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
Double win! Child abuse gets reported, and the catholic church gets less influence.
Priests for jail! So many of them should be there for their own pedophile anyway.
I read the headline and was prepared to support the church on this one (for once). Then I read the first paragraph of the article. I have never made a 180 on an opinion so fast. The fuck is wrong with the Catholic church and child abuse? Why is this a constant problem with them?
To be fair, lawyers get to avoid this (I assume). This isn’t the same obviously, but if you view it from their frame of reference it is even more important. They must confess if they want to be “saved from God”, and similarly you should be honest with your lawyer to be saved from the court.
I don’t know where I stand on this issue. I obviously want them to be caught, and the religion is bogus, and the organization causes tremendous harm. However, if someone believes it’s true then this is pretty significant overreach and directly interferes with religious practice. They start with the crime most people will agree with, and then it sets a precident to go after other crimes in the same fashion. I’m too skeptical of the state to trust it’ll always be a good thing.
To be fair, lawyers get to avoid this (I assume).
Lawyers don’t get to avoid this. They need to, in fact they are forced to, otherwise the entire legal system fails. There is no justice without privileged defense. That’s literally in the fifth amendment.
The desire for clergy not to be mandated reporters goes in the opposite direction from what you suggest. The slippery slope here doesn’t lead to breaking freedom of religion, it leads to a religious organization hiding crimes whenever they want.
Leaving an exception in for the confessional when it comes to mandatory reporting would allow any religious group that had a mandate for secrecy to say, ‘We don’t have to report anything.’”
Confession requires penitance. They must confess and repent to God, but there is no reason why the penitance for Catholic confession can’t involve actually fucking answering for your crimes.
The desire for clergy not to be mandated reporters goes in the opposite direction from what you suggest. The slippery slope here doesn’t lead to breaking freedom of religion, it leads to a religious organization hiding crimes whenever they want.
It is not the opposite direction. It’s the same direction in a different system. Their religious system fails if confession isn’t only between you and the clergy.
I don’t think we want to be in a position where someone confesses that they aided with an illegal abortion, like they’re required to by their religion, and is arrested for it. Not all laws are good or just. If mandatory reporting for one crime is made, there’s no reason it shouldn’t expand to more/all crimes.
Leaving an exception in for the confessional when it comes to mandatory reporting would allow any religious group that had a mandate for secrecy to say, ‘We don’t have to report anything.’”
No, they only don’t have to report confessions. They’d still be legally required to report if they discover crimes happening, like other clergy committing crimes. It’d only be things said in the confession box that are safe.
I don’t like religion, and I really dislike organized religion, but I also hate giving the state power over people’s lives. We bend over backwards to get revenge in our society, to a massive detriment to ourselves. We give up so much just so we can get back at someone else. We need to stop this. Freedom is important. Yes, security is nice too, but how much security does this buy for the amount of freedom it could lose?
Not all laws are good or just.
And yet, it’s effectively a universal truth that child sexual abuse is the gravest offense imaginable, and a very common result of religious secrecy is covering up child sexual abuse.
Slippery slopes are fallacies for a reason. We can all fucking agree on a law against child sexual abuse being fair and just. When it comes to anything else, we can have that conversation.
No, they only don’t have to report confessions. They’d still be legally required to report if they discover crimes happening, like other clergy committing crimes.
Except for the fact that there’s a legal loophole in place for confession. If you subpeona a priest who saw someone commit a crime, all he has to say is “I cannot testify, it is against my religion.”
Do you understand the issue? The priest can’t ever say “I can’t testify because I heard it in confession” because that in and of itself is a breach of the seal of confession.
So he can only say “I cannot testify” and we all have to leave it at that.
Slippery slopes are fallacies for a reason.
Slippery slope is a type of fallacy. It isn’t fallacious always.
'in its barest bones, a slippery-slope argument is of the following form:
“If A, which some people want, is done or allowed, then B, which most people don’t want, will inevitably follow. Therefore, let’s not do or allow A.”
