Getting It Right — Clarifying Claims About the Church Abuse Help Line

[halconero]

Getting It Right — Clarifying Claims About the Church Abuse Help Line

This is a direct rebuttal by the Church of assertions made by Beau Oyler, a former bishop, regarding his experience using the Church abuse help line. Broadly speaking, Mr. Oyler alleges that the Church's primary focus was reassuring him that he didn't need to report the abuse, and that no concern was expressed regarding the family or informing law enforcement.

The news release is worth a read, but put succinctly, the Church kept help line records, and outlines that he spoke with both an attorney and a licensed social worker three times over a three day period, and that, as part of these conversations, Mr. Oyler told help line personnel that both a third-party therapist and the perpetrator had reported the abuse to authorities. Furthermore, the social worker discussed steps to support the victim and family, and help line later followed-up with the stake president.

Someone here can correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't recall the Church issuing a direct rebuttal like this in recent memory.

[Calm]

48 minutes ago, halconero said:

Getting It Right — Clarifying Claims About the Church Abuse Help Line

This is a direct rebuttal by the Church of assertions made by Beau Oyler, a former bishop, regarding his experience using the Church abuse help line. Broadly speaking, Mr. Oyler alleges that the Church's primary focus was reassuring him that he didn't need to report the abuse, and that no concern was expressed regarding the family or informing law enforcement.

The news release is worth a read, but put succinctly, the Church kept help line records, and outlines that he spoke with both an attorney and a licensed social worker three times over a three day period, and that, as part of these conversations, Mr. Oyler told help line personnel that both a third-party therapist and the perpetrator had reported the abuse to authorities. Furthermore, the social worker discussed steps to support the victim and family, and help line later followed-up with the stake president.

Someone here can correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't recall the Church issuing a direct rebuttal like this in recent memory.

Finally. I have heard the general approach (both lawyer and social worker are available) from those familiar with the help line, but it’s good to have it official with a clear, detailed example on the public record with documentation to back it up if needed, it would seem.

I do not ever remember a specific rebuttal with details, just a general description of the help line.  Iirc, the closest was the description given in the Bieber abuse case, but I am out if it today and details are vague in my brain.

Got to wonder what the victim feels about Mr. Oyler using their case to condemn the Church on this.

Btw, I am not assuming Oyler is intentionally lying, memories are too easily rewritten.  Hopefully he will issue a retraction and an apology over the details he got wrong.

Edited February 6 by Calm

[webbles]

That's an interesting rebuttal.  I think it would also mean that lawsuits around abuse now know that they can try and get those records.  I doubt the records with the social worker has any privileges and I'm not sure the existence of a telephone call to an attorney would be considered privileged.  So we might see more of this type of information leak out, either as a response through the newsroom or as evidence in a court case.

[The Nehor]

I thought a Church representative submitted an affadavit back in 2022 that call records for help line discussions were destroyed at the end of every day. How does this record exist?

I think the former bishop who complained about this was either naive, an idiot, or was just plain duped. So someone comes into his office and confesses to doing something abusive. Then the perpetrator says that their therapist had already reported him and then that the perpetrator self-reported. The therapist shouldn’t be talking to the Bishop due to confidentiality concerns so all this information came from the person who did the abuse. The help line probably should have pointed this out if that is what happened.

Unless the therapist was for the victim and not the perpetrator but that raises even more questions. In any case why would you believe the perpetrator’s claim that they self-reported?

Bizarre.

 

[Calm]

18 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I thought a Church representative submitted an affadavit back in 2022 that call records for help line discussions were destroyed at the end of every day. How does this record exist?

 

It is confusing.  One theory I have heard and considered myself was the policy changed at some time, but need (and probably won’t follow through) to do a timeline for the various cases being referred to when each statement was made to see it that makes sense.

[Calm]

18 hours ago, The Nehor said:

 

I think the former bishop who complained about this was either naive, an idiot, or was just plain duped. So someone comes into his office and confesses to doing something abusive. Then the perpetrator says that their therapist had already reported him and then that the perpetrator self-reported. The therapist shouldn’t be talking to the Bishop due to confidentiality concerns so all this information came from the person who did the abuse. The help line probably should have pointed this out if that is what happened.

