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
The directive came from the Archidiocese of Seattle, not (apparently) the Vatican. This archdiocese has been at the center of the scandal that prompted the law, so it looks like the archbishop may be doubling down on the cover-up.
Time to start shutting 'em down and seizing assets, in that case.
Or Washington State should modify the law to protect the anonymity of priests who comply.
To be fair and if we consider Catholic lore and dogma technically any kind of breach of the confessional seal is a major breach in Catholic law or whatever. So I understand this from a faith based perspective.
On the other hand, I’m an atheist so fuck the confessional seal and report major crimes. Especially fucking child abuse! Any kind of child abuse!
Other professions that hear personal information, such as psychologists and lawyers, are subject to mandatory reporting requirements, generally when people’s lives, either the client or members of the public, are endangered by not reporting.
We make the laws, the Catholic Church is subject to them, regardless of what the reactionary and corrupt Supreme Court might claim.
Catholics and all christians by extension are also bound to do good and protect those who can’t defend themselves.
I’m going to risk that denouncing and delivering to secular authoroties those who practice one of the most heinous acts we can think of falls under that responsibility.
Or because the church has lost its power to deliver “justice” of their accord (read inquisition and the follow up torture and mutilation) it has also lost the will to persecute evil deeds?
The confessional is one of the world’s most productive intelligence-gathering systems. And it wasn’t part of the earliest forms of Christianity-- there’s no evidence it was used prior to Constantine. Even when it was first introduced, it was more of an annual thing connected to Lent.
The modern system grew in the middle ages because of its revenue-generating possibilities: the confession -> penance -> absolution pipeline included the possibliity of gaining forgiveness by donating large sums to the Church (remember indulgences?). Nice little earner, that. And it remains a rich source of material to blackmail Catholics who would otherwise do things that are inconvenient to the church hierarchy.
I’ve phrased this in such a way as to make it clear that it’s not just about pedophilia. The Church commits other crimes too (remember the financial entanglement with the Mafia that was exposed during the Banco Ambrosiano scandal?) and also seeks (and uses) other forms of political leverage to protect and expand its power. And they don’t want to be scrutinized for fraud or influence-peddling any more than they do for protecting pedos.
I like your point of view but that’s an ever dwindling information base. Most catholics don’t go to confession and a good portion of humans on this rock isn’t one.
But besides that, spot on.
A priest is substantially closer to a therapist in function than to a lawyer.
: reads headline
Woo! Good for them! Stick it to The Man!
: reads article body
ahhhh fuck these guys
This isn’t really news. This has always been their stance. Priests will always urge the person to turn them self in for true repentance but they won’t ever break the confidentiality of confession.
The worlds largest pedophile ring doing gods work I guess.
Teaching has the most pedophiles, followed by music tutor, and priests/clerics are 3rd.
Teaching might have the most reported pedophiles. (Might because there’s no citations)
This comment below the post about how the Catholic Church will excommunicate those who report pedophiles may be… not as supportive for your argument as you might think.
Teaching might have the most reported pedophiles. (Might because there’s no citations)
There are also mandatory reporting law in many states.
Could be more like they give children a safe space they can trust to confess, but I’m more on team they just want to cover up their own diddling.
Yeah but is there a central leader for for teachers?
There is for Catholics. They’re all pederasts. Or at least comfortable with pederasts
It’s not like the pope or the catholic leadership is encouraging pedophiles. They’ve covered things up that happened, but it’s pretty wild to act like it’s some kind of pedo ring.
Covering thins like that up, is encouraging pedophiles. It let’s pedos know that it’s safe for them on the church.
There is a difference between wanting to deal with things internally without involving authorities, and actively promoting pedophilia. But I’m not here to go to bat for Catholics, I’m just pointing out the difference.
I feel like the distinction starts to get pretty blurry when “dealing with things internally without authorities” mostly just means covering stuff up and protecting predators, but yeah they don’t literally advertise to pedophiles
My only real problem with the narrative in this thread is with distilling the catholic church down to pedophile ring. It’s super reductive, ignoring so much history and the world views of so many decent people in light of a single issue. But just to be clear, I get that it’s a serious issue and they did a very poor job in dealing with it.
Hahahaha yeah ok.
Hundreds of millions of dollars spent to silence the countless victims of their systematic abuse but they’re not a pedo ring. lol
😂
I guess I would define a pedophile ring as an organization whose purpose is to abuse children.
