Mine is a story of abuse. Not from a bishop but from a mormon dad who rose in the levels of mormon leadership because he did things like eloquently pray. He was, also,to put it bluntly a suck-up and as we all know this is a feature that helps you get far in mormonism (or whatever it is mormons call themselves these days).
After the abuse, I was the one who was shamed because I was not sexually pure. I was too naive to realize that my dad’s advances were not my fault. This interviewing process is damaging. Instead of helping rise above my wounds, it rubbed salt in them. I would cry because how could I repent. Repenting meant confessing and confessing meant spilling the biggest secret I kept. Implicating my dad was simply not an option.
Perhaps if these bishops who kindly asked sexually probing questions had some training, in understanding that crying and silences maybe meant more than wrong-doing, they would have been able to see bigger pictures. So after decades of working on myself, I have finally confronted my dad and risen above the damage he caused, but the Mormon system had nothing to do with this empowerment. In fact, it impeded it. Please CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS listen to these stories. Help us all rise above. Yours Respectfully, TAL