Unless the therapist was for the victim and not the perpetrator but that raises even more questions. In any case why would you believe the perpetrator’s claim that they self-reported?

Bizarre.

 

There could have been public info the bishop was aware of about an arrest or something…or was it said that there was actually no confession to police?  I started researching yesterday, but got interrupted.

If there was more evidence of a self confession, it is more creasonable to assume the claim about the therapist was true as well…but unless there was mandatory reporting even for therapist (do we know the timing of the abuse and the state?), it is problematic assuming a therapist reported it unless there was a sign of imminent danger surely.

[rpn]

I would love to know how the person who did the video got to the place that he either didn't recall or intentionally falsely remembered the details.   

 

And I really hope that any bishop who has contact with the Child Abuse Hotline in the future reports up the chain to the prophet if they think what the hotline has done in their case is not what Jesus would do without delay.

(I have to admit that I'd lean towards reporting child abuse ---except perhaps that confessed only in confessional, which is protected by penitent-clergy privilege (in which case I'd try to get reportable info otherwise---even if I knew or thought I knew that it had already been reported.)

[teddyaware]

1 hour ago, rpn said:

I would love to know how the person who did the video got to the place that he either didn't recall or intentionally falsely remembered the details.   

 

And I really hope that any bishop who has contact with the Child Abuse Hotline in the future reports up the chain to the prophet if they think what the hotline has done in their case is not what Jesus would do without delay.

(I have to admit that I'd lean towards reporting child abuse ---except perhaps that confessed only in confessional, which is protected by penitent-clergy privilege (in which case I'd try to get reportable info otherwise---even if I knew or thought I knew that it had already been reported.)

It’s very simple. Beau Oyler actually did tell the truth, but the problem is that he told only a portion of the truth. He was indeed correct when he reported that he was informed he didn’t need to take any further action to report the abuse, but what he left out was the all important reason why he was told he didn’t need to take further action, which is that the proper law enforcement authorities had already been informed of the abuse and the abuser had even self reported his crime. This is why in courts of law we take an oath to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Oyler likely thought he was being clever by disclosing a portion of the truth while dishonestly leaving out the whole truth in order to make it look like the church was participating in a reprehensible coverup. Oyler is oily.

Edited February 7 by teddyaware

[Calm]

5 minutes ago, teddyaware said:

Oyler likely thought he was being clever by disclosing a portion of the truth while dishonestly leaving out the whole truth in order to make it look like the church was participating in a reprehensible coverup.

Did you watch the Oyler interview?  (Actual question asI haven’t finished it yet.) Others who reviewed it said he made certain claims, not just left out details or told only part of the story.

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, rpn said:

I would love to know how the person who did the video got to the place that he either didn't recall or intentionally falsely remembered the details.   

Well, without the actual records that the Church referenced we have a human trying to remember stuff accurately from over a decade ago which has a LOT of problems already especially if he has thought about that event a lot versus a potentially biased representation of notes taken about a call when we are told they destroyed those kinds of notes.

I am not sure either source is particularly credible.

2 hours ago, rpn said:

And I really hope that any bishop who has contact with the Child Abuse Hotline in the future reports up the chain to the prophet if they think what the hotline has done in their case is not what Jesus would do without delay.

There is not really a mechanism to take this up to the prophet.

2 hours ago, rpn said:

(I have to admit that I'd lean towards reporting child abuse ---except perhaps that confessed only in confessional, which is protected by penitent-clergy privilege (in which case I'd try to get reportable info otherwise---even if I knew or thought I knew that it had already been reported.)

Ideally you want anyone but the bishop reporting this stuff so you can avoid the whole privilege thing but bishops are usually the ones that find out and there is a strange bit in LDS culture where members expect the bishop to sort out problems the bishop is not qualified to deal with and doesn’t have the power to do anything about.

[rpn]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

There is not really a mechanism to take this up to the prophet.

