BOE Letter (page 2)

BoozeRunner

ACKKKKK!!! WebTV CANT read PDF's!!! BooHoo...I wanna see!!! I wanna SEEEE!!

Boozy

You beat me to posting that thought. I know from personal experience of a case in which an Elder had been taking advantage of sisters in bad marriages through the use of "sheparding calls", he did this for years!

And what about the part on child abuse?

"(4) Child abuse is a crime. Never suggest to anyone that they should not report an allegation of child abuse to the police or other authorities. If you are asked, make it clear that whether to report the matter to the authorities or not is a personal decision for each individual to make and that there are no congregation sanctions for either decision. This, no elder will criticize anyone who reports such an allegationn to the authorities."

What does that mean? Are they asking the elders to lie? Does the 2 witness rule still apply? Will a person still get DF'd without 2 witnesses?

Dutchie

Whether to report the matter or not should not be a personal decision and sanctions should be imposed for NOT reporting an incidence of child abuse.

When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion. Abraham Lincoln

MavMan

TheStar: I think this is a very positive change to our previous stand on this issue. I don't know why a parent would not turn an abuser in, but at least it's up to them. Some states require that even if the parent does not want to press charges, if the clergy knows they have to turn the abuser in. This is should be the norm in every state (I'm speaking of the US).

silentlambs

Regarding the BOE letter comments on child abuse,

This is NO CHANGE from current and past WT policy. Elders have not called legal and threatened victims with disfellowshipment of their own volition. If they called legal they would have been instructed to not take judicial action based on reporting. This was an unstated policy until elder school and this letter was written. Why was it clearly brought to the fore? Could it be silentlambs speaking out? I wonder if WT will send me a thank you card for helping them to give clear direction on this unstated WT policy for so many years?

Sadly this is not good enough to address the real issues with WT Policy that continue to hurt children.

TheStar

Mavman,

I don't see this bit of counsel from the GB as anything clear enough to be considered as "positive" much less any kind of "change". They are simply stating not to let it slip, from what I can tell.

MavMan

silentlambs: What do you propose as to how to handle it? Instead of pointing to the problem, let's start finding solutions.

TheStar: The change is that they are clearly training elders on how to handle these matters correctly.

Celia

I want to read it too
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ISP

Nice one Simon....thanks for the link!

ISP

metatron

"congregation sanctions"

Anybody remember the long drawn out arguments with Witless idiots
about how they didn't really lie to Bulgarian officials when
they said "without control or sanction" in regard to blood?

I can only hope they aren't lying again in regard to child molesters.

Or are we going to hear Watchtower apologists speak of people
"disassociate themselves" by reporting child molesters?

With these low life weasels, only time will tell.

metatron

BOE Letter

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