Archbishop pledges to shield pedophiles

[columbus]

If you are only going to only make it illegal for priests and only for a specific crime, I would fight against it to the supreme court.

It's not only priests.
The Catholic church wants to be exempt from the laws that apply to everybody else.
Tom

 

[bobhikes]

I've been Catholic since I was born, in 1958. I couldn't disagree more.

There's a reason that we have laws requiring people to report child abuse. Laws that don't apply to other kinds of crime, like burglary and drug dealing and fraud. It's because child abuse is so easy to overlook, rationalize, justify, etc. But it causes huge amounts of cumulative damage. This has been going on for centuries. Not just the RCC, but our sense of entitlement and authority has been a huge source of human suffering for altogether too long and has to stop! Child abuse too ugly of a crime to leave it up to a nonprofessional to take responsibility for the outcome of deciding which abusive situations need to be investigated by the law and which don't.

No! Priests need to stick to religion and let other people do their job of protecting people from molesters. They cannot be given legal protection from the outcome of their decisions on this subject. They need to decide whether leaving a child at risk is worth a multimillion dollar lawsuit against their diocese and prison time, or just doing the right thing. Which is involving the professionals, not hiding behind ecclesiastical law.

I have seen too much damage done. No. Take that burden off of priests by requiring them to follow the law.
Tom

I was born in 1965 and have attended Catholic church for all of it including today. I don't however consider myself catholic. The problem I have is that you are lying to the confessor, taking advantage of their religious beliefs, Forcing the priest to commit a sin against their god and in the US allowing others such as lawyers, psychologists and Reporters the protection of the law.

Make the law equal so that the criminal has no protection and all crimes similar, like rape, elderly abuse etc. from any organization and I will support your view.

 

[bobhikes]

It's not only priests.
The Catholic church wants to be exempt from the laws that apply to everybody else.
Tom

I have already stated that if the State law includes all organizations I do not believe any church to be exempt. If the state exempt anybody for any reason the church should also get exempted.

 

[Fool]

... and wants legal protection when he does it:



Melbourne archbishop says he'd rather go to jail than report child abuse heard in confession

He's certainly not alone in his opinion, and the law of many countries does give priests the protection he wants.

... but should it? Should priests who decide to shield child abusers be exempt from mandatory reporting laws?

no, simply there is no biblical basis for it.

it also goes against the Law of Love.. It basically implies that indifference is acceptable.

It isn't given the parable of the good samaritan.

 

[Revoltingest]

Boom! Exactly.

The thing that makes priests receiving full immunity from prosecution for complicity compared to your average layman all the more ridiculous is the level of trust invested in a member of the clergy by their religious community. By failing/refusing to come forward with information about a child abuser's activities the priests in question are enabling that abuser to continue their activities confident that one of the few people other than their victims who knows about them is restrained from alerting the authorities - and into the bargain they are breaching their duty of care by permitting (or even personally visiting) harm on some of that religious community's most vulnerable members.

The wider RCC is also culpable as an organisation because its tendency to shunt problematic men of the cloth from one diocese to the next protects them from scrutiny as well as enabling them to continue to molest kids. And to top it off, they encouraged a culture where children who did try to talk to their elders about it were silenced and punished for doing so.

We're already all-too-aware of the consequences of making these clergymen above the law; time to end their unreasonable exemptions.

Aye, they care more about their image of wholesomeness, rather than actually practicing it.

 

[Spiderman]

Perhaps it's good that people know there is someone they can confess anything to without getting reported. I know people in AA who have to confess everything they did to harm others, and they choose a Catholic priest even though they aren't Catholic, because they want to confess to someone they know won't tell. I think it's good they have that option.

 

[columbus]

Perhaps it's good that people know there is someone they can confess anything to without getting reported.

For most things, I am OK with the seal of the Confessional. Icky, but needful. Like lawyer/client privilege.

