right, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [02:24:17] Yeah, for sure.

John Dehlin [02:24:18] Like, I, I think, I think September 2023 is going to go down as one of the most important months of news in possibly the past decade, if not the past half century of Mormonism. Is. Am I overstating it?

Gerardo Sumano [02:24:33] I don't think so.

John Dehlin [02:24:34] Okay.

Gerardo Sumano [02:24:35] Hopefully, hopefully it just keeps going up from here, right?

John Dehlin [02:24:38] Yeah. Joseph Almond says Gerardo for Senate. Gerardo, are you able to run for Senate yet or not yet?

Gerardo Sumano [02:24:43] Not yet.

John Dehlin [02:24:44] Okay. Keiko N. Says come join us on the Mormon Stories podcast. Discord Channel. We do have a Discord Channel. We're grateful to our mods who run it. DM Bishop writes, I've been watching since 20,000 subscribers. Really had. That was just like a year and a year and a half ago, right, Gerardo? So we've had phenomenal growth in a short amount of time. I'll just end with this. Kate Simmons says, never Mormon married to a non believer. Thank you for your series with Mike. Yeah, Mike of LDS discussions. Yeah, Please check out the LDS discussion series with Mike from LDS Discussions website. It's a super important channel. It touches. It touches on Mormonstrue truth claims and it's important. I'm exhausted. Let's go home, Gerardo. Is that all right?

Gerardo Sumano [02:25:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:25:35] All right. Thanks. Thanks again, Gerardo, for making this happen. Thanks to everyone for joining us on Warmer Stories. Please be good to each other. Please be kind to each other. Be compassionate. Be kind to everyone, including Tim Ballard, including Ruby Frankie, including Jody Hildebrandt. We can be honest and direct and candid, but also kind. So please be kind. Love each other. Support us when you can. Thanks for your support and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care, everybody.

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.