Australia abuse, Archbishop rejects call to report confessions.

[England my lionheart]

interesting split between the laws of God and the laws of King!!!! So you are saying if you confess a broken law of the king in confessional then the priest is obliged to say something? It's a funny all or nothing problem. Then the laws of King determine laws of God. So what ever law of King is broken no matter who the king is, the church is obliged to report it? How about a group of small children being hidden from deportation? Someone confesses and the priest reports it. The children are deported They of course die. We could say bad law why did the priest report it.

BTW I am absolutely appalled by pedophilia as well so no defense of that. But I do want to show that this is a king church thingie regardless of how it is "believed" in secular terms. I really could care less about secular or religious "believe." Two idiots arguing to me which idiot is correct?

There should be only one law and nobody should be above it whether your a king president or the pope,law followed and given by humans.

 

[columbus]

interesting split between the laws of God and the laws of King!!!!

There are no laws of God or King involved here.
Advanced cultures in the modern world are taking child abuse far more seriously than has ever been done before. This is in conflict with religious organizations that have an ancient tradition of being above the law when it suits them.
The church has NOT provided anything like reasonable protection for the vulnerable. There is no justifiable reason to make them exempt from the laws everyone else is required to obey. Those laws have been put in place, partly, to protect children from the way that the Church has been operating for centuries.
No More!
I love the Church, but I know it too well to believe that it will change internally fast enough to suit me on this subject.
Tom

 

[David T]

P

There are no laws of God or King involved here.
Advanced cultures in the modern world are taking child abuse far more seriously than has ever been done before. This is in conflict with religious organizations that have an ancient tradition of being above the law when it suits them.
The church has NOT provided anything like reasonable protection for the vulnerable. There is no justifiable reason to make them exempt from the laws everyone else is required to obey. Those laws have been put in place, partly, to protect children from the way that the Church has been operating for centuries.
No More!
I love the Church, but I know it too well to believe that it will change internally fast enough to suit me on this subject.
Tom

Please you sound like some absurd secular jesus freak. The religious whackos doppleganger. I refuse to argue with fantasy.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I don't get you. If the church has to report after a new law is set into effect, who will be moronic enough to confess at their confessional.

What interest does the state have in whether a Catholic chooses to go to confession or not? What concern is it if the believer gets comfort in such a circumstance? Doesn't the state prefer that the perp feel guilt?

The state does, however, have an interest in stopping pedophiles, which for all practical purposes means convicting and punishing them.

The fact that a Catholic believes that he will go to hell if he doesn't confess to a priest can actually work to the state's advantage if it treats priests that same as other citizens with knowledge of a crime, and treats failure to report it a felony itself. I believe it's called misprision.

Let the believer that has committed a crime be forced to choose between prison and hell. That's his business. The state's is discovering and neutralizing him.

 

[LuisDantas]

The RCC is well within its rights to excomunicate its own members, even priests, by whichever criteria it sees fit to. Communion is its sacrament, and it is entitled to decide how it should be done.

It does not follow that any laws should support (or even hinder) those decisions, though.

Ultimately, I don't see much of an issue in any of the decisions. The law does not have to favor Catholic preferences. And it is probably for the best that statements about the comparative importance of privacy of confession and avoidance of pedophily are made in the open.

Of course, it does not reflect well on the Church overall. But it is their reputation to maintain as they want.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

As for the topic, too bad. Nothing you can do will stop the confessional from being sacrosanct. No rule of man will change it.

Actually, a "rule of man" can change it. And any opposition to changing is vile and evil. God and church officials need to get over themselves when it comes to protecting our most vulnerable. If they want to keep gays out, fine. But allowing abuse to continue is just as bad as doing the abuse, because the child will continue to suffer because the priest did nothing to stop it even though he could have. If they cared for the safety, health, and well being of the child, there would be no question or debate and abuse would be reported. But they don't, and there are volumes and volumes of research that show the dire and detrimental effects of children who are abused, and the negative ways it effects them psychologically even as adults. And not to mention it puts them at risk of premature death, by up to 20 years, because abuse is so hard on the mind that it distorts judgements and decision making, putting them at risk for dangerous and risky behaviors, upping their chances of an early death by several fold.
Priests who know but say nothing allow this to continue and happen. Shame on them.