But child abuse is in a different category of crime. It is not just the fact that so much damage is done to the human family. It's also, mainly, the ease with which people can justify staying quiet about it. They think that they're protecting the victim. Or preventing "a good person" from being dragged through the mud. There's a host of reasons people have for remaining silent, which is a huge part of the reason that child abuse continues to be such a terrible problem. People cover for the criminal in ways that they wouldn't for most crimes.
But child abuse is the "gift that keeps on giving". Like herpes or something. It's just different from most crimes.
Tom

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I think it's good they have that option.

I think it's more important to stop people who sexually abuse kids.

 

[Father Heathen]

I think silence makes them complicit, since they're knowingly allowing it to continue.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I would say the archbishop shouldn't have to report anything said in confession since it's confidential. But if he has some other reason to believe it's happening he should report it, regardless of whether he also heard about it in confession.

If a teacher was told something in confidence, what should they do?

 

[lewisnotmiller]

For me this in not about the crime, it is about the way the information is gotten. If you lie to a person or torture a person to get the information it is not valid. If the state comes out and says there are no protections for criminals. If they say anything to anyone and that person does not turn the information over to the police they can also be held in jail then it is equal and fair.

If you are only going to only make it illegal for priests and only for a specific crime, I would fight against it to the supreme court.

It's the opposite to that, though.
In Australia, there are mandatory reporting rules for suspected child abuse, and this runs across many professions.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

For most things, I am OK with the seal of the Confessional. Icky, but needful. Like lawyer/client privilege.

I'm not. It creates too much entanglement between religion and government.

The difference between priest/penitent privilege and all the others - with one exception - is that they're relationships that involve licensure by the state: the state licenses doctors, lawyers, and marriages. It doesn't license religious ministers. The one exception I can think of is spousal privilege in a common-law marriage, but even then, the state sets the criteria for when a relationship "counts" or not.

I have no interest in having a secular judge rule on questions like:

- whether a particular religion is worth recognizing
- whether a particular individual really is acting in a ministerial capacity
- whether "confession" is a valid concept in the religion
- whether a particular interaction should be considered "confession"
- etc., etc.

None of these are appropriate questions for a secular court... but if we grant special legal rights and exemptions for priest/penitent privilege, suddenly they become subject to review and rulings by the secular justice system.

I don't want secular government sticking its nose into religion this way. Do you?

 

[Kemosloby]

If a teacher was told something in confidence, what should they do?

Set up a confessional box?

 

[Father Heathen]

Set up a confessional box?

I hope for their sake than an abused child never confides in you.

 

[Kemosloby]

I hope for their sake than an abused child never confides in you.

Why would a child confide in me that they were being abused? If any child told me about it they would probably be telling me hoping I would do something about it.

 

[Spiderman]

I think it's more important to stop people who sexually abuse kids.

I do too, but it might not do any good. The pedophile isn't going to confess to someone who is going to turn them in. They might as well just turn themselves in. Same consequence

 

[blü 2]

So the Archbishop of Melbourne wants to maintain the RCC as a safe haven for paedophiles.

Confessed and blessed, off you go; but remember, if you do it again, you'll have to come back so we can repeat the process.

This, in the wake of the church's own ongoing paedophile earthquake.

Madness.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Set up a confessional box?

So, legally (and morally, imho) the answer in Victoria (where the OP is from) is that you must report it.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I do too, but it might not do any good. The pedophile isn't going to confess to someone who is going to turn them in. They might as well just turn themselves in. Same consequence

There is an interesting book called 'God and the Gun' by Martin Dillon (from memory). It deals with confessionals in Northern Ireland during the peak of the IRA troubles.

 

[Kemosloby]

So, legally (and morally, imho) the answer in Victoria (where the OP is from) is that you must report it.

Yeah I guess you're right. It seems like goal tending though, and anyone who would confess now won't. But if it's the law they should report it. Not that a catholic priest has any power to absolve sin but. If they want forgiveness for such a heinous sin they should pay the price in jail, beaten and possibly killed by inmates.