Protecting Families in the Church from Sexual Violence

 

If I can use the gift of discernment to know that my companion and I were in an unsafe area full of drug cartel members who fantasized about kidnapping and raping her, what excuse exists for any man who is allegedly more qualified to hold the priesthood than I am?

I do believe the gift of discernment is real. That's why I'm not making excuses for any man in this church for not using it. If men aren't seeing the predators trying to prey on the flock that was entrusted to them, maybe they're not as prepared to lead as they think they are.

There is a certain kind of man within the Church who cannot deal with the reality that he is not the most capable person in every room. That's why they yell at women like me for pointing it out and shattering the illusions by which they take respect they don't deserve. More than one of them has been gorilla pounding on their chests in my Twitter mentions, demanding me to take my time to personally tutor them on what I expect the Church to do to prevent sexual abuse in the Church.

We could try respecting women enough to listen to them when they report these issues because, as actual potential targets, they are more attuned to these threats than men are as a matter of survival. 

But that seems like a big ask. 

So how about... actually be the person you're pretending to be. Be competent in spiritual leadership as something other than giving assignments and having meetings where everyone shows up eager to believe everything you say. Have the spiritual maturity to actually receive the warnings about people the ward brings to your attention, instead of blowing them off because those warnings didn't come directly from God to you. 

Be the kind of men who could actually protect someone. And not in this delusional, 2A, I have a gun so I'm prepared to blow someone's head off if they look at me funny "protection." The kind of protection that sees a problem and stops it before it ever gets the chance of happening. Real protection.

I expect you to do the job you were so certain you could do better than any woman, you took all of the meaningful administrative tasks for yourself. You wanted to lead, including on this. So either do it and stop messing up, or get out of the way and let someone else do it.