Ex-Mormon says LDS church ‘publicly shamed’ her after sex abuse
Published By admin with Comments 0
(NewsNation) — An ex-Mormon is speaking out about the culture of “public shaming” after she was punished by the Mormon church for being raped.
Kristjana Hillberg was raped at 18 years old while she was away at college. When she came home, she confided in her mom.
“She did not embrace me, you know, like a mother might,” Hillberg said. “It made her sick. And I think for a lot of reasons, there’s so many things tied to the family and the religion inside of the church. And one of them is being, are you worthy to make it to the celestial kingdom, which is the third degree of heaven.”
Hillberg joined NewsNation’s “CUOMO” to share her story, saying her mom wanted her to start a process of “repentance” immediately, which involved telling the bishop.
She explained that though the Mormon church doesn’t shame you in a very obvious way, the people in the community can see if you are being disciplined.
“Even though the sexual assault wasn’t my fault, it was still breaking the law of chastity, especially in her eyes. So it was time to repent,” Hillberg said. “When you go to the bishop and you confess your sins, you’re now no longer to participate in certain activities, like, taking the sacrament, which is essentially communion. So the entire world sees you,”
The Mormon church has been the subject of a number of sex scandals in recent years.
An ongoing civil lawsuit in Oregon alleges three defendants were sexually abused by a Mormon church doctor who used his position within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to take advantage of his patients.
Chelsea Goodrich, now 38, said she was sexually abused by her father, a former bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, when she was a child.
Content retrieved from: https://www.newsnationnow.com/religion/mormon-lds-church-sexual-assault-shaming/.