Do you really think a pedophile ring would publicly advertise as such?
Hold on, you seriously believe that the purpose of the catholic church is to promote pedophilia?
That dumbass really isn’t living up to the username.
Bingo! You described Catholicism!!! And all religions. Actually!!!
Religion is child abuse. Catholics actually systematically rape the kids too.
Not sure if you are just being an edge lord or if you are a moron.
Is parenting no longer a job? Because that’s top by far.
Step-fathers in particular seem unusually prone to child abuse in all its forms.
By straight numbers I’m sure that’s the case, but i doubt its true by percentage. But to be honest I’m not sure if the study included parents.
Removed by mod
It’s not unique to Catholicism. Fundamentalists are just as bad. It’s also not unique to Christians. It’s not even unique to religious people.
So your rant is obscuring the real scope and nature of the problem, and your encouragement of arson would almost certainly lead to the deaths of innocent people.
Incidentally, I’m an atheist who is a former Catholic, so there’s no love lost between me and the Catholic Church. But I’m also aware that the US has an ugly history of anti-Catholic persecution that has no basis in the church’s odious practices. For example, the KKK and many nativist groups from the late 19th and early 20th centuries hated Catholics as much as they hated Black people or the Chinese.
No War but the Class War
Oh, there are plenty of other kinds of war going on now in addition to the class war that the rich have been waging against us for centuries.
Let’s do the thought experiment where this is about muslims instead of christians…
How does that play out?
Call me crazy, but I don’t think any religion should be molesting children or hiding it for others.
Ill call you Thomas the Tank Engine if i care to call at all, and i was pointing out the selective exceptionalism at work.
Take away their tax exempt status and tax them as the huge profitable businesses that they are.
The legit response. And continue to arrest members of this self aggrandized gang for the crimes they commit.
I was really hoping they’d be refusing to comply with unjust laws. If they wanted ways to look like the good guys, these days we’ve got plenty.
Fuck. Religion.
Agreed its a cancer on humanity. Fake ass shit.
Separation of church and state goes both ways.
Confession is a religious rite. Try to legislate that rite is a violation of that separation.
Priests are bound by their office to maintain absolute confidentiality of confessed sins. Otherwise people are not likely to confess their sins.
It doesn’t matter how you, personally, feel about this or their religion or the value of confession as a sacrament, that’s their religion. The state doesn’t get to intervene.
The church should stay out of state affairs, and the state should stay out of church affairs. Exceptions exist, like when practices are outright criminal in themselves. But the state cannot compel a priest to violate their office. This is long accepted. You cannot compel a priest to testify about confession, for example.
Priests can encourage people to go to the police, but that’s it. Their role in confession is between the sinner and their god.
Try to legislate that rite is a violation of that separation.
No. Secular law takes precedent. For example, a religion practicing human sacrifice, cannibalism, rape or slavery would be shut down, and rightly so.
Separation of church and state means that laws are not made that explicity refer to religious practices. But that does not imply that any aspect of religious practice is above the law.
Secular law takes precedent. For example, a religion practicing human sacrifice, cannibalism, rape or slavery would be shut down, and rightly so.
I do cover that in a later comment.
Confession and its confidentiality has already been upheld in legal precedent.
Yeah religion is a great cover for abusing kids.
This isn’t about priests abusing kids (though that’s definitely a recurring issue as well), it’s about people who have done so confessing such to a priest.
I’m not religious so don’t really have any stake in this, but it’s interesting that it is specifically about child sex abuse and not other major crimes such as rape, murder etc. That makes me worried as “for children” is often used as a testing ground for stuff that will be expanded upon later, and there’s a lot of stuff people likely confess - supposedly under strict confidence - to their religious figures.
Confession is about reconciliation with god and anyone that comes to ask forgiveness from their deity should be willing to make it right with the people they hurt by taking responsibility and accepting the consequences in a tangible way rather than thoughts and prayers.
I agree - and I would hope any advice given by a priest would cover this - but if it becomes a mandatory thing where does it end. Should priests report abortions in states that have made then illegal? How about sheltering an undocumented immigrant, or any number of things that the current administration might decide they don’t like?
No, and the difference is that reporting pedophilia isn’t a slippery slope to criminalizing human rights. The source of the problem is completely unrelated.
You can’t make diddling a child right, ever. But man, so glad diddy had something named after him…
Along with the laity, priests must also go to confession. So it does provide cover for priests abusing kids.
