The Catholic Church has issued a warning to its clergy in Washington state: Any priest who complies with a new law requiring the reporting of child abuse confessions to authorities will be excommunicated.
https://www.newsweek.com/catholic-church-excommunicate-priests-following-new-us-state-law-2069039
Why aren’t all the preists who diddle kids excommunicated?
Because that’s the whole point of the church. It’s just one big sham so they can diddle kids
Catholic Church = Child Molester Haven.
Pretty simple.
Oh, it’s most churches. And the GOP.
They’d have no priests left
The oughta write a song about it
Because they get to keep stuff like that secret.
Wait a sec. What the fuck? So reporting child rape is now BAD???
They hold confession to be inviolate, which is fucking bullshit. Doctors, including psychiatrists, who aren’t allowed to share that shit do have to report certain criminal acts to police.
Unfortunately all too often freedom of religion translates to freedom from consequences. Fuck the Catholic church (and all churches) in general, but in particular for shit like this. Three Catholic church isn’t unique in this, it’s just got the most rigidly hierarchical, top-down structure of them all.
Note for the internet: I am just clarifying the Catholic stance. I am not Catholic and not defending them.
Priests cannot reveal what someone tells them in confession. It’s a lot like attorney-client privilege, as your priest is supposed to be your advocate before God. Breaking the seal of confession is a big deal (to them) because, just like criminals deserve representation, sinners need to be able to confess.
Sinners should be allowed to confess, but not be absolved of consequence or even just be allowed to continue.
If things worked the way they should you don’t just confess your sin and go about your day. The priest assigns a penance. We are at the edge of my knowledge, and I would love for a Catholic to chime in, but I know penance can be harsh, especially for a grave sin. I’m not sure how it works in practice.
The idea is certainly not to just allow it to continue. Here we get to obvious failings of the Catholic Church. But, honestly, it’s not like the government is that great about protecting children from powerful men either.
Confession is for stuff you’ve done, not are going to do. Presumably they recognize it was wrong or they wouldn’t go to confession about it.
I agree it sucks, but I also agree with the comment above yours. Yes, this crime is bad and the people deserve to be caught. I don’t trust the state to always do the right thing though. If we agree with this, we should also agree when they do the same for petty theft, assisting with an illegal abortion, or whatever other crimes they want. This is a slippery slope (not the fallacy) to the state removing protections of any confession, and these people believe if they don’t confess they’ll go to hell, regardless of if they’ll never do it again or if it wasn’t that significant.
Now?
It’s always been this way. There are a few states that require a priest to report child aduse but most don’t require it.
It’s always been this way.
Yah but now there’s an american pope who is against trump so crank up the smear machine
Trump should confess the Epstein Island sins he comitted.
The U.S. Department of Justice said it is investigating whether the law infringes on First Amendment religious protections.
Imagine thinking you could sin recklessly, tell it to some dude in a funny hat/robe and that God is somehow okay with it. Imagine keeping the identities of child abusers secret because of that stupid line of thought (or because you can relate to the person touching kids).
Oh, I thought maybe this had to do with standing up against some regressive anti-immigration law, but nope, it’s just the Catholic church being weird about sexual abuse. Again.
And for extra reading, learn about how the new pope covered up for priests that abused kids when he was a bishop:
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-853274
*Edit: removed the bad source. The Jpost article is good and includes several additional sources. For more: https://www.qwant.com/?q=+Robert+Prevost+abuse+cover+up
If you’re gonna bash the guy, at least use a credible source for christ’s sake.
Edit: 👍
the Will County Gazette is an imposter site, lacks transparency, and publishes false information. As a result, we rate them right-center, biased, and Questionable.
Right you are, updated accordingly. Thanks for the tip.
Fucking… of course he did 🤦♂️
And there goes any hope of Ameripope not being a piece of shit. Delightful.
This article is from 2 days ago before he was elected the pope.
How could they possibly have known?! /s
That ship sailed when they elected a Catholic. What else could have happened?
You… uh… realize that the pope is the head of the Catholic Church, right…?
Their point was that all Catholic leadership are pieces of shit. Basically just saying, ‘duh’
Yes.
you don’t get to a place where you’re eligible to become pope without some skeletons in your closet
Being a piece of shit is a prerequisite to be a religious leader, full stop.
Eh, there are absolutely religious leaders who aren’t pieces of shit, but there are very, very few of them.
We also need a law that requires news sources to provide links to law(s) being discussed in their articles!
I support this state law, though I think it’s unlikely to directly have the intended effect and will probably just prevent people from confessing instead.
I don’t think people with a guilty conscience should have a way to clear their conscience other than behaving better and making up for their wrongs with better behavior.
At the same time, I get why the Catholic Church opposes the state law. And it’s one of the biggest reasons I’m against all Christian religions, Evangelicalism included: they’re more concerned about power than about people. And yeah, I think the Catholic Church’s stance on this issue is fucked up, just like most Christian stances on political moral issues are fucked up these days.
But the timing of this article, and the right wing motivations against Catholicism make it clear that this article is also more concerned about power than about people. The state law doesn’t stop child abuse or result in any more reporting of child abuse.
The way I see it, this article is actually right wing propaganda targeting the Pope because he supports Europe and Ukraine against Russia.
though I think it’s unlikely to directly have the intended effect and will probably just prevent people from confessing instead.
That’s the thing, if you violate the confidentiality of confessionals then people simply won’t confess, and then you lose the avenue for a priest to try and convince someone to address their behaviour. Maybe that’s not very effective, but it’s more effective than not having it.
In line with your assessment of the article’s agenda, I have to question how much of an issue this even is. Like, the Catholic church has a long history with child abuse, but wasn’t that primarily about Priests abusing children in their parish, and the church protecting its priests? This is an accusation that Catholics themselves are a bunch of child molesters, which is not something I’ve seen any evidence in support of.
I also wonder logistically how it would work with the confessional booth. The church allows you to confess without the priest ever seeing your face or knowing your name. Would they be required to perform citizens arrests upon hearing of a crime?
They’ve always had this policy. A priest would be excommunicated for revealing even a murderer, if they knew about it from a confession.
We’ll kick you out of our kiddy diddler club
Is quite the threat
Priest: I’d like to report child abuse because that’s the law. Church: You’re out! Go to hell, dickbag.
Holy fuck that’s awful
K, so, maybe an unpopular opinion, but given the current administration and local governments of some states… would you have the same reaction if Texas passed a law that priests have to report confessions about being trans, or gay?
I would argue that being trans or gay isn’t actively harming anyone else just like being cis or straight isn’t. There’s no difference.
This is about client/attorney or patient/doctor privilege. It’s about the state defining laws that violate said confidentiality agreements. If it the state can violate one confidentiality with a law, why not another?
More importantly, there’s a difference to you and to me, but I’ll bet there are people in the MAGA base who disagree. Who believe abortion is murder and is therefore worse than child abuse. Who will, when it occurs to them, to pass laws saying that if you admit to an abortion, the priest has to turn you in.
I mean, abortion is already an unforgivable sin in the Catholic church, so that’s probably no conflict; but child abuse isn’t a mortal sin. You’re trying to apply secular logic to an organization whose rules come from a collection is fairy tales.
It means the law works.
If they truly believe in their faith, then they will serve their sentences faithfully, as a show if their devotion to their god.
Protecting child abuse should have a cost regardless of the motivation.
Pedophiles protecting pedophiles? Who would have thunk!