 

[Grandliseur]

You've a bad assumption there. People will often confess (eg, to cops),
even fully aware that it will lead to prosecution. And the church could
avoid trumpeting a discouraging message to child rapists.
If even one instance of sexually assault is thereby avoided, it's worthwhile.

But it can lead to investigation & protection.

I guess you guys know human nature better than me. If I commited a serious crime I sure wouldn't go around speaking about it.
That makes no sense to me.

 

[Grandliseur]

Even if a few complicit priests go to jail and a few dioceses get sued for their role in protecting abusers, that's an improvement over the status quo.

I'll put that on my wish list for Christmas. Oops, I don't celebrate Christmas. Plum forgot.

 

[Revoltingest]

I guess you guys know human nature better than me. If I commited a serious crime I sure wouldn't go around speaking about it.
That makes no sense to me.

You expect people to make sense?
Hah!
I don't understand them....I just observe tendencies.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Unfortunately, rather reprehensible Church representatives have. They told victims and their families that the scandal would damage the Church and to let them handle it. I hope our leaders are better mirrors of Christ's light now.

Hope based on what?

As for the topic, too bad. Nothing you can do will stop the confessional from being sacrosanct. No rule of man will change it.

It's impossible to force a person to obey the law if they're determined to break it. Still, there's value in making a clear statement that child abuse is never acceptable and must always be reported, no exceptions.

 

[Grandliseur]

The fact that a Catholic believes that he will go to hell if he doesn't confess to a priest can actually work to the state's advantage if it treats priests that same as other citizens with knowledge of a crime, and treats failure to report it a felony itself. I believe it's called misprision.

Let the believer that has committed a crime be forced to choose between prison and hell. That's his business. The state's is discovering and neutralizing him.

That is actually a good point.
Do people still believe that?!

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I guess you guys know human nature better than me. If I commited a serious crime I sure wouldn't go around speaking about it.
That makes no sense to me.

It happens.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

You're truly ignorant about what God does and doesn't do, as even the church is in this case. While God may forgive repentant sinners, there is never ever an escape from his punishment of these serious crimes. Just like a parent may forgive a child, or a teenager, a serious wrong action, there is usually with responsible parents always a punishment that fits the crime. Then, the parent forgives once s/he is certain that the lesson has been learned.

Atheists truly are an ignorant bunch about God. It begs the imagination how much nonsense is being spewed out by such about God.

That teaching is actually an apostate teaching condemned by scripture:

1 Timothy 4:1-3 4 However, the inspired utterance says definitely that in later periods of time some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to misleading inspired utterances and teachings of demons, 2 by the hypocrisy of men who speak lies, marked in their conscience as with a branding iron; 3 forbidding to marry, commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be partaken of with thanksgiving by those who have faith and accurately know the truth.​

Some people are deluded if they think that people shall confess to crimes if these are reported to the authorities. Everyone who did confess in the past to such things at a confessional shall now not do so any longer. It is a - duh! type of idea to believe that people will continue to do so.

​

As I've done before, I'd encourage those interested in this topic to read about confessionals during the Troubles in Ireland. It's a good real-life example of the impact (and otherwise) of reporting confessionals, or not reporting.

As with many things in life, the answers are less clear cut than your derision would suggest.

Also it would be worth remembering that mandatory reporting rules don't just cover pedophiles self-confessing.

Nor is it black and white why a pedophile would confess in the first place.

 

[Grandliseur]

As I've done before, I'd encourage those interested in this topic to read about confessionals during the Troubles in Ireland. It's a good real-life example of the impact (and otherwise) of reporting confessionals, or not reporting.

As with many things in life, the answers are less clear cut than your derision would suggest.

Also it would be worth remembering that mandatory reporting rules don't just cover pedophiles self-confessing.

Nor is it black and white why a pedophile would confess in the first place.

As mentioned several times, what affects the Catholic church is not really of much interest to me.

What I find strange is that your chosen quote of my material speaks not of the church but of how God does things independent of what churches say and do. Here is a part of it:

While God may forgive repentant sinners, there is never ever an escape from his punishment of these serious crimes. Just like a parent may forgive a child, or a teenager, a serious wrong action, there is usually with responsible parents always a punishment that fits the crime. Then, the parent forgives once s/he is certain that the lesson has been learned.​

God may forgive a repentant person, but there is always a punishment for serious crimes that fits the crime. That is why when I see people atheists and others claim that God forgives and that is the end of it, the extend of it, this really irritates me since it is such a lie.