Sure there is.   While it is true that letters to the first presidency (though I'd have to do more thinking before I'd send it to them rather that the President of the Twelve which is currently in charge of most of this temporal stuff, first)  are regularly returned to the bishop or SP in which the person belongs,  if I sent it to them registered mail, at least I'd know they received it, whatever they choose to do about it isn't my problem.  (If I also send a copy of it to the program charged with this, then they also might resolve it.)

[Notatbm]

On 2/6/2026 at 1:32 PM, halconero said:

Someone here can correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't recall the Church issuing a direct rebuttal like this in recent memory.

Not only has the church never done this (to my knowledge) im surprised they did or were even able to. Church lawyers have testified recently under oath that the church destroys the records of every call everyday at the end of the work day. Obviously the response in this article by the church is a lie… or the church lawyers are in the habit of lying in under oath in court. I mean it not like lying is a new thing for the church. I’m gonna go with them being liars under oath.

[webbles]

I was going through a few of the court records where it talks about these calls and what records are kept.  We knew before this announcement that they do keep records of who is called and when.  That was used with the Bisbee case to figure out which attorney handled the call.  But, it wasn't clear if these records also had social workers who were involved.  This announcement looks to clear that up (which would mean that in the Bisbee case, no therapist was involved).

Any records about what was discussed in calls with the attorneys has always been considered privileged so we don't know if they were destroyed, kept, etc.  The only statements about destroyed records are about the social worker records.

So, unless people under oath have been lying (which would be really stupid and is highly unlikely), the details are probably coming from a mixture of the call records, the attorney records and the memories of the social worker.  For instance, the bullet point about the stake president would be from the call log since it just says that someone reached out to the stake president.  The bullet point about self-reporting could be from the attorney records or the social worker memories.  The bullet point about discussion of steps would have to come from the social worker memories (unless the attorney was on the same call and had notes).

[Duncan]

On 2/8/2026 at 9:13 AM, Notatbm said:

Not only has the church never done this (to my knowledge) im surprised they did or were even able to. Church lawyers have testified recently under oath that the church destroys the records of every call everyday at the end of the work day. Obviously the response in this article by the church is a lie… or the church lawyers are in the habit of lying in under oath in court. I mean it not like lying is a new thing for the church. I’m gonna go with them being liars under oath.

the article you are referring to doesn't say that records of call are destroyed every day, if that were true then lawyers would have one day to build a case against whomever. It say "routinely" destroyed

Edited February 10 by Duncan

[The Nehor]

On 2/7/2026 at 6:52 PM, rpn said:

Sure there is.   While it is true that letters to the first presidency (though I'd have to do more thinking before I'd send it to them rather that the President of the Twelve which is currently in charge of most of this temporal stuff, first)  are regularly returned to the bishop or SP in which the person belongs,  if I sent it to them registered mail, at least I'd know they received it, whatever they choose to do about it isn't my problem.  (If I also send a copy of it to the program charged with this, then they also might resolve it.)

You might as well just send it unregistered as regular mail. It is going to get screened first and probably never be seen by the intended recipient. If you don’t care if they don’t do anything about it and that “isn’t my problem” then why bother at all?

[Notatbm]

4 hours ago, Duncan said:

the article you are referring to doesn't say that records of call are destroyed every day, if that were true then lawyers would have one day to build a case against whomever. It say "routinely" destroyed

#1. I did not cite any article. Maybe you have me confused with someone else

#2. here is what I’m talking about:

”In one of their recorded conversations, Rytting told Chelsea that he could check Helpline records, used by Miller to report details of John Goodrich's confession, to see whether her father had ever previously confessed to another bishop to abusing her.

But in the West Virginia abuse case against the church, Rytting gave sworn, written testimony in which he said no one at the Helpline keeps records. And another ranking church official testified in a case in Arizona that the records are destroyed at the end of each day. In comments to the AP, the church declined to clarify Rytting's apparent contradiction about whether the church keeps records on the Helpline.”

