By Jerald and Sandra Tanner

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In 1991, we published a secret memo written by Glenn L. Pace, Second Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric of the Mormon Church. Pace claimed that he personally interviewed “sixty victims” of ritualistic child abuse who “are members of the Church.” He went on to state that “Forty-five victims allege witnessing and/or participating in human sacrifice. The majority were abused by relatives, often their parents.” Mr. Pace then related that these victims were subjected to horrific torture and brainwashing. Surprisingly, the victims told Pace that the perpetrators were “Young Women leaders, Young Men leaders, bishops, a patriarch, a stake president, temple workers, and members of the Tabernacle Choir. These accusations are not coming from individuals who think they recognized someone, but from those who have been abused by people they know, in many cases their own family members.”

Interestingly, the Mormon Church did not try to deny that there was a problem but instead maintained that it was only a very small percentage of church members who had been subjected to this abuse.

In 1994, two and a half years after we published the Pace Memo, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that allegations of Satanic ritual abuse were reported in a Mormon Church in Oklahoma. In a letter to Gordon B. Hinckley, signed by Merradyth and Jack McCallister, we find the following:

In June of 1963, my husband Jack, had been sexually molested by his bishop (Samuel H. Gardener) [a bishop of the Oklahoma First Ward who died in 1967] for two years between 15-17. . . . In June of 1993, our son, Scott, was 23 years old and recently returned from an honorable mission. He told my husband about being sexually molested between the age of 15-17 by his bishop . . . (Letter dated March 23, 1994)

The McCallisters’ son also accused his former bishop of ritually abusing him. Interestingly, on February 26, 1994, the Oklahoma newspaper, The Yukon Review, reported that the former bishop had been “charged with soliciting another person to commit an act of lewdness after a December incident at a University of Oklahoma men’s restroom.”

The McCallisters could not be silenced by the local Mormon Church leaders, and Merradyth was excommunicated from the church. Her husband, Jack, who was himself a former bishop, left the church over the matter. Another member of the church, Mary Plourde, who accused the former bishop and other church leaders of ritually and sexually abusing her children, was also excommunicated because she would not keep silent about the problem. Still another woman, Cinda Rhoton, reported she and her children were victims of ritual abuse. Both the former bishop and her ex-husband allegedly took part in the abuse.

We have obtained important information about this matter and have published it in our new book, Occultic Ritual Abuse: Fact or Fantasy? In addition, this book contains a great deal of information on the subject of sexual abuse, the effect of incest and ritual abuse on victims, people who develop multiple personalities and other serious mental problems because of abuse, repressed and restored memories, and the attempt by the False Memory Syndrome Foundation and others to undermine the credibility of those who are trying to help survivors.

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