, http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2002/05/08/ke050802s203205.htm
Jehovah's Witnesses act against abuse-policy critics
By Peter Smith
[email protected]
The Courier-Journal
Leaders of the Jehovah's Witnesses are taking steps to excommunicate a Western Kentucky man and three other church members who have publicly criticized what they say is their church's secretive handling of child-molestation cases.
Bill Bowen of Benton, Ky., said he was summoned to a judicial hearing to be held Friday at his Draffenville, Ky., church to answer allegations of ''causing divisions within the congregation and organization of Jehovah's Witnesses.''
Bowen resigned as an elder in the Marshall County congregation in December 2000
to protest the church's handling of a
local case and its policies on handling abuse allegations. He has since formed a support group for abuse victims.
Bowen figured prominently in a CourierJournal report in February 2001 on sexualabuse issues among Jehovah's Witnesses, as did a New Jersey couple who also say they are threatened with excommunication, Carl and Barbara Pandelo.
A former employee at church headquarters, Barbara Anderson of Normandy, Tenn., said she also faces excommunication.
The Jehovah's Witnesses Office of Public Information declined to comment specifically on the four cases, citing confidentiality policies.
The Courier-Journal report cited court cases in several states in which Jehovah's Witnesses officials were accused of keeping secret the allegations of abuse by their elders or members in two cases, allegedly in violation of state law.
Leaders of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, as the organization is formally known, have disputed these claims, saying they obey all laws requiring the reporting of child abuse and do not interfere with police investigations.
They say that in states that do not require reporting of abuse, they prefer taking steps to protect children while not breaching what they see as confidential communications between elders and members.
Church officials say they might advise elders to move victims out of abusive homes or refer them to counseling.
Bowen said he believes the action is being taken to deter Jehovah's Witnesses from listening to him, the Pandelos and Anderson in news reports or on the Web site of his ''silentlambs'' organization (www.silentlambs.org).
He said church members who listen to the words of ''apostates,'' or those who abandon the faith, are at risk of excommunication themselves.
Bowen said he has asked that his hearing be postponed from Friday because of plans for minor surgery.
In its statement, the Jehovah's Witnesses Office of Public Information quoted biblical references in saying elders must use church discipline to ''shepherd the flock of God in their care.''
''In fact, they are required by the Holy Scriptures to see to it that the congregation remains clean and unified,'' the statement said. ''No hasty decision is made in this process.''
The goal is not to expel a member, but to follow the Apostle Paul's injunction to ''try to readjust such a man in a spirit of mildness,'' the statement said.
The Pandelos, of Belmar, N.J., were summoned to a hearing Monday night at their local congregation concerning unspecified ''allegations of apostasy,'' according to a April 19 letter on Watchtower stationery.
Carl Pandelo said he and his wife stayed only five minutes, long enough to deliver letters of protest to the chairman of the disciplinary committee. They have not received a reply.
''It's not like we didn't expect it,'' he said. ''You're not allowed to talk against the church in any way.''
The pandelos, who no longer attend Jehovah's Witnesses services, have told The Courier-Journal that after Carl's father, Clement Pandelo, molested their daughter, the congregation acted more sympathetically to the molester than to his victim.
Elders did tell Clement Pandelo to turn himself in to police, and he pleaded guilty in 1989 to molesting three girls after admitting molesting children for 40 years.
An elder with the congregation told The Courier-Journal that church leaders did the best they could to mediate the situation.
Anderson said she has not seen the charges against her in writing but that her husband, an elder at a Manchester, Tenn., congregation, was told she was accused of ''causing divisions.''
''I categorically deny any of this,'' said Anderson, a former employee at Watchtower headquarters in Brooklyn, N.Y., where she said she first learned about the church's policies on handling abuse cases.
In the past year, two more lawsuits have been filed against Watchtower in New Hampshire and Washington state, accusing local church elders of failing to follow state laws on reporting suspected abuse to police.
In both cases, church members were convicted of sexual abuse.
One suit filed in January by Erica Rodriguez, who said she was repeatedly abused by a church member years ago, claims an elder at her former congregation in Washington state threatened her with excommunication if she reported her abuser to police.
A Watchtower statement denies this, saying that there are no sanctions against anyone who chooses to go to police, and that church elders and Watchtower did not know of the abuse until years after it had occurred.
In New Hampshire, two women are suing Watchtower, alleging elders failed to report suspicions of abuse. Their father was later convicted and sentenced to 56 years in prison for abuse.
Jehovah's Witnesses, founded in the 19th century, number about 1 million members in the United States and 6 million globally.
Best known for its door-to-door evangelism, the church views its teachings as authentic Christianity, though it parts company with other Christian bodies on some fundamental beliefs.
Like some other close-knit religious organizations, Jehovah's Witnesses practice church discipline within their congregations and sometimes ''disfellowship,'' or excommunicate, members who are believed to persist in their errors.