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/nation/recordings-show-how-mormon-church-kept-child-sex-abuse-claims-secret

 

looks like the church lawyer is a bit of a liar and we know he is being told what to say

[webbles]

38 minutes ago, Notatbm said:

#1. I did not cite any article. Maybe you have me confused with someone else

#2. here is what I’m talking about:

”In one of their recorded conversations, Rytting told Chelsea that he could check Helpline records, used by Miller to report details of John Goodrich's confession, to see whether her father had ever previously confessed to another bishop to abusing her.

But in the West Virginia abuse case against the church, Rytting gave sworn, written testimony in which he said no one at the Helpline keeps records. And another ranking church official testified in a case in Arizona that the records are destroyed at the end of each day. In comments to the AP, the church declined to clarify Rytting's apparent contradiction about whether the church keeps records on the Helpline.”

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/nation/recordings-show-how-mormon-church-kept-child-sex-abuse-claims-secret

 

looks like the church lawyer is a bit of a liar and we know he is being told what to say

That PBS article (which is based on an earlier AP article) is incorrect in its presentation of what was testified and what was said.  I've noticed this quite a bit with articles around sex abuse cases dealing with the church.  You usually have to find the original article to figure out what is said and sometimes have to go to the affidavit or court record.

In this case, the original article that talks about the West Virginia case and the affidavit is https://apnews.com/article/Mormon-church-sexual-abuse-investigation-e0e39cf9aa4fbe0d8c1442033b894660.  It talks about the sealed records that the AP gained access to.  They talk about an affidavit from Roger Van Komen (NOT Rytting) who says "Those notes are destroyed by the end of every day."

Unfortunately, people have taken that to mean that all records/notes are destroyed yet we have had definitive proof that is a false idea for years.  We know that the call logs are kept because they have been used in court cases.  Komen is also a licensed social worker and not a lawyer so he would have no knowledge of what is happening on the lawyer side.  And we know that any communication between the bishops and lawyers is considered privileged (though there have been attempts to break that privilege), per Rytting in an affidavit from the West Virginia case (also from that AP article): "The church has always regarded those communications between its lawyers and local leaders as attorney-client privileged".

In the Arizona case, it is an affidavit from Komen that is being referred to.  You can read the full affidavit at https://bhroberts.org/records/XYNbob-TsWxHb/roger_w_van_komen_church_helpline_employee_states_that_merrill_f_nelson_handled_the_bishop_herrod_helpline_call_in_the_bisbee_arizona_sexual_abuse_case.  In there, Komen says several things:

Quote

We did not keep records at our end as the legal reporting requirements were not part of Family Services responsibilities. That was a legal responsibility, and those records were kept by the lawyers.

Quote

Family Services did not keep any call logs.

Quote

Everyone I know who took notes just did it handwritten and then destroyed the record by the end of the day.

 

So, we have at least 3 types of records:

1. Call logs (kept and not destroyed)
2. Notes from social workers (destroyed at the end of the day)
3. What ever is recorded at the lawyers office (unknown on how long these are kept)

The statement of Rytting to Chelsea is almost definitely about the call logs.  It might also be about the lawyer records.  It isn't the notes because we know that is destroyed.

Rytting isn't lying because, 1) he never stated in a sworn affidavit that the records are destroyed (that was Komen and the PBS article is mistaken), and 2) there are records that aren't destroyed.  And Komen isn't lying because he is talking about the notes from the social workers which are destroyed every day.

The PBS article is also mistaken in thinking it is the church's fault that the bishop couldn't testify in Chelsea's case.  He legally would not be allowed to testify.  Idaho law prevents it, see https://isc.idaho.gov/ire505.  Specifically, "A person has a privilege to refuse to disclose and to prevent another from disclosing a confidential communication by the person to a clergyman in the clergyman's professional character as spiritual adviser. "  That means that the confessor can prevent the bishop from testifying.  The bishop could get on the stand and everything he says would be thrown out of court.  This is something that articles sometimes really mess up.  They blame the church over something that is not the church's fault.

[rpn]

21 hours ago, The Nehor said:

“isn’t my problem” then why bother at all?