There’s a Christian duty to follow laws that are just as well. From a very Christian perspective, the right thing to do would be convincing them to confess outright at least.
I’m no priest and I was definitely never catholic, but that’s how I see it as someone who grew up in a protestant house.
There’s a Christian duty to follow laws that are just as well.
If you read St Paul, the “that are just” clause appears nowhere. Instead, there is an absolute requirement to obey the authorities (though clearly they made an exception when the authorities were persecuting Christians, though some might argue that Christians are now effectively self-persecuting).
I can tell you that that’s also what I got. The way confessions work, the priest gives you… “penance” is what it might be called? What you need to do to repent for your sins and be absolved of them. Usually that’s some prayer, but they can tell you that you have to turn yourself in and admit to your crimes to the police.
I have no idea if priests actually do that, and I imagine with the secrecy it’d be hard to get any information.
Well put. At a point it would be the only way to be “right with god” in the first place.
In the end the system is eerily, well, identical to American cops protecting their own. At least it makes Thin White Line kinda funny for a few reasons.
This is disgusting, doctors need to report the same thing. Its child abuse its basically saying you support pedofilia. Unless that’s what you’re covering up in your thinly veiled argument. The Catholic church should not be a safe haven for pedophiles.
This is disgusting, doctors need to report the same thing.
Doctors are not religious figures. Doctor patient confidentiality is not an absolute protected by the first amendment (with legal precedent).
Its child abuse its basically saying you support pedofilia. Unless that’s what you’re covering up in your thinly veiled argument.
That’s a nice false equivalence. I’m impressed that you managed to get from “priests cannot be compelled by the state to violate their religious office” to supporting pedophilia.
The Catholic church should not be a safe haven for pedophiles.
I agree. That’s a larger problem though.
A larger problem addressed by bills just like this.
Therapists are allowed to maintain confidentiality.
No they are not.
Therapists are subject to mandatory reporting laws.
Is this true? I thought with things like danger to oneself or others they’re mandated reporters.
They are.
Source: wife is a therapist. She is also ethically obligated to (and does) disclose her mandatory reporting obligations to new clients.
They have some obligations in cases of child endangerment or suicide, direct threats to others. I’m not sure of the details, if it’s similar expectations or what.
You’re right, that commenter doesn’t know what they’re talking about
That’s an interesting point. Maybe priests should have similar requirements, licensing, oversight, and malpractice liability.
More the point is that therapists don’t have the same obligations as doctors. Therapists can keep confidentiality of things that doctors aren’t allowed to. The guy i responded to was comparing priests to doctors, but a better comparison would be comparing them to therapists.
Are therapists not mandatory reporters in your jurisdiction?
They have more patient confidentiality than doctors, but I’m not sure of the specifics.
If you don’t mind my asking, which country are you in? Therapists are mandatory reporters for child abuse everywhere in Canada/USA.
Yep
Exceptions exist, like when practices are outright criminal in themselves
Aiding and abetting criminals is a crime.
How does receiving a confession aid or abet the perpetrator?
«Bless me father for I have sinned: I have a sex slave in my basement. I rape him every day because I cannot control myself."
You don’t report that and you’re siding the continue commission of a crime.
Overall you’re right about the first amendment, but it feels like that separating only goes one way, and I’m tired of religion getting the better side of it.
It’s also so selective. I can’t kill a live chicken to practice Santeria but it’s fine for orthodox jews on Kaporos? We can’t compel a priest to report a murder or testify but they can tell their constituents to vote for the candidate that bans women’s healthcare?
You’re right, having done some light wikipedia-ing, emotional support such that a priest provides would make him an accessory.
Psychiatrists are legally obligated to report knowledge of certain crimes that would otherwise be protected by confidentiality laws, I don’t see why priests should be any different.
emotional support such that a priest provides would make him an accessory
That does not appear to be true, unless the crime is being planned or in progress.
But even if it somehow did, you’d effectively be demanding a priest self-incriminate by admitting to the contents of a confession.
It’s called “accessory after the fact”, and they wouldn’t be guilty of it if they report it, that’s the whole point of reporting it.
An accessory must generally have knowledge that a crime is being committed, will be committed, or has been committed. A person with such knowledge may become an accessory by helping or encouraging the criminal in some way. The assistance to the criminal may be of any type, including emotional or financial assistance as well as physical assistance or concealment.
they wouldn’t be guilty of it if they report it
Imagine believing this given the current state of the criminal justice system
Psychiatrists don’t get arrested for reporting on patients when the law requires it, this is no different. You’re thinking of whistleblowers and functional regulation enforcement agency employees. Now, if the confessor in question is, like, the mayor or something, then yeah, Father’s fucked.
