Catholic Priests Oppose ‘Report Pedophilia’ Bill in Ireland

There is a very simple solution to the confidentiality “problem”: the priest needs to make their absolution dependent on them turning themselves in. That way he doesn’t tell any secrets

The proposed law, while noble in its intent, would be pretty much unenforceable as far as confessions are concerned.  You’d need someone to witness the priest being told something that needed to be reported.  It also fails to address the root of the problem – child molestation.  It only drives it underground even further.

I also agree with Lauren’s comment.

No law can force a priest to break the Seal of Confession. A priest who is true to his vows and personal conscience has to keep the confidence of a penitent, even at the cost of his own life. At least, until the church leadership develops enough morality to change the rules.

But civil authority need not respect that. There’s no reason that the law is required to distinguish priests from anyone else who would be required to report knowledge of a crime. Just as a journalist can go to jail for protecting a source, so too can a priest for protecting a criminal. Both act according to their conscience, both must be prepared to pay the price for that.

Religious beliefs should always be free of government interference. But there’s nothing that should protect religious action. No church, no religion, no church member should ever be held to different standards than any other organization or individual.

An organization that claims to care about children while actively harming them? NAMBLA.

This is the bottom line (and I keep saying this hoping that folks will pick up and pass on the mantra): Any “belief” that harms another is a persecution and deserves neither tolerance nor freedom.  That’s it.  Bottom line.  No debates, no discussions, no studies.  That’s all crap.  Your “right” to swing your fist ends at my face.  If your religion harms another or denies them equal treatment under the law then your religion is a persecution and should be stamped out.   If you don’t like that then perhaps you should examine your doctrine a bit closer, but that’s on you not the rest of society.

It just about as enforceable as any other mandatory reporter, I would think.  You can’t force people to report, but you can sue the heck out of them when there is a legal obligation, and they’re reasonable proof they were informed but did not take action.

Is this law actually going to reduce any harm, or will it just discourage people from confessing in the first place?  Would you also support a law that put lawyers in jail for withholding information condemning their own clients?

I wonder if Donohue realizes how intentionally funny his wording is? To the casual reader, he just linked priests and sex abuse as some integral part of the catholic faith within two sentences. He should write for stand up.

Abolishing attorney-client privilege would be tantamount to abolishing the civil right to not incriminate oneself. It would also make it impossible for a defendant to competently defend himself on the basis that he can’t speak freely about his defense to ANYONE.

The Catholic confessional is not in any way related to civil rights, except that one is free to attend it per Freedom of Religion.

If such a law discourages child molestors from going to confession, complaining about that is akin to complaining that police patrols make rapists less likely to be on the streets. Denying sanctuary and succor to criminals is never a bad thing.

If I’m reading the intention of the bill right, that’s not quite the case. Of course, an actual confession, with the box and prayers and whatnot would be very difficult to prove, but that isn’t the actual intent of the bill.

In the past, there has been evidence provided that bishops and other higher-ups in the church were aware of the abuse but never reported it to police. In many places a responsible adult not reporting child abuse is a crime itself BUT a carve-out is given to priests giving confession. The bishops and other priests who covered up the abuse simply had to declare that they became aware of it in the context of a confession and thus they were absolved of any legal responsibility to report it. The burden then fell on authorities (who are criminally negligent in investigating the church in the best of times) to prove that the person was told of the abuse outside of confession.

This removes the loophole that have allowed hundreds of priests, bishops and cardinals to get away with collaborating in the protection of child rapists without facing legal penalties.

 Generally mandatory reporting laws cover crimes (usually violence, but sometimes also fraud/theft) committed against a vulnerable group. Though this is most commonly thought of as children, the elderly, the disabled and even in some cases battered women are also covered, depending on the crime. My limited understanding is that both requirements and enforcement vary rather wildly, and at least in the US clergy are usually exempt, I imagine along the same lines as psychologists and lawyers.

Well as long as you admit that the purpose of the law is to deny sanctuary and succor to criminals rather than actually reducing harm to victims…

“I certainly wouldn’t be willing to break the seal of confession for anyone — Alan Shatter particularly.”

Right, because this is totally about Shatter and not about protecting children. Dear heavens, how callous and self-centered do you have to be to be more worried about a politician you don’t like than the abuse of innocents? The Catholic Church seems to exemplifying the very flaws it accuses “modern secular society” of at every turn.

True, but NAMBLA has few supporters, aside from its members, and ZERO political sway. Comparing it to the Catholic Church is like comparing a flea to an elephant.

Actually, some states have lawyers under mandatory reporting of child abuse

http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/domviol/pdfs/mandatory_reporting_statutory_summary_chart.authcheckdam.pdf 

To the best of my knowledge, mental health professionals are not exempt in cases of violent felonies, and are in fact mandatory reporters for abuse.

Actually, I know for a fact that nurses, psychologists, and other medical personnel are required by law to report child abuse, elder abuse, and a few other abuses to law enforcement if they have any real reason at all to suspect it. Patient confidentiality is void in those types of situations.  So why should priests get to have an exemption?  No one else does and why would they want to?

