Corporatism Dressed as Clergy

February 9, 2026•11 min read

mormonisminstitutional-critiquereligiondeconstruction

The LDS Church says their abuse helpline exists to protect victims. A growing mountain of evidence tells a different story—one where lawyers assess liability while children remain in danger.

On February 6, 2026, the LDS Church issued an official statement titled "Getting it right — Clarifying claims about the Church abuse help line." The statement responds to a former bishop's viral account of calling the helpline and being told he had no responsibility to report abuse. The Church claims his memory is wrong, citing their own "contemporaneous records" from 2013.

I watched this unfold with the exhausted recognition of someone who has seen this pattern before.

When I was a believing member, statements like this would have reassured me. Of course the Church cares about abuse victims. Of course there's been a misunderstanding. The Church's explanation must be the accurate one—why would they lie about something this serious?

Now I see these statements differently. Not because I assume bad faith, but because I've learned to look past the words to the system they're protecting.

What the Statement Claims

The Church's statement includes this reassurance:

"The Church abuse help line exists to help bishops and stake presidents protect and support victims of abuse and comply with civil reporting requirements. It is not intended to shield offenders or protect the Church's image."

That sounds reasonable. Comforting, even. The kind of thing a responsible organization would say.

And maybe they mean it. Maybe the intent behind the helpline really is to help bishops protect victims. I'm willing to concede that possibility. But good intentions don't excuse a system that does little to acknowledge how easily it's misused when lawyers—not counselors, not child advocates—are the primary decision-makers.

The problem isn't just intent. It's that the structure is contradicted by documented evidence from multiple states, multiple cases, and the Church's own internal processes.

The Paul Adams Case

Let me tell you about what the helpline actually does when it "works as intended."

In 2010, Paul Adams—a U.S. Border Patrol agent and active member in Bisbee, Arizona—confessed to his bishop, John Herrod, that he was sexually abusing his five-year-old daughter. Bishop Herrod did exactly what he was trained to do: he called the Church abuse helpline.

On the other end of that call was Utah State Representative Merrill F. Nelson, a shareholder at Kirton McConkie—the Church's primary law firm. Nelson told Bishop Herrod that he was bound by clergy-penitent privilege and could "absolutely do nothing."

The abuse continued for seven more years.

During that time:

Adams was excommunicated in 2013
A second bishop, Robert "Kim" Mauzy, also called the helpline and received the same advice
Adams began abusing a second daughter, born after his excommunication
Church leaders sat next to these children in church services every week
No one reported anything to law enforcement

The abuse only stopped in 2017 when federal agents arrested Adams for posting videos of the abuse online. He died by suicide in jail before trial. His wife served two and a half years in prison for failing to stop the abuse. A judge called it "one of the most horrendous cases of child molestation" he had ever encountered.

One of Adams' daughters, identified as MJ in court documents, told the Associated Press: "I just think that the Mormon church really sucks. Seriously sucks. They are just the worst type of people, from what I've experienced and what other people have experienced."

I can't argue with her assessment. Not because I think everyone in the church sucks. Not because I think everyone in the church are the worst kinds of people. But because the leaders at the top choose to use a law firm instead of protective services when claims of abuse arise. The leaders and the lawyers suck when they prioritize image and managing liability over child safety.

How the Helpline Actually Works

Here's what the Church's statement doesn't mention about their "abuse help line":

It's not a help line. It's a law firm.

The helpline was created in 1995 by Kirton McConkie, the Church's primary legal counsel. When a bishop calls, the process works like this:

The call is answered by LDS Family Services (a Church-run counseling agency)
The call is immediately transferred to attorneys at Kirton McConkie
Attorneys determine if the case poses "high financial risk" to the Church
All records of the call are destroyed at the end of each day

Timothy Kosnoff, a lawyer who has litigated over 100 cases against the LDS Church, described it plainly: "It's a helpline for the lawyers, not for the children or anybody else. It gives them an opportunity to get involved, to quickly send lawyers out there. Talk to victims. Silence them if they can."

The purpose isn't to protect children. It's to create attorney-client privilege so the Church can shield these communications from legal discovery.

The Pattern

The Adams case isn't an isolated incident.

The Associated Press obtained 12,000 pages of sealed records from another child sex abuse case in West Virginia. Their investigation revealed that the helpline "is part of a system that can easily be misused by church leaders to divert abuse accusations away from law enforcement and instead to church attorneys who may bury the problem, leaving victims in harm's way."

An Arizona county prosecutor filed a formal bar complaint against Kirton McConkie attorneys after being told they "didn't need to inform police that a child was being sexually abused."

Kathleen McChesney, a former top FBI official who consulted with the Catholic Church on abuse reporting after their scandal, reviewed the Mormon system and said: "If you are just looking at it from the outside, you might say to yourself, 'Are they trying to find a way not to report?'"

That's exactly what the system is designed to do.