The fallacy occurs when that form is not fleshed out by sufficient reasons to believe that B will inevitably follow from A’
(https://intellectualtakeout.org/2016/03/not-every-slippery-slope-argument-is-a-fallacy/)
Saying that this would create a precident to include other crimes being required to be reported is not fallacious.
If you subpeona a priest who saw someone commit a crime, all he has to say is “I cannot testify, it is against my religion.”
That’s just blatantly incorrect. They’re not required to report on stuff they’re told in confessionals and that’s all. They’re still required to report on crimes they witness, just like everyone else. Do you think lawyers are t required to report crimes they witness?
Do you understand the issue? The priest can’t ever say “I can’t testify because I heard it in confession” because that in and of itself is a breach of the seal of confession.
So he can only say “I cannot testify” and we all have to leave it at that.
Yes, just as a lawyer would have to do when questioned about a client. Anything they did outside of attorney-client privledge they must speak about, it’d be the same for the clergy. It’s not an issue for lawyers, so I don’t see an issue for the clergy.
In an ideal world they could hear the confessional and check up on the victim. I’m sure this won’t always happen, but it may. If they’re required to report it, they’ll never be told, so can’t act on it.
I don’t like religion, and especially organized religion. However, this steps too far into a government that forcing it’s way into people’s lives that I don’t like.
Yes, just as a lawyer would have to do when questioned about a client. Anything they did outside of attorney-client privledge they must speak about, it’d be the same for the clergy. It’s not an issue for lawyers, so I don’t see an issue for the clergy.
Is this intentionally bad faith, or just a deep misunderstanding of the legal system?
If a lawyer is a witness to a crime that their client committed, and is involved in proceedings related to that crime, they have to recuse themselves from representing the client. They literally cannot be that person’s lawyer anymore. They keep all information already held under attorney client privilege, but any future information is no longer protected.
They also have the bar - a legal association specifically dedicated to ensuring that lawyers all comply with the law. If they break the law in the course of their duties, the association exists to prevent them from ever practicing law again.
It’s not perfect, but it’s something.
It’s not the same for the clergy. A priest can be witness to whatever, and there’s no legal obligation to stop being the person’s priest or hearing their confessions. But there is a tremendous amount of evidence that clergy associations have been exclusively dedicated to ensuring that clergy never face the law at all.
If a lawyer is a witness to a crime that their client committed, and is involved in proceedings related to that crime, they have to recuse themselves from representing the client. They literally cannot be that person’s lawyer anymore. They keep all information already held under attorney client privilege, but any future information is no longer protected.
Privledged information is protected, yes. Not other information.
They also have the bar - a legal association…
An association of legal professionals, not a legal association. It is private.
…specifically dedicated to ensuring that lawyers all comply with the law. If they break the law in the course of their duties, the association exists to prevent them from ever practicing law again.
Sure, I’d advocate for something like that, though the clergy does have administration that regulates them also. You can argue they should be more strict, but it does exist.
Because that is what they are.
Personally, I think it goes back to the Catholic Church’s special status as its own sovereign country. They didnt just elect a Pope this week. They elected an absolute monarch. Even though that monarch’s territory is only .5 sqkm, it used to be much larger, and the Church literally has outposts everywhere indirectly subject to its rule.
And a key thing to understand is that the Church doesn’t use confession to hide crimes from just anyone. 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.
The Church was always super arrogant when it came to transgressions by its own people. To them, subjecting a priest to civil law makes just as much sense as subjecting an Italian to Australian law. When a priest confessed he was diddling kids, they would handle it in their own manner, without getting the local authorities involved.
That’s the real reason why this law is written the way it is. It’s to keep the Church from hiding its own people. The Church, as an institution, has proven over the years that it can’t be trusted on that front.
I haven’t read the law, but it would be interesting if it explicitly allowed a “mandatory reporter” to satisfy the requirement by facilitating the transgressor to turn themselves in. That is a clear way out of this problem, keeping the confidentiality intact while keeping the local government’s jurisdiction over crimes as well.
I haven’t read the law, but it would be interesting if it explicitly allowed a “mandatory reporter” to satisfy the requirement by facilitating the transgressor to turn themselves in.