Psychiatrists
Thank you, this was the comparison I was looking for and the standard I would hold for this. I agree with your assessment.
What if the priest doest’t provide emotional support
Then they won’t know about the crime to begin with. The very act of listening to the confession and advising spiritual penance provides emotional support.
If a child says my dad touches me at night and you do nothing you belong in jail
Pretty much describing how we ended up with the Satanic Panic
There’s two sides to this coin. Getting children - particularly young children who don’t understand what they’re being asked - to confess and accuse people of crimes is trivially easy.
Except in that case, people never confessed to anyone. Instead, religious fanatic adults knowingly or not coached children to provide details of abuse. Most of the accounts were physically impossible or supernatural in nature. Fundies were involved, so what else would you expect?
So, nothing like this case at all. In the Satanic Panic, there was no credible, actionable information. Just a feedback cycle of ignorant rumor that led to (nominally) secular authorities being manipulated into taking action that was a miscarriage of justice against innocent people.
It doesn’t, there’s just stupid people out there who find X so abhorrent that can’t possibly have a rational thought regarding it.
But you’ve been on Lemmy before, so I’m sure you know all about it.
Typical lemmy, finding X abhorrent*.
^*for child-rape values of X^
I wouldn’t know, I don’t have an X account
Cool, break that down for us.
I was wrong, the priest is an accessory to the crime.
In the United States, a person who learns of the crime and gives some form of assistance before the crime is committed is known as an “accessory before the fact”. A person who learns of the crime after it is committed and helps the criminal to conceal it, or aids the criminal in escaping, or simply fails to report the crime, is known as an “accessory after the fact”. A person who does both is sometimes referred to as an “accessory before and after the fact”, but this usage is less common.
You know what that’s fair. This is the “just” thing to do.
I still do hope priests will try to fix it in their own communities tho.
Geez… I never thought I would see so much support for religious bullshit on this site. I’d rather see fewer children harmed than preserve the “sanctity” of confession, and every excommunicated priest is a priest with actual integrity.
A curious question. Why isn’t everyone a mandatory reporter for child abuse? And assuming there is a good reason why, then why are doctors and such specifically seperated out. And do priests fit that same criteria?
Why isn’t everyone a mandatory reporter for child abuse?
Why isn’t everyone a mandatory reporter for any crime?
There have been numerous societies in history where ratting out one’s neighbors was expected behavior. None of them were fit places for people to live.
You’ve touched on a key point, I think. Doctors and other professionals have mandatory reporting because a) they are in positions of respect and trust within the community, and b) they are professionals, as defined in law, and have standards to uphold.
Priests definitely meet the definition of a), however b) is a bit of a sticking point: their role isn’t defined by law, but by the church. Furthermore, a court can order you to go to therapy sessions, but they can’t order you to go to confession - it’s completely voluntary. A therapist could tease out previous abuse, but a priest will only hear what the confessor wants to tell them about.
I’m in line with you in thinking that everyone should report abuse, but I think that a priest has more in common with an average person in this regard compared to a person working in a legally protected profession. There would be legal consequences for impersonating a therapist, but not for impersonating a priest.
It has to do with professional training and responsibility (duty of care), coupled with kids trusting them more and they are considered to have some para-custodial responsibility for children.
Priests aren’t entirely in that category, but they probably should be, the question is the relationship of the priests, ie a random priest who heard a rumor is very different from one who heard confession or tends the victim or abuser directly.
Also, you don’t want to empower random-ass people too much, people are absolute fucking morons and media will incite them to do something more moronic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate_conspiracy_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel
Inbred rednecks just danger incarnate, empowering them in any way is insane and will guarantee needess innocent victims.
It’s funny, the post above this one on my feed is a bunch of people crowing about how you’d have to be a “tankie” to not support the new head of this organization.
I do think it’s funny that Republicans are attacking the Pope for being “woke” and other nonsense, but are leaving out calling him a pedo. They do it for just about everyone else they call “woke”.
Gee, I wonder why this one is different. Lol.
?
From what I’ve heard he doesn’t like Trump, and the tankie label is commonly and incorrectly equated with MAGA.
