What are churches doing to stop predators in the church?

[Ernie]

Fortunately there is a liason in PA now that plain churches can contact and simply contacting them counts as meeting the mandatory reporting obligations.

I'm not aware that it counts.
In the State's eyes, every person is supposed to report anything suspicious they hear to the State and let the State look into the matter and see if there is any truth in it. The State may take children out of a home while they investigate. If they determine that it was a false report, they let the children go back home, albeit unnecessarily traumatized.

With the formation of Plain church committees, the committee can try to help discern whether a suspicion is reality, and if they deem it is reality, they will go with a person to report it to the police.
The work of these committees has resulted in two significant benefits as I understand it.
1. Fewer children are unnecessarily traumatized by being put into foster care while the State investigates the situation.
2. The State is learning about more actual abuse cases than what they would get otherwise. (The men on these committees know that if they hide a CSA from the State, they themselves will end up in prison. One man who has helped form these committees also tries to help people in their plights.
Sometimes people will come directly to him because they trust him better than their own church committee. Or maybe their church does not have a committee. When possible, he tries to tell people upfront that if there is anything illegal, they must report to the authorities. And if they tell him, he will need to report it to the authorities. But sometimes people just blurt out the CSA situation before he has a chance to explain what happens if they tell him, and then he has no choice but to report it.
Sometimes the folks coming for advice will hear his warning and say, "In that case we don't have anything further to say."
Others will say, "We can't go on. We need someone to help us." And then they will describe the CSA. In so doing, they don't give their consent, per say, for him to tell the authorities, but they figure that he probably will.

So while reporting first to a committee/liaison (whether suspicions or known abuse) is not what the law says, the State tolerates it because they realize that more cases will get reported than what would get reported otherwise.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Fortunately there is a liason in PA now that plain churches can contact and simply contacting them counts as meeting the mandatory reporting obligations.

I'm not aware that it counts.
In the State's eyes, every person is supposed to report anything suspicious they hear to the State and let the State look into the matter and see if there is any truth in it. The State may take children out of a home while they investigate. If they determine that it was a false report, they let the children go back home, albeit unnecessarily traumatized.

With the formation of Plain church committees, the committee can try to help discern whether a suspicion is reality, and if they deem it is reality, they will go with a person to report it to the police.
The work of these committees has resulted in two significant benefits as I understand it.
1. Fewer children are unnecessarily traumatized by being put into foster care while the State investigates the situation.
2. The State is learning about more actual abuse cases than what they would get otherwise. (The men on these committees know that if they hide a CSA from the State, they themselves will end up in prison. One man who has helped form these committees also tries to help people in their plights.
Sometimes people will come directly to him because they trust him better than their own church committee. Or maybe their church does not have a committee. When possible, he tries to tell people upfront that if there is anything illegal, they must report to the authorities. And if they tell him, he will need to report it to the authorities. But sometimes people just blurt out the CSA situation before he has a chance to explain what happens if they tell him, and then he has no choice but to report it.
Sometimes the folks coming for advice will hear his warning and say, "In that case we don't have anything further to say."
Others will say, "We can't go on. We need someone to help us." And then they will describe the CSA. In so doing, they don't give their consent, per say, for him to tell the authorities, but they figure that he probably will.

So while reporting first to a committee/liaison (whether suspicions or known abuse) is not what the law says, the State tolerates it because they realize that more cases will get reported than what would get reported otherwise.

If it is PA you are talking about, they do, in fact, work with certain designated officers in the state police. I have been at those meetings, they are typically held at East District. If it is the committee I think it is, I know our rep on it well.

[Ernie]

If it is PA you are talking about, they do, in fact, work with certain designated officers in the state police.

Yes, they all work with law enforcement. I'm just stating what the law is as compared with what is tolerated.

[KrisKramer]

This Harold Herr case was from 50 years ago and the culture has shifted since then. I consider this a fixed problem culturally within most churches.

Some of it is 50 years old or more. Much of it is not. I am not 50, so what was done to me is not 50 years old. The children he hurt in Haiti are even younger then me. Not too mention others that may not have come forward.

So it is a "fixed problem " when I am being forced (not being protected from) to sit next to the person who sexually assaulted me as a child, at my aunts funeral in 2020 at Charity?

It is a fixed problem when discussion were tried to be had shortly before Mose Stoltzfus passed away and the church refused to listen and deemed Harold an "upstanding man"?

[barnhart]

I think KrisKramer is illustrating the dangers of overlooking the power of culture and social expectations and treating sin as ONLY an individual problem and NEVER (sometimes expressed as categorically impossible) as having a social component. This narrows the sin to an individual, to a specific time and to a specific incident without taking into account the ongoing nature of the damage. Sometimes we also need to examine and reform the social expectations that surround the sin of the individual that allow it space to continue it's harm. A sinful heart will exploit any vulnerability it finds, even if that vulnerability is based on righteous concepts like forgiveness and restoration.