Here’s a link to the law as passed.
It doesn’t seem to explicitly allow what you are suggesting but I supposed the “or cause a report to be made” clause could be interpreted that way.
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?
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.
I agree and I agree. However, as a being that was indoctrinated and abused by the church, I still have to point to the ”Sacrament of Confession”, which… yeah… evil bastards.
Congratulations. You fell for propaganda by stupid framing.
This is not actually about child abuse per se. It’s also not about “warning” priests.
This is a simple and factual reminder: Confessions are part of a protected sacrament and the seal of confession is absolute and always has been (or at least for nearly a millenium). To violate it means excommunication.
I wonder if you would react with the same outrage when this was a bar association reminding their lawyers of the disciplinary consequences of violating confidentiality agreements.
Who cares?
This is a simple and factual reminder: you’re arguing to protect child abuse. Shut the fuck up.
No, I am arguing for a church law established nearly 1000 years ago and upheld ever since that indiscriminately protects all confessions. If you want to argue for changing this (as you should) go along.
But pretending that this is about protecting child abuse or even -as multiple comments here do- hallucinating how the catholic church “goes out of its way” (by doing exactly the same aus in the last ~900 years) is insane.
And nobody cares about church law. It’s entirely irrelevant.
What an unbelievably stupid take.
A) Do you actually know what excommunication means? It’s not a permanent sentence to Hell. It’s a temporary separation from the Church that can be reversed after penance. Do you think a “time-out” is so unbelievably painful that it warrants protecting child abusers? If so, you are fucking disgusting.
B) You analogy ALREADY HAS agreed upon laws about violating confidentiality, including when the lawyer believes an extreme crime might be committed in the future. So no, we would not be reacting with outrage because we are not psychopaths.
It’s hard to state how stupid your post is.
This is a simple and factual reminder: Confessions are part of a protected sacrament and the seal of confession is absolute and always has been (or at least for nearly a millenium). To violate it means excommunication.
While this is true it turns out that the United States isn’t bound by Catholic dogma. And the Church’s methods for handling this sort of problem have thus far been… questionable at best.
Doesn’t the bible say to obey the emperor and follow the law? So reporting abuse to the authorities shouldn’t be a sin since there’s a law compelling priests to violate the confessional for specific issues.
1 Peter 2:13-17
Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.
Romans 3:31
Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.
Congratulations. You fell for propaganda by stupid framing.
No, you just don’t like their conclusion. The article explains what confessional is, which only alters your opinion of the case if you care more about the religious ‘right’ of a child fucker to talk about their child fucking in secret with someone who promised to not tell than you care about the wellbeing of the child victim.
Your lawyer line of reasoning is also based on a misconception: that attorney-client privilege universally extends to knowledge of child abuse, outside representing a client specifically on child abuse. This isn’t the case, there are states where attorney-client privilege doesn’t apply in this scenario. Bar associations in general also allow breaking confidentiality if they have reasonable belief that someone is going to be seriously harmed or killed.
Confidentiality agreements do not cover illegal acts. Since you brought up the bar association, fun fact about that is that if you admit to say abusing a child to your lawyer not only is that not covered by attorney-client privilege the lawyer is obligated to inform law enforcement or face punishment by the bar association for failing to do so.
No.
If I tell my lawyer about a child I abused years ago he can do exactly nothing as there is no imminent crime to prevent that would allow him breaking confidality.
If I tell my priest the same applies.
If you want to change that, change the laws binding those people. But don’t pretend that the church is going out of its way to protect child abuse by in reality doing nothing and applying the same rule indiscriminately exactly like they did for a millenium.
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.
Sorry, no amount of secret handshakes gets you out of being a terrible person for not reporting child abuse that you are aware of.
I wonder if you would react with the same outrage when this was a bar association reminding their lawyers of the disciplinary consequences of violating confidentiality agreements.
If the Bar Association told their lawyers not to report child abuse from their clients you would have a point. And confidentiality agreements are not going to protect child abuse. The Catholic Church is going out of its way to protect child abusers in order to maintain their “reputation”.
