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
requiring the reporting of child abuse confessions to authorities
So they aren’t blatantly evil at least. Confessions remaining private is the foundation of how they work. Either way, the church loses on this one.
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.
It would seem the church is looking at it from the opposite direction: it reaches all the way into the confessional. Anything outside it should be fair game, it’s just the violation of the sacrament they object to - though I guess “go
confessturn your self in” could count as “cause a report to be made”.
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.
Removed by mod
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.
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.
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 🤦♂️
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.
I would understand the extreme pushback on this if this made a priest go to hell.
I wouldn’t. Religion shouldn’t get a fucking hall pass for arbitrarily bad shit because “we don’t want to go to the scary place we made up.”
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.
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.
Yes, we all know that. This entire story is the church stating publicly they don’t consider compelled by law to be sufficient justification.
I’m talking about the punishment for breaking the church law is basically “take a time out for a bit” while the punishment for following church law is “child gets a lifetime of pain and trauma.” Priests are choosing their own personal connection to their friends rather than helping to prevent child abuse.
He could just lie. Priests are great at it.
Doesn’t apply to God’s forgiveness
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.
The Catholic church is hardly going to allow priests to be forced to go to the police and admit crimes.
This law is more about priests hearing others confessing to crimes.
Yeah presumably not other priests confessing to crimes involving abusing children.
Well, glad I’m not catholic. Fuck these assholes
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.
Looks like I’m going to continue not being catholic.
Take away their tax exempt status and tax them as the huge profitable businesses that they are.
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.
Exceptions exist, like when practices are outright criminal in themselves
Aiding and abetting criminals is a crime.
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.
How does receiving a confession aid or abet the perpetrator?
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.
I wouldn’t know, I don’t have an X account
Yeah me either? Never had Twitter and I certainly won’t make a fucking x
Typical lemmy, finding X abhorrent*.
^*for child-rape values of X^
What the fuck are you talking about cunt?
yer mum
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.
Psychiatrists
Thank you, this was the comparison I was looking for and the standard I would hold for this. I agree with your assessment.
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.
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.
«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?
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.
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.
You’re right, that commenter doesn’t know what they’re talking about
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.
They are.
Source: wife is a therapist. She is also ethically obligated to (and does) disclose her mandatory reporting obligations to new clients.
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
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.
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.
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.
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).
Hyup, I grew up semi-methodist, which honestly still colors my agnostic/atheistic beliefs today, and that whole vibe with Catholicism always missed me. Now that you mention it, the self-persecuting is very in-groupy too.
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.
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.
Just make a new tax called the “Molestation Enablers Tax” that all institutions will pay if they opt out of reporting.
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!
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.
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?
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.
The same line of reasoning applies to mental health professionals. But even more so since a judge can order mental health care, but not confession. So why is it considered in one case to keep the avenue open, but not the other?
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.
On the second point, many priests are good people. And they may follow the law simply gecause it exists. So the law could have some impact.
Pedophiles protecting pedophiles? Who would have thunk!