Because I am fully responsible for what I do to make sure our leaders know what is happening in the Lord's church, what those who receive the information do upon it's receipt is just not something my contributions can  determine.  People who have the capacity to resolve known wickedness (or bad or even just wrongful) behavior cannot be held accountable for failures to do what they should, without having actual knowledge of it.

[rpn]

On 2/8/2026 at 10:13 AM, Notatbm said:

Church lawyers have testified recently under oath that the church destroys the records of every call everyday at the end of the work day. Obviously the response in this article by the church is a lie

That doesnt have to be a lie:  It could be that what happens now isnt what happened at the time of that call.

It could be that a person who was on the call kept a personnel copy when they weren't supposed to.   It could be the person who called kept a copy.  It could be that the convo was reduced to paper before it was destroyed.  It could be that is what the attorneys believed at the time, and now they know it didnt happen in this case.

Appropriate to note the discrepancy, but at the moment the accusation of "lie" is unwarranted.

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, rpn said:

Because I am fully responsible for what I do to make sure our leaders know what is happening in the Lord's church, what those who receive the information do upon it's receipt is just not something my contributions can  determine.  People who have the capacity to resolve known wickedness (or bad or even just wrongful) behavior cannot be held accountable for failures to do what they should, without having actual knowledge of it.

Good Tsar. Bad Boyars.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Good Tsar. Bad Boyars.

Huh?  Not seeing how you got here from rpn’s responses.

I find rpn’s remarks reasonable.  How can you expect someone to act on something if they don’t know about it?

However it’s also obvious that rpn can’t control what happens with the letter once sent, so why invest mental and emotional energy into being concerned about it?

Even if the letters are screened and top leadership never sees it, if it is a complaint about how the abuse report process works, there is, imo, a good chance it will get to the lawyers and administrators of the hot line, which may impact how things are addressed in the future if it’s good info, accurate and thorough.  From personal experience, I know at least some of those involved in the hot line are very interested in ensuring victims are satisfied with the process.  I would assume they feel the same way about bishops.

[The Nehor]

1 minute ago, Calm said:

Huh?  Not seeing how you got here from rpn’s responses.

I find rpn’s remarks reasonable.  How can you expect someone to act on something if they don’t know about it?

However it’s also obvious that rpn can’t control what happens with the letter once sent, so why invest mental and emotional energy into being concerned about it?

Even if the letters are screened and top leadership never sees it, if it is a complaint about how the abuse report process works, there is, imo, a good chance it will get to the lawyers and administrators of the hot line, which may impact how things are addressed in the future if it’s good info, accurate and thorough.  From personal experience, I know at least some of those involved in the hot line are very interested in ensuring victims are satisfied with the process.  I would assume they feel the same way about bishops.

More the idea that the people at the very top are pure but the advisors and staff under them are somehow the real problem.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

More the idea that the people at the very top are pure but the advisors and staff under them are somehow the real problem.

I got the idea with rpn that it was more about authority than purity. The top leadership are the ones in charge and ultimately responsible as well as accountable to God…and the ones who can most likely make things change significantly (though there is always community inertia they have to face).

Edited February 11 by Calm

[Notatbm]

On 2/10/2026 at 5:33 PM, webbles said:

That PBS article (which is based on an earlier AP article) is incorrect in its presentation of what was testified and what was said.  I've noticed this quite a bit with articles around sex abuse cases dealing with the church.  You usually have to find the original article to figure out what is said and sometimes have to go to the affidavit or court record.

In this case, the original article that talks about the West Virginia case and the affidavit is https://apnews.com/article/Mormon-church-sexual-abuse-investigation-e0e39cf9aa4fbe0d8c1442033b894660.  It talks about the sealed records that the AP gained access to.  They talk about an affidavit from Roger Van Komen (NOT Rytting) who says "Those notes are destroyed by the end of every day."

Unfortunately, people have taken that to mean that all records/notes are destroyed yet we have had definitive proof that is a false idea for years.  We know that the call logs are kept because they have been used in court cases.  Komen is also a licensed social worker and not a lawyer so he would have no knowledge of what is happening on the lawyer side.  And we know that any communication between the bishops and lawyers is considered privileged (though there have been attempts to break that privilege), per Rytting in an affidavit from the West Virginia case (also from that AP article): "The church has always regarded those communications between its lawyers and local leaders as attorney-client privileged".

