Ah, so it resolved her cognitive dissonance. At least, she knows she can protect her own children, maybe?græy wrote: ↑Tue Mar 27, 2018 7:54 am Son-of-a-bi**h!
Within the last three days my wife started to actually respond to the BYU-Bishop/Sam Young/interview theme. She openly admitted to being bothered, and wondering why on Earth the church would continue with an obviously dangerous method of conducting interviews. She was asking why the church was holding onto a broken policy for decades when there were obviously people suffering because of it.
Then they announce these new "guidelines" and suddenly her faith in the institution, in prophets, and in the revelation of God to protect His one true church is restored and validated!
My wife and I have talked about this quite a bit, too. We talked about the policy changes when they came out this morning (on the east side of the Atlantic Pond), and I initially took a negative view. Then I read the policy thoroughly and acknowledged the steps in the right direction. Honestly, the new policy will do a lot of good if it's followed and people know about it. Believe the victim, don't encourage staying with an abuser, don't discourage reporting to the police - this is all good, corrective stuff. I can acknowledge that. You might make more headway if you can, too.
I can also acknowledge that allowing but not requiring two adults is a reasonable compromise between protecting kids from predatory bishops and giving kids a safe space to report abuse. After all, kids are much more likely to be abused at home by a parent than by the bishop in his office. I also think it's reasonable to take a conservative approach akin to "do no harm," so I honor Sam for sticking to his guns in true Texas fashion on this. At least conversations are still happening in Mormon homes.
We talked about some issues I still have with the policy. One is that it allows invasive questions. Fortunately, my wife isn't certain M is wrong, and isn't convinced that a bishop is the right person to help with P&M even if it is.
Another issue is that the helpline to Kirton-McConkie is a big, fat policy black hole. We haven't got a clue what the policies are on the other end of the line. From what I can find online, though, it seems they advise to not report confessed abuse whenever possible, probably in order to maintain confidentiality of confession (or so they tell themselves). I think this is wrong-headed because there's almost nothing a bishop can do to help an abuser change, especially if the crime is sexual abuse. It's tragic that the penal and mental health systems (at least in the US) usually can't offer rehabilitation to abusers, but we should consider the current and future victims first.
Besides, it's rare that abusers confess (they usually see no reason to), and when they do, like Joseph Bishop, they downplay their actions and confess to a lot less than what they're guilty of.