The Catholic Church is going out of its way to protect child abusers
Nearly 1000 years of a confession’s confidentiality being absolute and the punishment for violating it being excommunication, is the exact opposite of “going out of its way”.
Ah, yes… tradition! Because the way things have been done is the way they must, should, will be done! Something being wrong is still wrong despite any length of time it has been done.
Are you seriously arguing that child abusers should be protected by the church because of historical precedent? Why the fuck do you think any policy that hides child abuse is okay?
If you know a kid is getting hurt and you don’t say anything, you are a giant piece of shit. If you defend those that don’t say anything, you are a giant piece of shit. I hope you reflect on that before putting some imaginary sky daddy rules before a living and breathing child. The same ones he told you guys to protect and you decided to rape them instead.
Are you seriously arguing that child abusers should be protected by the church because of historical precedent?
No I’m arguing that it is well within your rights to argue for changes in that basically ancient church law. If that’s what you want to do, go one. I would actually agree.
But if you instead pretend that this is not about the seal of confession but hallucinate how the modern church is somehow going out of its way to protect child abuse (like a lot of commenters here do) you have completely lost the plot.
I’d argue, and this isn’t easy, the church can continue to use the rule. After all, it is from “God”. Who are we to define the rules. But any priest (and above) that doesn’t report it, is an awful human being. Stick to dogma, but accept the consequences of being a human. If a child is abused and you can stop it, pay the price to make it stop. Child is safe; you go to hell - fair deal. No mater what, someone is going to suffer. Make the “saintly” call. And make it known!
I’d argue, and this isn’t easy
Then don’t? There is absolutely no reason society needs to obey objectively evil arcane rules because some dude who has absolutely no say in how we run society says we should.
I still have absolutely no idea why people would jump in to defend the churches right to keep CHILD ABUSE secret. It seems like you would either be afraid of getting discovered, or you have so little faith in your church that you’re afraid they’re going to get discovered.
or you have so little faith in your church
I will tell you a secret: Not everything in the world is about tribes or team sports. I personally deem any organized religion as an abomination.
But when a “remember that the confession’s confidentiality is absolute, has been exactly like this for nearly a millenium and you are beholden to god’s/church laws first an foremost” (so the same unchanged statement as always) is reframed as the church somehow explicitly going out of its way to protect child abuse specifically people should actually notice that they are being manipulated.
I’m not afraid nor am I a member of any church. I am firm in my stance that there is no god. Small or little G. If you read my post again you will see that my point is, even if you are going to go to hell, you are obliged to report abuse. Again, report it. Fucking report it. If the cost is your eternal salvation, you will fucking report it.
They is my point. There is a cost to everything. No matter what you believe, be ready to pay it.
Next time, please read what someone says and not what you want to believe they say. The world would be much better that way.
No, that just means they’ve been going out of their way to protect abusers for nearly 1000 years
Imagine if any other type of organization had this sort of systemic problem with child abuse.
“Wow, there sure are a lot of pedophile employees at Apple Computer abusing their customers’ children.”
“Dang, the US Department of Transportation sure does have a kiddie diddler problem.”
“Holy shit, what’s the deal with all the abusive perverts working at Ronald McDonald House?”
Sounds absolutely bonkers, right‽
If any secular organization was having this kind of problem at scale, we’d all be calling for their blood. Yet the church gets a pass somehow. A few complaints, a few lawsuits, some big scandals, some negative press, but fundamentally nothing ever changes.
To hell with the church.
I don’t want to derail the discussion, but Churches aren’t the only organisation attracting/raising child sexual abusers. Sports clubs are an example for secular organisations facing a similar problem.
Sports clubs on the other hand don’t have this kind of power and history as organised religion.
Sports clubs would simply be banned, but try to ban the Catholic Church in a place with a Catholic majority.
You mean like the Boy Scouts?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America_sex_abuse_cases
I think Boy Scouts have done a better job reforming than the Catholic church.
Recently maybe, but there was decades of abuse before that.
