How “Forgive and Forget” Buried a Church’s Dark Secret hosted and reported by Jessica Lussenhop, with reporting by Andy Mannix and Jeremy Kohler

How “Forgive and Forget” Buried a Church’s Dark Secret A man was convicted of abusing girls in his church. Preachers had known about the allegations for years. Some of the abuse even reportedly took place in the pews during services. So why did they never report him to the police? https://www.propublica.org/podcast/old-apostolic-lutheran-church-sexual-abuse-clint-massie?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=secondary “Paper Trail” host Jessica Lussenhop received an unusual email: A prosecutor had major concerns about a case in Minnesota. A man had pleaded guilty to felony child sexual abuse, but it seemed like the church he belonged to, the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church, might have played a part in keeping the abuse quiet. Lussenhop teamed up with reporter Andy Mannix, and they discovered this case was a symptom of a much bigger problem in the OALC. Related Reads: Since 2025, we’ve been reporting on how the OALC has enabled child sex abusers. Representatives from the church have previously said the cases of abuse are isolated incidents and they didn’t “observe any pattern” among the tens of thousands of members in OALC congregations in the U.S. and Canada. They said sexual abuse should be reported to authorities and that it was possible “some matters have been handled improperly or without sufficient knowledge.” Read the original stories here: https://www.propublica.org/series/forgive-and-forget?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=toc “Forgive and Forget”