Washington • The LDS Church said Thursday that it has “zero tolerance” for abuse of any kind but couldn’t speak directly to allegations by the ex-wives of a former White House official who reported they received no help from their Mormon clergy when they were being abused.

Jennifer Willoughby and Colbie Holderness — former wives of Rob Porter, who resigned as White House staff secretary this week — said their lay bishops either didn’t believe them or didn’t step in to help when they said Porter had physically abused them.

Porter has denied the charges.

“When I tried to get help, I was counseled to consider carefully how what I said might affect his career,” Willoughby wrote in a blog post last year, adding later, “Friends and clergy didn’t believe me. And so I stayed.”

She also told The Intercept that when she went to her bishop about Porter’s anger issues, he cautioned that it could hurt Porter’s image. “Keep in mind, Rob has career ambitions,” she recalled the local LDS leader saying, according to the online news outlet.

Holderness, who gave the Daily Mail a picture of her with a black eye she said Porter gave her, told the British newspaper that the lay Mormon clergy was of no help when she needed it.

“It wasn’t until I went to a secular counselor at my workplace one summer and told him what was going on that he was the first person, and not a male religious leader, who told me that what was happening was not OK,” she told the Daily Mail.

Eric Hawkins, a spokesman for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said Thursday he couldn’t speak to the individual circumstances of the allegations. But he issued a statement that abuse is not tolerated.

“It is difficult to speak to specific circumstances without complete information from all involved, but the position of the church is clear: There is zero tolerance for abuse of any kind,” Hawkins said. “Church leaders are given instruction on how to prevent and report abuse and how to care for those who have been abused.”

Porter, who attended LDS Church-owned Brigham Young University in Provo for a year before transferring to Harvard and who served a Mormon mission in London, resigned from the White House, though he says the allegations are false.

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“I took the photos given to the media nearly 15 years ago and the reality behind them is nowhere close to what is being described,” Porter said. “I have been transparent and truthful about these vile claims, but I will not further engage publicly with a coordinated smear campaign.”

Porter was a former chief of staff to Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who made public statements alternately condemning the “vile attack on such a decent man,” and later saying he was “heartbroken” by the allegations and denouncing domestic violence as “abhorrent.”

Porter also had previously worked for Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who declined comment.

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