Yup, that’s what reforming means
That’s affiliated with the church so it’s probably ok.
You’re out of date. A lot of scouts exist apart from churches now. Hypocritically, the churches are distancing themselves from scouts which have reformed.
I just looked it up off the back of your comment, things have changed since I was a scout.
Thanks for being open minded!
They do affiliate themselves with Christianity - maybe not Catholicism specifically, but the Catholic Church is hardly the only denomination of this cult that can’t keep their hands/mouths off of kids’ genitals.
Frankly if I ever had kids I’d have a gaggle of drag queens babysit before I let any even slightly religiously affiliated group near them.
Same here. Leary of any adult dude who wants to hang out with kids that don’t include their own child in the mix.
I think you should make some exceptions. Youth (including scouts) need mentors to develop skills. Just because my kids age won’t change that. I’ll still feel the Call. It’s very rewarding to see a kiddo grow. Totally redefined my concept of “legacy”.
I loved being a summer camp counselor so much that it was a factor in my decision to have kids. Almost became a teacher. Would you have been leery of me before I had the kids?
Do the Boy Scouts have a legally protected mechanism to talk with each other about their child fucking that I’m not aware of?
They do not. Your point of distinction is valid.
Like a Signal chat? Wtf are you even asking?
I’m talking about how Catholic priests can legally refuse to report child abuse revealed to them in confessional in most states, the subject of this post.
I mean, you joke, kind of, but a massive, MASSIVE amount of QAnon bullshit that drives current rightwingers in the US is literally nothing but inventing fake demonic pedophile cults and putting anyone they don’t like in these made up cults…
All so that they can demonize others, and what this functionally does is give these nutjobs an infinite well of whataboutisms to either shift a conversation about pederasty and child abuse in any christian church/sect … over to ‘the even worserer badderer people’…
…or just do something akin to a ‘no true scotsman’ and claim that anyone in any church who is a pedo or child abuser… well actually they’re not a real christian, they’re a secret demonic cult member who is embedded in the organization to both commit evil and also to discredit the church when they are exposed.
What about the CIA and the pentagon?
It’s a constant problem because its a cult that wants to protect its cult members. It finds no issue with indoctrinating kids, to the point where nobody batted an eye when they recently (like, in the past 10 years) decreased the age at which children go through the sacrament of Confirmation. The same sacrament that is meant to affirm your adulthood in the church, where you say, “I may have been told to practice this by my parents before, but now I’m an adult now and choose to practice it of my own volition.”
They do this when children are thirteen years old. Thirteen.
When I was fifteen I did not have the capacity to make this decision for myself. Now I have to live with the fact I’m on a list somewhere as an adult in the church. The Catholic Church is an evil institution that uses trauma for the purpose of coercion.
For a century now, the option has been at some point between 7 and 16, at the diocese’s discretion. I received mine around 16; 13 sounds like an outlier, to me.
I truly wonder what’s going through someone’s head when they downvote purely factual statements. I didn’t even give an opinion here.
Oh yeah, my bad for not including what it’s about. I’ll edit that back into the post.
The entire religion is based on shame and fear. The clergy take advantage of both.
This isn’t just Catholic church thing. It’s rampant in any religion, organization, hierarchy, etc. where the person on top of the totem pole demand obedience, they are insulated from outside accountability, and there is a culture of secrecy.
Go probe Ultra-orthodox Jews, Amish community, Quranic Schools. It’s rife with sexual abuse.
And for extra reading, learn about how the new pope covered up for priests that abused kids when he was a bishop:
https://willcountygazette.com/stories/671124585-if-he-saw-and-stayed-silent-he-s-not-a
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-853274If you’re gonna bash the guy, at least use a credible source for christ’s sake.
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 🤦♂️
Pedophiles protecting pedophiles? Who would have thunk!
And there goes any hope of Ameripope not being a piece of shit. Delightful.
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…?
Yes.
Their point was that all Catholic leadership are pieces of shit. Basically just saying, ‘duh’
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.
This article is from 2 days ago before he was elected the pope.
