This is a landmark situation that makes a strong case against trying to cover for clergy leaders in order to save the image of the abuser and/or ministry. Clergy cover-ups damage the victims, the church, the leaders who support an abuser, the congregants in and the donors to the church, along with the testimony God wants to see from His church organizations.

The idea that such incidents don’t have to be reported if not personally witnessed is false. The Indiana guidelines state “Statute requires reporting by anyone who has any reason to believe that a child is abused or neglected. Does not even limit requirement to adults.” Other states have similar content. Olivia Paola Cuevas posted the Mexican equivalent, “Obligation to report to the competent authorities any act that could constitute a crime against girls, boys or adolescents. Article 114 of the LGDNNA states that anyone who has knowledge of a fact that could constitute an offense against a girl, boy or adolescent shall report it. For officials and household managers, this obligation is reinforced by their guarantor position.” (https://www.facebook.com/salvaguardaproteccioninfantil/posts/pfbid0kbhrRnPrSDhJpYgae1BT9a4aa3Huo11EzdrrTvCjhLXzMu2nJjMY3vvYJuvnRi7el)

The story began with two whistleblowers trying to raise awareness on Facebook of the abuse they discovered at Niños.

From the book:

“The only way I can wrap my brain around this information and straighten out the kinks in my thinking  is to set the documents into a timeline, to lay it all out on the tracks, so to speak.Allow me to tell you the story in their words. I begin with statements from a video interview from April 6, 2023, in which Eric questioned Paola in helping to broadcast her expertise and eyewitness understanding of events at Niños de Mexico.

She operated an organization pushing for the safety of children, Families of the Promise, for about five years before becoming involved with Niños de Mexico. Her group worked to establish protection mechanisms in children’s homes. In reaction to an ongoing lawsuit by some victims of abuse that allegedly happened in their homes, Niños hired her for three months to establish necessary safeguards there, as a side effect of Paola’s finding systemic problems.

The discoveries made during that period led Paola to see that the issues couldn’t be fixed within the three months of her assignment. She found lack of training, hiring practices and misunderstanding of the ‘family’ versus ‘institutional’ aspects of the homes that made the children vulnerable to abuse. It appeared to Paola that neither the children nor employees in the homes knew how or to whom to report suspected abuse. She saw the problems as systemic. Niños allotted more time for establishing a recommended protocol document, educating kids and employees, and then implementing the new rules.

As the children learned, they trusted Paola more and opened up more with the details of their experiences at the homes. She wanted to implement the changes more quickly and to bring in outside expertise to help in the changes and supervision, but Niños leadership pushed back against her suggestions of outside assistance. Because of her work on the discovery team, she stated that Niños leaders knew of other cases of abuse, both past and current that were not reported.” (Taylor, Joy S, Clergy Cover-up Does It Work?, Lily of the Valley Publishing Services, 2024, Indiana, pp. 67-68.)

Clergy Cover-up is available on Amazon.
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