I prefer to go the professional route and hire a team of people so my rehearsals are more accurate.

Priests are being made into mandatory reporters in Washington state. In Washington state, the mandatory reporting law appears to require reporting of all past events of abuse - it does not make reference to recent acts or imminent risk.

Sec. 2. (1) (a) When [any member of these groups] has reasonable cause to believe that a child has suffered abuse or neglect, he or she shall report such incident, or cause a report to be made, to the proper law enforcement agency or to the department

https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/?BillNumber=5375&Year=2025

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 almost certainly varies between jurisdictions. However, a few minutes ago I looked it up the proposed law in Washington^[1] for this story, and it does actually require reporting of all past cases of child abuse for all groups listed (therapists and other professionals, and now priests also).

To be clear, it’s the time that varies, almost everywhere has laws requiring some level of mandatory reporting. But, for example, the federal definition^[2] does not require reporting of child abuse cases in the distant past (my emphasis):

What Constitutes Child Abuse and Neglect?

At the federal level, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) provides a minimum definition of child abuse and neglect. It is defined as, “any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation…or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.”

The key part is that it only covers recent harm and imminent risk. This is the baseline that’s pretty much universal, but it seems many, or at least some, states have laws that go further and require all reporting. The Washington state law^[1:1] is summarised as:

When [any member of these groups] has reasonable cause to believe that a child has suffered abuse or neglect, he or she shall report such incident, or cause a report to be made, to the proper law enforcement agency or to the department

Well you already pointed at why: because you can be ordered into mental health care. You can’t be ordered into confession, it’s completely voluntary. Furthermore, priests do not have a legal duty of care; they are not registered professionals with professional standards to follow. Their role is defined by the church, not law and regulation.

In a practical sense, such a law isn’t going to work much anyway. It would be almost impossible to prove that a priest had been confessed to, short of someone admitting it directly. So the only way it works is if the child abuser wants to get one over on their priest - giving the child abuser another avenue to hurt someone else.

Solution: wait a few months and release it anonymously, while claiming it was found elsewhere.

Is it a constant problem? How many child molesters are confessing in church? How many Catholics are child molesters?

The Catholic church’s history with child abuse is to do with Priests and the church covering for them. This is new spin, suggesting that Catholics as a whole contains a lot of child molesters, but I’ve not seen any evidence showing that.

Small correction, a lawyer is only obligated if they believe there is a specific ongoing risk. It’s the difference between saying you committed a crime in the past and saying that you are going to commit one in future.

If some random Catholic confessed to a priest that he was diddling kids, you can bet that as part of the penance, the priest would tell that person to turn themselves in to the authorities. But we know what has happened when the confessor was a priest.

This is the thing that’s bugging me. People are taking the Catholic church’s history with priests committing child abuse, then making a blind logical leap that Catholics in general are child abusers (or a significant number of them). It’s twisting the feelings about Catholic priests and targeting them at a wider group. What’s happening here is insidious.

How many Catholics are child molesters, and how many of them are confessing in church, and what penance were they given?

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.

That’s not quite accurate. Therapists are required to break confidentiality if they believe there is an ongoing risk to others, not because someone tells them of child abuse they committed in the past. In that sense, a confessional would probably be the same - you don’t confess to things that haven’t happened yet. You’re more likely to express ongoing risk in therapy than in confession.

If the confessor indicated that they were going to continue doing things, that’s when a confession should become reportable, if we’re want the law to be secular and equitable.

People are already boycotting American things on their own, it doesn’t make sense to punish them. If anything, that’s more likely to backfire and make that government look bad towards its people.

The only way tariffs work is if the revenue collected from them is used to do something for the country setting them. America isn’t doing that, America is being stupid. Trump is going to rinse America dry and all the tariff money American taxpayers paid will be gone (probably by the government investing in a classic and obvious crypto scam meme coin).

Other countries shouldn’t be stupid like America, they should only apply tariffs with a plan to re-invest the revenue back into their country. If they even need to apply tariffs at all; I’d argue not.

The point I’m making is that retaliatory tariffs don’t make Americans suffer, let alone the American government. They maybe mean some American businesses make a little bit less money, but that’s it. What tariffs really do is make that country’s people suffer.

The American government is already making Americans suffer with American tariffs. It makes no sense for other countries to make their own people suffer with their own tariffs.

Ultimately, tariffs are a tax; they take money from the people and put it in the government’s pocket. I wouldn’t want my governmet taking more of my money, not at least without some plan for what it’s going to be spent on (and those plans being in my or the country’s interest).

If America wants to tax Americans for buying overseas then that’s their problem, and it doesn’t mean that Europe or other countries should start taxing their own citizens.

This is why it’s ridiculous that media in other countries are criticising their politicians for not responding harshly to Trump’s tariffs with tariffs of their own.

When America applies tariffs on imports it’s Americans who pay them. It affects foreign business slightly, in the form of reduced sales, but the real victims are Americans. When other countries apply tariffs, the main victims are their citizens.

The correct response to someone punching themselves in the face is not to punch yourself in the face.

Maybe it isn’t, but I just find it hard to believe the obsession with Merrivius on r/comics is completely natural.

The artist is Merrivius https://www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/elf-comic/list?title_no=983708

Elf girl is bottom left, the artist begins with M. Their comics are really popular on r/comics.

Edit: The artist is called Merrivius https://www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/elf-comic/list?title_no=983708

Shots fired lmao I bet this tanked on reddit, they’re obsessed with their elf girl (and that totally isn’t astroturfed).

Nah it would have cost the city the same regardless, you’re just talking about how much the civils business pays its workers.

Most likely this would have been part of a larger project of installing cycle lanes in various places. But it still would have been expensive, civil contractors are notorious.

In other words, US agencies are doing less to protect US citizens and businesses from Russian cyberattacks.