What the Statement Ignores

The Church's February 6, 2026 statement attacks one former bishop's recollection from 13 years ago. It does not address:

The Paul Adams case and the seven years of documented abuse the helpline enabled
The 12,000 pages of sealed records showing the same pattern in West Virginia
The internal Kirton McConkie documents showing the helpline identifies "high financial risk" cases
Multiple bishops in multiple states who were told not to report
The systematic destruction of helpline call records every single day
The fact that the same attorneys who staff the helpline also defend the Church in abuse lawsuits

And here's an irony the statement doesn't seem to realize it's creating: the Church has long maintained that helpline records are destroyed at the end of each day. That's been their explanation for why there's no paper trail in case after case where bishops say they were told not to report.

But now, to discredit one former bishop, they can suddenly produce "contemporaneous records" from 2013?

Records exist when the Church needs to defend itself, but conveniently don't exist when victims need evidence. You can't have it both ways — either you keep records or you don't. And if you do keep them, the absence of records in abuse cases starts to look less like routine policy and more like selective destruction.

The statement wants you to focus on whether one bishop remembered correctly whether he spoke to a social worker. It hopes you won't think about the seven-year-old girl who was raped repeatedly while bishops followed helpline advice and did nothing.

The Corporate Church

This is what happens when an institution operates primarily as a corporation while presenting itself as a church.

The LDS Church is worth an estimated $100-200 billion. It owns commercial real estate, investment portfolios, and operates with a legal department, risk management division, and public relations machine that rivals any Fortune 500 company.

And like any corporation facing liability, its first priority is to protect the institution.

That's why abuse calls go to defense attorneys instead of child protective services. That's why records are destroyed daily. That's why bishops are advised to invoke privilege instead of calling the police. That's why the same law firm that takes the abuse calls also defends the Church in the resulting lawsuits.

The helpline exists to help bishops? It exists to help lawyers assess legal exposure.

It exists to support victims? It exists to create attorney-client privilege.

It exists to ensure compliance with reporting laws? It exists to identify and, in certain midwestern states, it creates exceptions to those laws.

What I Wish I'd Known

When I was in the church, I believed the Church had robust systems to handle difficult situations. I trusted that if something terrible came to light, there were wise people at headquarters who would know what to do.

I didn't understand that "what to do" might mean "protect the institution's legal exposure."

I didn't know that the helpline routed to lawyers, not counselors. I didn't know that records were destroyed daily. I didn't know that the same firm advising bishops also defended the Church against abuse lawsuits.

Would it have changed how I saw the Church? I don't know. I wasn't in a position where I had to make those calls. But I think about the bishops who were. The ones who called for help and were told to stay quiet. The ones who trusted the system and followed instructions while children continued to suffer.

Some of those bishops are haunted by what happened. Some have left the Church over it. They did what they were told by people they trusted, and children paid the price.

And in the church's statement, they even acknowledge that Bishop Oyler came out with his criticism 13 years later.

I don't think that's a failure on Oyler's part. I don't know what path his life has taken within the church or if he's now looking at it from the outside. The only thing I know is that sometimes a slow erosion of justifications is necessary before you can see things differently.

What Will It Take?

Reports of sexual abuse within the LDS Church aren't rare. They're regular. So I find myself wondering: what will it actually take for the Church to change?

The Catholic Church didn't reform its handling of abuse cases because it had a change of heart. It took the Boston Globe investigation, a wave of lawsuits, and relentless public pressure that made the cost of secrecy higher than the cost of transparency. Will it take the same kind of expose for the LDS Church?

And honestly, I wonder why it hasn't happened already. The AP investigation was damning. The court documents are public. The pattern is documented across multiple states. So why hasn't this become the kind of story that forces institutional change?

Part of me wonders if the Church's enormous financial resources and political influence play a role in keeping this story smaller than it should be. I'll admit—that edges into conspiracy theory territory, and I don't want to make accusations I can't support. But when an institution worth over $100 billion has a vested interest in controlling its narrative, it's not unreasonable to ask the question.

Maybe it's not some coordinated effort to suppress the story. Maybe it's simpler than that—people don't want to believe it, the Church's PR machine is effective, and abuse within religious institutions just doesn't hold the public's attention the way it used to.

Either way, the children who are being failed right now can't wait for a Spotlight moment.

The Statement Changes Nothing

The Church can issue all the statements they want. They can claim the AP got it wrong. They can say their helpline is misunderstood. They can attack the memories of former bishops. They can post temple photos and talk about "getting it right."

But they can't erase seven years of abuse that their system enabled.

They can't un-destroy the records they supposedly shred every day.

They can't change the fact that their abuse helpline is run by their defense attorneys.

MJ, one of Paul Adams' daughters, told the AP: "What I think we all want for justice in this case is for churches to start immediately reporting sex abuse to the police, not to each other."

That's it. That's the whole thing. When someone confesses to abusing a child, you call the police—not your lawyers. That's the way it works in most other professional situations from corporate America to psychological practices. Patient confidentiality does not preclude child welfare. Neither should penitent/clergy privilege.

Unless protecting the institution matters more than protecting the children.

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