What it costs people
The Abuse Helpline
A bishop learned of years of abuse, called the helpline, and was told he could do nothing.
What the investigation found
In August 2022 the Associated Press published an investigation by Michael Rezendes, built on roughly 12,000 pages of sealed court records.
It reported that the Church’s abuse helpline, which bishops are instructed to call, is staffed by social workers, that call records are destroyed daily, and that when a call presents legal risk to the Church it is routed to attorneys at the Kirton McConkie firm. That routing means no record exists that prosecutors can reach, protected, the Church argues, by attorney-client privilege.
Summary of the AP findings and Arizona’s Family reporting
The case at the center of it
Paul Douglas Adams, in Bisbee, Arizona, sexually abused his daughter for roughly seven years, beginning around the time a bishop first learned of it and called the helpline.
Church attorneys advised the bishop that clergy-penitent privilege barred him from reporting. In the bishop’s words about the advice he was given:
"You absolutely can do nothing."
Adams recorded the abuse and posted it online. He was arrested in 2017, after a federal investigation that had nothing to do with the Church, and died by suicide in custody before trial. A second daughter had been abused by then.
The Church’s attorney called the resulting lawsuit "a money grab" and said the bishops "did nothing wrong."
The Church’s response, in full context
From its official statement: "The nature and the purpose of the Church’s help line was seriously mischaracterized... The help line is instrumental in ensuring that all legal requirements for reporting are met... The story presented in the AP article is oversimplified and incomplete." Read the full statement
Give that its weight. The Church’s position is that the helpline exists to ensure reporting happens, and that AP got it wrong.
What the courts have done
- April 2023: the Arizona Supreme Court ruled the Church did not have to answer questions or produce documents, upholding clergy-penitent privilege. KUER The victims’ attorney: "this ruling expands the clergy privilege beyond what the legislature intended by allowing churches to conceal crimes against children."
- November 2023: a Cochise County judge dismissed the civil suit, finding the Church defendants "were not required under the Mandatory Reporting Statute to report the abuse." KUER
- Later: the Arizona Court of Appeals reinstated the case, ruling a jury could find privilege was waived because Adams confessed in front of non-clergy witnesses at his excommunication hearing. The Church has said it will appeal.
- Legislatively: Arizona Rep. Stacey Travers has repeatedly introduced HB 2039, which would require clergy to report suspected child abuse without needing the confessor’s consent, explicitly prompted by this case. It has not passed. Coverage
Courts have gone both ways on precisely this question and it is still in litigation. The Church was never criminally charged. Saying "they broke the law" is both unsupported and unnecessary.
The defensible framing is stronger anyway: the Church’s own lawyers advised a bishop who knew a child was being raped that he could do nothing, the system is designed so that no record survives, and the Church has spent years in court arguing it had no duty to report. Every clause of that is documented.
Why this should make you question
The question is not whether the law required reporting. It is why an institution that claims divine guidance built a system where a bishop’s first call goes to a lawyer instead of the police, and where the record of that call is destroyed the same day.
That is not a doctrinal question. It is a design choice, and someone made it.