How many fallen leaders have claimed they "didn't know" about the evil acts they are accused of sanctioning?
Apparently Field Marshall Herman Goering was one. In the movie Nuremberg, he is shown confidently proclaiming at his trial that he knew nothing of the atrocities committed in the Third Reich. Indeed, he stated, he deplored such acts. (Although agreeing with their aims.)
No doubt individual members of the GB would also react in a similar way, deploring abuse of R&F members in all its guises, but would they agree with abuse's 'aims'? In the matter of DF/DA they certainly do agree with the aims of the shunning abuse inasmuch as there is an abundance of evidence in the publications to that end. What of splitting families? They say no, but the reality again is quite different, isn't it?
Elders will recall being given these instructions orally by our CO at an elders meeting where we were to write the following comments in our elders manual regarding what NOT to put on disfellowshipping (S77 and S79) forms? i.e. the forms the judicial committee use to report disfellowshipings to the WBTS.
Anything alluding to or naming one of the Society's attorneys
Any mention of the Legal Department
Any comments referring to direction from the Society
Any comments mentioning anyone other than the committee itself as a possible influence in the decision reached
Any comments that might suggest to someone with a critical eye that the committee did not reach its decision on its own but, instead, somehow yielded to the influence of an outside party
Any comments indicating that the elders mishandled the case or committed any error in the investigation or the judicial committee process.
And would the GB plead that they were "not aware" of what the elders are doing in abusing loyal ones in the congregations? How aware are others of the Chieftain class of what is done emotionally abusing defenseless ones in congregations? Probably they would also claim the Nuremberg defense, "we didn't know".
Cheers,
Ozzie
"Evil is the absence of empathy"
Movie (2000), Nuremberg