I wonder if churches that prioritize forgiveness and restoration over retribution and punishment should actively re-examine their doctrine of forgiveness. Not because it is wrong but because it may be incomplete and in that incompleteness space is created for sin to hide. Anabaptistism has a self identity of elevating the importance of the group and not allowing individualism to destroy fellowship, but SA seems to be allowed an exception at times and fall under the rules of individualism.

I suggest that forgiveness and restoration must include the reality that some brokeness never magically goes away in this life. The reality of scars remain after healing, the physical body is never exactly the same after healing and neither is the inner person. Sin can be repented and forgiven but we cannot demand the relationships go back to the previous shape. Sin can be forgiven but consequences are permanent.

[Valerie]

This Harold Herr case was from 50 years ago and the culture has shifted since then. I consider this a fixed problem culturally within most churches.

Some of it is 50 years old or more. Much of it is not. I am not 50, so what was done to me is not 50 years old. The children he hurt in Haiti are even younger then me. Not too mention others that may not have come forward.

So it is a "fixed problem " when I am being forced (not being protected from) to sit next to the person who sexually assaulted me as a child, at my aunts funeral in 2020 at Charity?

It is a fixed problem when discussion were tried to be had shortly before Mose Stoltzfus passed away and the church refused to listen and deemed Harold an "upstanding man"?

I am so sorry for your grievous experience. Jesus was pretty clear about harming children in Matthew 18:6:

“But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

That’s pretty serious threat/warning-
I have former Amish friends that have told me more than I want to hear because it is just sickening. Why is this seemingly common? Maybe hearing about cases as much as I have in Anabaptist churches which I had a tendency to hold in higher esteem than most, has made me too dismayed. I was sickened when it was exposed in Catholic Churches but more shocked at its seemingly common knowledge in Anabaptism. No church is exempt from wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Why does this happen so much? (Remember a former member of this forum messaged me he left Mennonite because of this reputation).

I am interested to know if you have been able to find beneficial help in healing and if you have been helped to forgive and be restored, and how is your faith presently?
Is there adequate help/counseling these victims?

There is a good counseling center in North Carolina seems to be Anabaptist predominantly but its name escapes me.

[Ernie]

Sin can be forgiven but consequences are permanent.

Of note.

[JohnH]

You do realize that I have been to those meetings, and the report will be forwarded to a unit of the state police? In my fine state simply contacting CPS is a report? It is not leadership’s role to investigate. It is our role to report.

Than again, we do not have “paneling” or other such investigative functions.

You have to investigate enough to decide if you “report” or not. It is a law enforcement function where a minister, Sunday school teachers etc is acting as an agent on behalf of the state.

You’re acting like conducting these investigations and being an agent of the state is simple, yet it is not, and in any case, these laws are relatively new and didn’t exist before 1995 (PA) or so.

I generally am far more concerned with what the Bible teaches us to do (and which was the OP’s concern) than what the state wants us to do.

[JohnH]

So it is a "fixed problem " when I am being forced (not being protected from) to sit next to the person who sexually assaulted me as a child, at my aunts funeral in 2020 at Charity?

Ask to be reseated.

If violently forced against your will to sit somewhere, please call the police.

Alternatively, you could confront the person, ask him if he has repented yet, and so on. (I would probably do that exact thing, but that’s also why some people in some plain churches have tried and failed to ban me from the building because they thought I was going to tell people about various sexual sins and crimes being covered up.)

It is a fixed problem when discussion were tried to be had shortly before Mose Stoltzfus passed away and the church refused to listen and deemed Harold an "upstanding man"?

I would note most of us here consider the EPMC beyond salvaging.

[JohnH]

In the very sordid case of the very conservative writer and Mennonite preacher ,William R Mcgraph who wrote at least 50 books and pamphlets ,who passed away at 84 years old in 2015, in Ireland, it's breathtaking how long that all went on , over a period of 30 plus years , he operated with impunity , even though more and more people were onto him as time went on....

It is widely believed be went to Ireland to escape prosecution and otherwise escape accountability for his misdeeds.

[quHis writing was concise and very in depth, though you very rarely see or hear much about any of his books now , nobody seems to want them,to buy or to read now, because of the stigma of his actions ,that so many Mennonite people covered up for him ...and they did ,
There were , and are ,a large body of evidence , that this all happened , [/quote]

Yes there is. Back in the 1950s. I’m not sure what we do with it now considering he’s dead.

in one particular case , he was caught outright abusing a young single man who was acting as his "Driver" , going from place to place on his speaking tours, the Bishop overseeing things in that instance ,which is documented , simply made William apologize to the young man,which he did halfway, but with the remark that ,"He enjoyed it as much as I Did', that was as far as it went, how sad and revolting that kind of thinking is .....covered up good seems like ...He moved, or perhaps fled to Ireland then ,And I have heard it said he "made things right", and hopefully he did ....

It is a condemnation of the entire Beachy approach what happened and is one reason I don’t really have any interest in that organisation.

I live down the road from some of his children and grandchildren and his grave is a few miles away.