In the Arizona case, it is an affidavit from Komen that is being referred to.  You can read the full affidavit at https://bhroberts.org/records/XYNbob-TsWxHb/roger_w_van_komen_church_helpline_employee_states_that_merrill_f_nelson_handled_the_bishop_herrod_helpline_call_in_the_bisbee_arizona_sexual_abuse_case.  In there, Komen says several things:

 

So, we have at least 3 types of records:

1. Call logs (kept and not destroyed)
2. Notes from social workers (destroyed at the end of the day)
3. What ever is recorded at the lawyers office (unknown on how long these are kept)

The statement of Rytting to Chelsea is almost definitely about the call logs.  It might also be about the lawyer records.  It isn't the notes because we know that is destroyed.

Rytting isn't lying because, 1) he never stated in a sworn affidavit that the records are destroyed (that was Komen and the PBS article is mistaken), and 2) there are records that aren't destroyed.  And Komen isn't lying because he is talking about the notes from the social workers which are destroyed every day.

The PBS article is also mistaken in thinking it is the church's fault that the bishop couldn't testify in Chelsea's case.  He legally would not be allowed to testify.  Idaho law prevents it, see https://isc.idaho.gov/ire505.  Specifically, "A person has a privilege to refuse to disclose and to prevent another from disclosing a confidential communication by the person to a clergyman in the clergyman's professional character as spiritual adviser. "  That means that the confessor can prevent the bishop from testifying.  The bishop could get on the stand and everything he says would be thrown out of court.  This is something that articles sometimes really mess up.  They blame the church over something that is not the church's fault.

-Ryttling is still a liar. He told Chelsea he would check helpline records. By the sworn testimony provided by Vankomen, the helpline records would have been destroyed. Ryttling would have known this. 
 

from Pp25  of the deposition you posted

Q. So you're saying there was no

3 responsibility by LDS Family Services to keep records

4 of the phone calls they received; correct?

5 A. We did not keep records of those phone

6 calls.

Vankomen stated in the deposition there were no records of who took calls, details on the calls themselves and that any notes taken would have been destroyed. He even stated there was no policy/procedure manual available despite the helpline being in place for over a decade. 

pp35 Q. Was it a written or was it a spoken policy

21 to destroy the assignment records for the Help Line?

22 MR. MALEDON: Object to the form.

23 A. There is no written policy that I am aware

24 of.

so Ryttling is gonna check the helpline records that don’t exist… hmm

Edited February 12 by Notatbm

[webbles]

1 hour ago, Notatbm said:

-Ryttling is still a liar. He told Chelsea he would check helpline records. By the sworn testimony provided by Vankomen, the helpline records would have been destroyed. Ryttling would have known this. 
 

from Pp25  of the deposition you posted

Q. So you're saying there was no

3 responsibility by LDS Family Services to keep records

4 of the phone calls they received; correct?

5 A. We did not keep records of those phone

6 calls.

Vankomen stated in the deposition there were no records of who took calls, details on the calls themselves and that any notes taken would have been destroyed. He even stated there was no policy/procedure manual available despite the helpline being in place for over a decade. 

pp35 Q. Was it a written or was it a spoken policy

21 to destroy the assignment records for the Help Line?

22 MR. MALEDON: Object to the form.

23 A. There is no written policy that I am aware

24 of.

so Ryttling is gonna check the helpline records that don’t exist… hmm

Van Komen is talking about the Family Services records.  Those are destroyed every day.  There are no records of those.  But Rytting isn't using those.

We know that the call logs are kept.  No one has ever said those are destroyed.  They have been used in multiple cases (both the West Virginia and the Bisbee case used them).  We also have absolutely no idea if there are records being stored by the attorneys.  It seems like there are records of those kept around but the only people with access to them are the lawyers.  And Van Komen isn't a lawyer so he wouldn't know.

Rytting isn't lying.