Hey ya'll. I know there is a lot of buzz due to the NBC story. I thought I'd share my experience as an elder dealing with abuse.
I attended 23 different congregations in my life and served as an elder or MS in 9 of them. I also handled several abuse cases as an elder. (I reported EVERY ONE to the authoirities, by the way.) I sincerely believe that the vast majority of witnesses do NOT want or intend to encourage, promote, support or in any way condone molestation. I believe the elders (mostly) are good people who are trapped by what the Watchtower dictates, as we once were, and they are simply the WT's puppets and simply do as they say. (that's not an excuse and doesn't make it right, but we've all been there... we know how it is)
The several times I called the Legal Department on this issue, they were very clear about three things: 1.)if it's not legally mandatory to notify authorities, DON'T; 2.) if it is legally mandatory to notify authorities, you must do so and should do so by calling from a pay phone and do not give your name, religion, contact info, how you found out about it, etc. and 3.) the family/guardian has every right to go to authorities with no repurcussion.
Additionally, some may find it interesting to note what happened one time when I did call the authorities (thankfully I was in a "reporting state" each time there was an issue, or I too probably would have followed Big Brother's direction). When I called them anonymously from a payphone, of course Child Protection Services wanted to know who I was. I couldn't tell them. They wanted to know how I knew the victim. I couldn't tell them. They wanted to know how I found out about it. I couldn't tell them. This went on and on and on. I basically couldn't tell them anything other than what the legal department told me I could which was, "There has been an accusation that Mr. so-and-so has abused a minor child by the name of such-and-such. That minor child has verified the accusation. It occured in the state of XX, this many times, over a period of XXXX. That's all I will say." You are VERY clearly instructed by the Legal Department NOT to EVER say ANYTHING regarding the Watchtower Society or it's Legal Department, or that you were given ANY direction by ANYONE on what to say or how to handle the matter. So, they're covering their own asses - without a doubt.
So, the point of this is that after the elder calls the authorities with basically NO information, the authorities would ask me, "Well, sir, we can't really do anything with the information you gave us. Anyone can make an accusation. Why should we believe this is a genuine case? We don't even know who you are or how to contact you. We'll follow-up, but honestly, you're doing more damage than good here. You're not giving us much of anything." They actually become fairly irate because it's like we're teasing them and PROTECTING the molester. It's horrible. I always felt SO BAD when it came to these calls. It never felt right. But, in all the cases I dealt with, authorities did contact the victim and abuser and in every one, the abuser was dealt with. (That's the good news.)
That's what's on my mind for now. Feel free to ask any questions or challenge and I'll be happy to let you know how we were directed by the Legal Department to handle things like this.