LDS Church Breaks Silence About Mountain Meadows

In what is being called unprecedented terms, the LDS Church is talking openly about the Mountain Meadows Massacre. On the Church's website, there is a new article and account of the infamous 1857 event. The article will also be published in September in the LDS Church's Ensign Magazine.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre remains one of the darkest moments in Utah and LDS Church history. 120 California bound settlers were attacked and killed by Mormons and Paiutes. Ironically, it took place on 9-11, 1857.

And while the LDS Church has expressed sympathy for the Mountain Meadows slayings, it hasn't always been anxious to talk about it. At a memorial service there in 1999, President Gordon B. Hinckley said, "We have a Christian duty to honor, to respect and to do all feasible to remember and recognize those who died here."

But now, in this article, the church is openly discussing what happened. The article asks, "How could this have happened? How could members of the Church have participated in such a crime?"

This article originally came just days before the opening of the controversial movie, "September Dawn," but now filmmakers have once again delayed it's release. The film is a fictionalized version of the darkest day in Utah history. In retelling the story of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, it paints all Mormons especially their leader Brigham Young as dangerous religious zealots. It was originally set to release in early May. Then it was June 22. Now the target date is August 24.

The only explanation is that August will be "a less competitive time." Filmmakers are apparently referring to summer blockbusters. If "September Dawn" had been released Friday, it would have been up against the opening of "Evan Almighty" as well as "Pirates of the Caribbean" and other movies already in general release.

This September 11 will mark the 150th anniversary of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. LDS Church Leaders are expected to take part in special memorial services at the Mountain Meadows site.

Will Bagley, on the involvement of the Church in the Mountain Meadows Massacre:

As is the case of many other dark, malevolent deeds, the true facts of the tragedy were at first suppressed and later deliberately falsified, distorted, and confused. Though some important details relating to the initiation, planning, and actual execution of the massacre still remain obscure, the evidence shows clearly enough that a number of authorities of the Mormon Church in southern Utah were directly responsible for the tragedy and authorized or perhaps even planned its most revolting features.


The Mormon leaders in Salt Lake, moreover, not only failed to bring the murderers to justice but for nearly twenty years effectively used their authority and influence to prevent the federal officers from arresting the offenders. It is obvious, moreover, that Brigham Young and his highest advisers were fully informed of the massacre soon after it occurred and knew to what degree each participant was accountable for its initiation and execution.


To deny that Young had at least full ex post facto knowledge of the appalling business of the massacre is to deny the supreme and minute control that he habitually exercised over all the affairs of church and state in Utah, and to take the naïve position that a man who kept himself as fully and completely informed on all matters that went on in the "Kingdom of the Saints" as absolute authority and human ingenuity made possible would choose to remain complacently ignorant of an incident that threatened to bring stark ruin to the whole Mormon dream of spiritual and temporal sovereignty in the State of Deseret.


Brigham Young was not a credulous simpleton: he was not duped or hoodwinked: he was not misinformed. He knew the true story of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, about which the most damning reports were soon published in the hostile Gentile world and widely circulated even among the Mormons themselves, as well as any man in Utah; and he knew the names of the individual Mormons, whether prominent or obscure, who participated in the wholesale atrocities.


*****My Thoughts*****


I have to wonder about the approach that the church is taking when talking about the Mountain Meadows Massacre. It's not as if this event is common knowledge throughout the ranks of the faithful, so why are they treating it as if it is? One of the lines I noticed in the article:

For a century and a half the Mountain Meadows Massacre has shocked and distressed those who have learned of it.

This, to me, says that they had no active part in making sure ANYONE learned of it.

The article goes on to say:


The tragedy has deeply grieved the victims’ relatives, burdened the perpetrators’ descendants and Church members generally with sorrow and feelings of collective guilt, unleashed criticism on the Church, and raised painful, difficult questions. How could this have happened? How could members of the Church have participated in such a crime?


Up until the announcement that September Dawn was about to be released, the church has NEVER claimed to have "feelings of collective guilt". The wording here is that the DESCENDANTS and the church MEMBERS have been the ones burdened with the sorrow and guilt, as a result of what happened. Not the church. As a matter of fact, Gordon Hinckley has gone OUT OF HIS WAY to make the point that the church does not admit fault!!!

At the 1999 dedication of the Mountain Meadows Monument:

"I come as a peacemaker. This is not a time for recrimination or the assigning of blame," he said at the ceremony that was broadcast to LDS Church buildings in Utah and Arkansas.

"No one can explain what happened in these meadows 142 years ago. We may speculate, but we do not know," Hinckley said. "We do not understand it. We cannot comprehend it. We can only say that the past is long since gone."

Hinckley said the church was not involved in the killings, and, "That which we have done here must never be construed as an acknowledgment on the part of the church of any complicity in the occurrences of that fateful and tragic day."


Did you know THAT? Is the world spinning, or is it just me?

And of course, the church is being PERSECUTED by critics and forced to answer "painful, difficult questions". Who made this bed, the critics or the church? Maybe if those bones hadn't accidentally been dug up in the first place, you wouldn't have to deal with the aftermath!!! Here's a thought: maybe if Brigham Young had been punished for his crimes of treason against the United States, for his acts of TERRORISM, then the church wouldn't have anything to apologize for!!

How about checking out what the descendants of those murdered by the Mormons in that valley have to say? Seems like they explain it pretty well, even if Hinckley claims they can't understand or comprehend what happened on that fateful day. All you have to do is read the personal accounts, read the history, follow-up on the events of the trial that followed, learn how long the cover-ups lasted and the efforts Brigham Young made to make sure the true story would never be heard. I don't think it's time to put it in the past and move on, I think it's time to finally deal with the past, make your proper apologies and explanations to the people from whom you have withheld information, and THEN move on.

Treating this as if they have already dealt with it, and they are being mercilessly persecuted for something that happened 150 years ago gives the false impression that they are open about their history, and all the members of their church know their side of the story. Well, if that were true, why are they just now coming out with an article about it, telling their members about the tragedy for the first time ever? And every member who reads this will be asking the same things: "Why didn't I know about this before?", "What else have they 'not' mentioned to me?" , "Can I trust them to tell me the truth about everything, when they hid this from me?"

Yep, it's time for them to squirm uncomfortably in their seats...