Hi Flipper,
I deleted my thread "Pre-2000 Tactics To Avoid Disfellowshiping For Child Sexual Abuse" , the reason I deleted the thread, was I did not want to bring up another negative thread. I should have left the post anyways, it might provide you with a better understanding why the Society worded the new letter the way they did. Here is part of my thread I deleted, it should provide you with insights and I think one of those behind the new thinking was one of the individuals I dealt with fifteen years ago.
A child sex-offender received the 1997 Elder Body Letter before the rest of the Kingdom Halls were given this insight gem. This elder had commited disgraceful folly with a child while he was appointed, time had pasted and his victim never came forward. He along with a few other elders who had "secret sin's" approached their favorite elders and confessed their sins. One of the most famous T.O.s (his name is very common to all readers of the magazines) was informed of these pre-1997 "Letter to the Body of Elders" confessions. The strangest cover up took place, no elder who came forward in this area had to bring it to the attention of their victims, no judicial committe was composed, it was all swept under the carpet. I dug deeper and found some even more strange things, the Society either was stupid, played dumb or never was imformed. If they were never imformed, was it the TOs fault, the POs fault or who?
One of the worse offending elders was finally taken down after one of the other elders started off on his bad ways again. He pointed out the sins of the elder who was trying to remove him, were far worse than his, it did not work but it started to spread around, as more elders found out of the strange "back room secrets being kept", another TO found out, he tried to unwind what the previous TO did, but he was told to "Shut Up!", I was told and "Don't bring this matter up again (You can guess who has authority to tell him to shut up!). This frankensteins-elders were the most wicked, heartless and compassionless as they attacked young ones for pre-martial sex. I don't wan't to divulge anymore than this, I know one elder who visits this site and was part of this situation too, he was suppose to back me up when all Hell was busting loose, he melted down like the coward he is. I wonder who gave the elder a copy of the letter far in advance of it's consumption for the regular congregation? The elder had friends in the department that was shaping this letter, so it's not a huge guess for me, since I know his friends well.
Allow me to point out one more thing, when some of the victims found out, they went ballastic and elders from different congregations tried to muzzle them by saying "You can be disfellowshiped for gossiping", to date October 2012, none, of the original elders were disfellowshiped for holding onto their secret sins for decades(it was thought that their consciences bothering them for decades was enough punishment and Jehovah would have removed them earlier, if they were actually bad men (how's that for reasoning?)), the damage by one elder is easily seen by his children, taking anti-psychotics and weighing close to 400lbs at age 26 is not her normal (she weighed 130 at age 18) self, she is suffering from horrible anxiety and panick attacks, she told me she "hated herself and felt disgusting" but refused to talk why she feels so ugly and worthless. I think I know.