How could they possibly have known?! /s
you don’t get to a place where you’re eligible to become pope without some skeletons in your closet
There’s all this talk about how this will automatically excommunicate priests who violate the confessional and how it’s a grave sin and how the law is forcing them to sin and all that. I would understand the extreme pushback on this if this made a priest go to hell.
Here’s the thing: Excommunication is TEMPORARY!! The penalty for a priest violating the confessional and potentially saving the lives of many children is a temporary separation from the Church that can readmit the priest after a penance. They care more about themselves being away from the Church for a short period of time than for the lifetime of health and happiness of children. They make it sound like it’s the worst punishment you can give to a priest, on par with the punishment this gives to a kid who is harmed. It’s fucking sickening.
readmit the priest after a penance
The priest actually has to repent - if he still thinks he did the right thing, he isn’t forgiven.
He could just lie. Priests are great at it.
Doesn’t apply to God’s forgiveness
Agreed, and right now they are fighting tooth and nail against having to say something, so it sounds like they are repenting it already. They are being compelled by law, not by their own desire to be, you know, good people.
“Compelled by law” isn’t a sufficient justification for Catholics in this case - they’re supposed to die rather than reveal something that was said to them in confession, like Saint John of Nepomuk.
Arguably a priest who really cared would be morally obligated to speak up about a situation like the one being described, even if the consequence is excommunication.
They’ve always had this policy. A priest would be excommunicated for revealing even a murderer, if they knew about it from a confession.
Priest: I’d like to report child abuse because that’s the law. Church: You’re out! Go to hell, dickbag.
Confession is a sacrament of the Catholic Church - pretty much the definition of “religion” in Europe for two thousand years. It’s clearly something the first amendment is intended to protect and this law is well over the line into unconstitutional.
You know what, you’re right. We should definitely not protect children from a lifetime of trauma because of tradition. What was I thinking?
And this is clearly not something the first amendment is intended to protect. The first amendment is about government punishment for private speech and allowing religion to be practiced. This doesn’t stop the religion from being practiced, it just says priests have a choice between a temporary time out from the church and a temporary time out from society if they choose to protect child abusers. And even if it were about this, we ALREADY have laws compelling people to report crimes. You think because it is a priest they get a special pass that lawyers, therapists, and doctors don’t get?
Honestly I agree with you here. Either confessions are protected from being used as evidence or they aren’t there cannot be specific carve outs for this even for child abuse. Its all or nothing here.
So, all. Obviously. Why should there be any protection for admitting your crimes because a special club you’re part of has a tradition of keeping secrets?
To be fair, the issue isn’t so much the person admitting things being protected by being part of the church, but if a third party not associated with law enforcement can be compelled to say to said law enforcement about the things said to them. Honestly I think I get the arguments on both sides of this one, it’s not great to legally compel people to say things, especially when saying those things is directly in violation of their sense of ethics, and it’s also not great to just not do anything when made aware of something like child abuse. I think that a law like this is unlikely to help much though: if the church caves, then it seems unlikely that people would be willing to admit to these things anymore anyway, at least to priests, and if they don’t, these guys seem to believe that the consequences of following the law are worse than breaking it, and so it seems unlikely to do much more than occasionally send a priest to jail when it can be proven that they were told of something and didn’t report it.
it’s not great to legally compel people to say things, especially when saying those things is directly in violation of their sense of ethics
Are you aware of how the mandatory reporting laws came into being? It is absolutely fucked up beyond belief. Anyone who doesn’t report these sorts of crimes has no ethics.
It’s not really true that they have no ethics though, if it was, it’d be a simpler problem, because they’d presumably just care about reducing unpleasant consequences to themselves and as such a legal deterrent should be effective. The issue is that they have different ethics, which are misaligned with everyone else’s and so result in conflict when they stubbornly refuse to do something that everyone else perceives as a no-brainer. It isn’t like the church gets some material gain out of keeping confession secret.
