SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
Salt Lake Tribune [Salt Lake City UT]
April 1, 2025
By Peggy Fletcher Stack
Advocates applaud the new requirements.
By May 1, all Utah organizations that provide services to children under 18 must check the names of their staffers or volunteers against two databases of registered sex offenders.
That’s according to a new law passed by the Utah Legislature and signed by Gov. Spencer Cox.
And The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the state’s largest religion and with the most youth volunteers, is rushing to comply.
The faith’s Utah area president sent a letter to all lay bishops and stake (regional) presidents telling them to check “both the Utah Child Abuse Offender Registry (also called the Utah Sex and Kidnap Offender Registry) and the National Sex Offender Public Website before allowing any individual 18 or older to hold a calling that places them into the ‘regular and repeated care, supervision, guidance, or control’ [of young people].” They are to complete this task before the deadline.
The Utah-based faith wants, the letter said, to “be compliant from Day 1.”
Protecting everyone, “especially children,” spokesperson Sam Penrod said, “is a top priority” for the 17.2 million-member global faith. To that end, the church “was a strong supporter of the bill.”
The new law is not aimed at one church. Rather, it establishes a standard for all faiths and organizations that serve kids.
Many churches have already been following this process.
‘We actually fingerprint every single person’
“We’ve been background-checking every adult who works with our children and youth my whole career,” said the Rev. Jamie White of Salt Lake City’s First Presbyterian Church. Her denomination “requires it.”
The Presbyterian Church (USA) has “a whole detailed policy on it and because we have an early child development center and preschool,” White said. “We actually fingerprint every single person, too, and pay to keep up to date live reporting on everyone so we’d know immediately if their record changed.”
The undertaking “is a headache and expensive,” the pastor said, “but we’re unwilling to be lax on child safety protections. … When new families come to worship, it’s one of the first questions they ask us. ‘Do you background-check all the people that work with children?’”
The Catholic Church also has had a similar requirement for years, according to the Rev. Martin Diaz at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City. “A background check — which includes checking names against the registries — is required of all employees and volunteers before starting. Safe environment training is required which is done through the insurance company, Catholic Mutual.”
Prevent Child Abuse Utah, an advocacy group, “did not work directly with the sponsors on this bill, but we do support it and think it will protect children,” Executive Director Laurieann Thorpe said in an email. “This statute’s implementation will alert organizational leaders to potential risks in a way that protects children.”
Faith leaders then “can ensure those on the registry are not volunteering or working directly with children,” Thorpe said. “We would caution youth-serving organizations to implement policies that protect children by limiting one-on-one interactions between older and younger youth and between adults and children. It is easier to be diligent when we know something has already happened. It is harder to protect when the risk is invisible. We need to never put children in a position to be hurt in the first place.”
What Utah’s largest faith is doing
For its part, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint is looking at all its volunteers, male or female, “in any capacity that puts them in regular contact with anyone under 18,” according to a FAQ list sent to the lay clergy fulfilling this mandate.
Which members in the all-volunteer church should be scrutinized?
• Stake presidencies.
• Bishoprics and branch presidencies.
• Teachers and other helpers in the children’s Primary.
• Stake and ward Young Men and Young Women leaders and advisers.
• Seminary teachers (including substitutes).
• Ministering brothers and sisters whose companion is under 18.
• Any other person working with youth including, for example, those called to help with pioneer treks and summer camps.
The leader or clerk conducting registry searches can do so by geography, since that is how Latter-day Saint congregational boundaries are established, or by individual names.
If a member is found on one of the registries, the “person conducting the check should immediately alert the bishop or stake president,” the instructions say. “The member on the registry is not allowed to serve in any position that puts them in contact with anyone under age 18.”
Should lay leaders impose additional restrictions on registered sex offenders? That, the instructions add, “may well be appropriate.”
Does this replace any of the church’s other protection measures? No, the church says. Leaders and members are to comply with existing church policies, including the abuse prevention training required by the faith’s General Handbook. When in doubt, those doing the comparisons are told to “call the helpline,” a free and confidential abuse hotline, established for bishops and stake presidents.
No word yet on whether this process will be implemented in other states.
Abuse is a crucial concern for the church, President Russell M. Nelson said during the October 2022 General Conference.
“Let me be perfectly clear: Any kind of abuse of women, children, or anyone is an abomination to the Lord. … He mourns and we all mourn for each person who has fallen victim to abuse of any kind,” Nelson said. “Those who perpetrate these hideous acts are not only accountable to the laws of man but will also face the wrath of Almighty God. … The Savior will not tolerate abuse and, as his disciples, neither can we.”