SPECIAL REPORT: Jehovah's Witnesses and sex abuse - "Still haunted by a rape and by faith's response" - FRONT PAGE of the Philadelphia Inquirer (US)

[Jack Ryan]

With a readership of almost one million people for the Sunday edition, The Philadelphia Inquirer has published a major FRONT PAGE headline article with an inside FULL page article in it's Sunday, June 24, 2018, PRINT edition .

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SPECIAL REPORT: Jehovah's Witnesses and sex abuse

Still haunted by a rape and by faith's response

The Philadelphia Inquirer (US), Sunday, June 24, 2018 - Front page (A1) plus page A17

She says she was 5 when another Jehovah's Witness raped her. The religion's leaders call such accounts 'false stories' 

Stephen Lett is 69, bald, and round-faced, with eyes that sometimes spring open to dramatic effect while he’s talking — if you can manage to get an audience with him.

For much of the last two decades, Lett has been a member of the small governing body that runs JehovahÂ’s Witnesses and sets the course for the denominationÂ’s followers at more than a dozen congregations in the Philadelphia area, and thousands more around the world. Lett and the seven other men on this committee maintain quiet profiles, their voices usually absent from media coverage about the WitnessesÂ’ widespread child sex-abuse problems.

But in the spring of 2015, Lett unexpectedly starred in a 10-minute video that was posted on the WitnessesÂ’ website, an appearance that coincided with a spate of stories about abuse allegations and cover-ups published by Reveal, from the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Dressed in a dark suit, he grew animated as he urged followers to stay united by “rejecting false stories.”

Years later, still haunted by rape

PICTURE: Chessa Manion at tge Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg after a rally earlier this month seeking to eliminate the cap on the amount of times child sex-crime victims have to come forward.

PICTURE: Stephen Lett, a Jehovah's Witnesses leader, says on a video on its website that the idea that the Witnesses are permissive toward pedophiles is "ridiculous".

PICTURE: Chessa Manion hugs State Rep. Mark Rozzi (D., Berks) minutes after a rally calling for the elimination of PennsylvaniaÂ’s statutes of limitations in child sex abuse cases.

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http://www.philly.com/philly/news/jehovahs-witnesses-child-sex-abuse-stephen-lett-chessa-manion-20180620.html