Same reason there is protection if you admit crimes to your lawyer and sometimes to your spouse. It’s a matter of privacy. It isn’t just some special club, any faith that establishes a rite similar to confession should be able to use a similar protective mechanism within certain limits to enable discussion about sensitive and possibly criminal issues.
That catholics should practice confession is a religious belief. But the confidentiality part is from canon law - i.e. in terminology of most other organisations, it is a policy. It is a long-standing policy to punish priests for breaking it, dating back to at least the 12th century, but nonetheless the confidentiality is only a policy within a religious organisation, and not a religious belief.
Many organisations punish individuals who break their policy. But if an organisation has a policy, and insist that it be followed even when following it is contrary to the law, and would do immense harm to vulnerable individuals, then I think it is fair to call that organisation evil - and to hold them culpable for harm resulting from that policy.
Even if the confidentiality itself was a core part of the religious belief itself, religious freedom does not generally extend to violating the rights of others, even if the religion demands it. Engaging in violent jihad, for example, is not a protected right even in places where religious freedom cannot be limited, even if the person adheres to a sect that requires it.
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.
requiring the reporting of child abuse confessions to authorities
So they aren’t blatantly evil. Confessions remaining private is the foundation of how they work. Either way, the church loses on this one.
Client-therapist privilege is foundational to how therapy works, but most states have laws saying a therapist must report admissions of abuse. I don’t see doctors rallying against those laws.
Still blatantly evil. Telling someone your crimes in confidence shouldn’t be a get out of jail free card.
requiring the reporting of child abuse confessions to authorities
The actual law isn’t about confessions nor is it solely about CSAM. What Washington State has done is amend their mandatory report law by removing the exemption for Clergy.
“…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 as provided in RCW 26.44.040.”
So yes, if a Priest (Catholic or not) hears a confession about CSAM they will be required to report. However if they hear about child *neglect *in a confession they have to report that as well.
Likely more meaningfully they ALSO now have to report those same things even if it isn’t during a Confession. For example if they witness a parent smacking their kid around in the parking lot.
It’s a necessary and correct change but it reaches a lot further than just the confessional.
We’ll kick you out of our kiddy diddler club
Is quite the threat
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There is no absolute confidentiality even with therapists and lawyers, they’re both obligated to report anything said to them that they believe indicates you’re planning to commit a crime or do harm to yourself or others. You can’t just walk into your lawyers office and go “so I was molesting this eight year old” and expect them not to report that.
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If the lawyer believes you might commit a new crime based on the way you talk about past crimes, they are required to report it. Therapists might have to report past crimes, depending on the age of the victim and the type of crime. They have to report current and future crimes if there might be danger to others.
In the US there isn’t but as far as I can tell, over here in Germany lawyers and doctors are not permitted to report past crimes. The damage has been done and there is no harm to prevent anymore, as such keeping confidentiality has a higher priority than the state’s desire to prosecute crimes.
Even if these groups become aware of future planned crimes, they are not obligated to report anything if they genuinely attempt to prevent the person from comitting the crime (except for murder, manslaughter, kidnapping/taking hostages, genocide or war crimes).
How does the nonexistant confidentiality of lawyers prevent them from deciding to stop being your lawyer and become a witness against you? I.e. you are accused of a crime, admit said crime to your lawyer, your lawyer then becomes a witness stating you admitted to the crime.
Past crimes, when there’s no reason to believe you would commit another crime in the future are covered by confidentiality. However if the lawyer believes you intend to continue committing crimes or that you have admitted that you plan on committing a crime are not covered. So yes, your lawyer could be a witness against you if you admit to planning a crime you have either not yet committed, or which you hadn’t committed at the time you told your lawyer but subsequently then committed.
There’s also a question on whether admitting to crimes unrelated to your current case is covered by confidentiality or not. I’m not entirely clear on if that applies, but I think E.G. if a lawyer is representing you on a robbery case and you admit to him you murdered somebody 5 years ago he might be allowed to tell the police about that without breaking his obligation of confidentiality since that admission is entirely unrelated to the current case.
Holy Shit!
The holiest of shits
Well, glad I’m not catholic. Fuck these assholes