God doesn't just forgive a person because s/he confesses. There has to be a turning around and away from the sin. If the sin is serious, as was the case of David, the years of punishment and suffering that follows from God - is more than most people can take. There is no punishment after death since death is total destruction, the return to not existing. All punishment comes while we live. The servants of God, those who make mistakes, not those who live in sin, practice sin, get punished differently from those who live in sin, practice sin.

The subject is quite interesting. But, the most important point in all this is that none, believers, non believers - shall escape punishment. So, again, when I see many complain about God forgiving and seem to claim that there is no punishment, this just is soo wrong that it deserves to be addressed. There are cases where no forgiveness shall be given ever. The practice of sin makes a person the child of the devil and if that happens, damnation is unavoidable, eternal death-sleep.

 

[columbus]

The practice of sin makes a person the child of the devil and if that happens, damnation is unavoidable, eternal death-sleep.

Luckily for the vast majority of us, we don't consider you an authoritative spokesman for God.
Tom

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Also it would be worth remembering that mandatory reporting rules don't just cover pedophiles self-confessing.

Yup. Myself, even I suspect child abuse it's mandated that I report it, regardless of the time frame. I don't have to hear it from the abuser - I can hear it from the abused, or hear it second-hand from a source of some relationship to the abuser/abused.
I wonder if the RCC would be willing to at least report abuse if a child (or source other than the abuser) tells them it's going on? It's not reporting a sin confessed to them by the abuser, but rather reporting something that isn't a sin (though the abused child may feel it is such) to the authorities.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

But, the most important point in all this is that none, believers, non believers - shall escape punishment.

Many, many Nazis did escape punishment. Josef Mengele, the "Angel of Death," who performed inhumane "experiments" that haven't even graced mad-scientists horror movies, was one such Nazi who escaped his due punishment.

 

[Grandliseur]

Many, many Nazis did escape punishment. Josef Mengele, the "Angel of Death," who performed inhumane "experiments" that haven't even graced mad-scientists horror movies, was one such Nazi who escaped his due punishment.

While it could seem that you have a point, the problem is we don't know what their lives became. If you read Ps 73, you'll see that at times the wicked are accorded lives without too much trouble and indeed even wealth while the righteous have to suffer for decades.

Here is a small portion of it:

2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly slipped.
3 For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 For they have no pangs until death;
their bodies are fat and sleek.
5 They are not in trouble as others are;
they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
7 Their eyes swell out through fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
8 They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
. . .
27 For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
28 But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord GOD my refuge​

The wicked may be permitted to seem to prosper; however, it is a temporary thing. When they die we are told that this is the death of the damned. Never again shall they live and enjoy life. People who do things in war time are given a special consideration since they have to kill at times to not be killed.

Then there is another little point, God at times lets the wicked live long lives to be able to give then fully back what they deserve, as in continually being in mental anguish about being caught, and remembering the evil they did.

God shall get us all. It is up to him to determine what punishment each gets. None of us can know what is being done.
You take the for-all-to-see guilt of the Nazis and what not, but what about the ones who convert many away from God and cause them to be suffering perhaps eternal death-sleep because of the wrong teachings they have received?! What about the churches who teach things that perhaps damn. It is a complex world, and God shall get everybody and give us all what we deserve.

Just like the Bible critics who convert so many to their beliefs, if indeed as I believe, God is and has given us the Bible, what kind of punishment do these deserve for all the lives they cause to be damned?!

There are hidden sins that damn, and there are obvious ones also. None shall escape God's pay back.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

The wicked may be permitted to seem to prosper; however, it is a temporary thing. When they die we are told that this is the death of the damned. Never again shall they live and enjoy life.

That's not being punished. Many did indeed escape, went unpunished, and vanished from the radar.

 

[Grandliseur]

That's not being punished. Many did indeed escape, went unpunished, and vanished from the radar.

God is not partial; everyone shall get what they deserve. At the same time God is love so that if the righteous are punished for their sins immediately in this world it is because they shall have thousands of years of life in Paradise to enjoy; the wicked on the other hand only get this life, this 60 /70 years - thus God permits some amount of sin before they are held accountable and die for all eternity. It is not up to us to scrutinize every detail since God is fair and impartial.