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Because that's the whole point of the church. It's just one big sham so they can diddle kids

Catholic Church = Child Molester Haven.

Pretty simple.

They’d have no priests left

The oughta write a song about it

Because they get to keep stuff like that secret.

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.

Remember that episode of South Park where the Catholic priest saw child rape and exploration as a kind of perks of the job. Whelp they hit the nail right on the head 10 years ago with that one and it's still relevant to this day.

They hold confession to be inviolate, which is fucking bullshit. Doctors, including psychiatrists, who aren't allowed to share that shit do have to report certain criminal acts to police.

Unfortunately all too often freedom of religion translates to freedom from consequences. Fuck the Catholic church (and all churches) in general, but in particular for shit like this. Three Catholic church isn't unique in this, it's just got the most rigidly hierarchical, top-down structure of them all.

Note for the internet: I am just clarifying the Catholic stance. I am not Catholic and not defending them.

Priests cannot reveal what someone tells them in confession. It's a lot like attorney-client privilege, as your priest is supposed to be your advocate before God. Breaking the seal of confession is a big deal (to them) because, just like criminals deserve representation, sinners need to be able to confess.

Now?

It's always been this way. There are a few states that require a priest to report child aduse but most don't require it.

It's always been this way.

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.

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.

The entire religion is based on shame and fear. The clergy take advantage of both.

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.

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.

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.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/will-county-gazette-bias/

This article is from 2 days ago before he was elected the pope.