Others are correct! Psychologists are mandatory reporters for abuse and crimes and other acts that put other people in harm!

 My understanding (based on talking to Catholics and my mother, who was raised Catholic) is that any priest worth is salt is going to make you turn yourself in if you go in to confess a serious crime like that. They’re NOT going to just let you off with a few hail marys.

The OP seem to me a bit superficial. From what I read a priest would
have to report a number of crimes reported to him in confession, no
only child molestation. With that law you would significantly limit
the religious practice of confession. One can argue in favor or
against it but one should be aware the issue has not only the
church-state-separation but also the general right-to-silence
context.

Just to clarify a point, when a person goes to confession, normally, the priest is not able to see the penitent’s face.  There is a heavy grate of some sort, and the confessional is dark, only the priest’s “booth” is lighted.  You can also use a phony accent to help disguise your voice.

But, but, what’s a faithful cath’alolic’ to do? The pope has the ear of God. 

The seal of Confession is inviolable without exception.

It is true that the priests oppose this law. However, that the law pertains to incidents of sexual child abuse is incidental to why the priests oppose it. If the law mandated the disclosure of ANY crimes (e.g muder, drug trafficking, arson, theft, fraud, etc) revealed in the confessional, priests would refuse to comply with it.

From the Code of Canon Law –

Can. 983 §1 The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely
forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in
any manner and for any reason.

( For those unfamiliar with the terminology: the “confessor” is the one hearing the confession, i.e. a priest or bishop. The “penitent” is the one making a confession, i.e. any baptized Catholic who has attained the age of reason).

No matter the nature of the sin confessed, and no matter the nature of the threat(s) imposed upon confessors (even if death/torture) if they don’t report the sins they’ve heard during confession to civil authorities, a confessor may NOT reveal the sins of the penitents.

The penalty of violating the seal of confession is latae sententiae excommunication (“automatic excommunication” ) — this type of excommunication is incurred by the commission of the act in-and-of-itself, with no need for a pronouncement of excommunication on the part of an ecclesial authority (the latter is called “formal excommunication”) — and only the pope can lift that penalty off of the offending confessors.

Christianity seems to have no positive impact for depression  LINK.  There is no reason to believe that it would have any positive impact on other mental illnesses. I consider paedophilia to be a serious mental illness, apologies to anyone who suffers from another mental illness.

Given the high incidence of child rape among priests (apparently three times that of other professions) and given that priests presumably confess as much as, if not more than, members of the public then it is a pretty safe bet that confession does not reduce recidivism for child rape and molestation.

Every church out there.

 Oh that excuses everything. Yeah, screw the children, Wouldn’t want to break canon law.

Priests should be mandated reporters.

Asking priests to do the same thing teachers, doctors and others have been doing for years is somehow a “war on Catholics”.  These supposedly moral people think they’re being persecuted because they’re  being asked to report child molesters.   Ugh. 

If by that you mean there should be legal penalties for failing to report abuse, I agree. But a priest is in a tough spot. Morally, he must respect the Seal of Confession. And I can’t really disagree with that. I respect a person who is true to his beliefs, even if they are crazy beliefs.

I think this could be approached a little differently. Don’t focus on the priests at all. They are not operating independently, but on behalf of their employer. If a psychiatrist who works for a hospital fails to report a crime, you can bet that the hospital will end up with significant liability. So when a priest fails to report a serious crime, let’s not just find the priest at fault, but his employer, who has created the rules he must operate under. Even after all the money paid out to settle child abuse cases, the Catholic Church has plenty of money to start paying a whole new class of lawsuits and criminal fines. It took big financial payouts to finally make the church start changing its ways with respect to abusive clergy; maybe the same strategy will work with changing the rules of confession.

This is EXACTLY the PROBLEM.

The Catholic Church has an INTERNAL LAW that is far less moral than the
government’s secular laws, and the Catholics want special privileges to
follow their IMMORAL internal-law.

What if I knew very well that my neighbor was renting out his 7-year-old
children as sex toys, BUT then  I said that I believed that Humpty
Dumpty was my God and He didn’t want me to tell police. WHICH law should
apply, the government’s moral secular law, or the immoral law based on
myths and superstitions??

It is entirely rational for Canon law to prevail over stopping any kind of misery or abuse. Indeed, it is one of the most rational things you can find in religion. We have a church that operates under the belief that what happens on Earth is transient and unimportant compared with the salvation of the eternal soul. While a priest might feel very bad for any child he knows is being abused (and I’m sure most do), if he is true to the teachings of the church, he understands that observing Canon law is instrumental to saving souls. To allow temporal suffering in exchange for eternal life makes perfectly good sense.

This is a perfect example of how theism and religious beliefs lead to what most people would consider fundamentally immoral behavior patterns.

This isn’t actually true–it’s NOT unethical to report a crime confessed in confidence if there is a danger to others–for instance, doctors have the duty to warn people if they know their patient intends to do them harm.  It comes from the Tarasoff decision, where a doctor kept a patient’s confidence knowing he had violent intent toward someone, and then this someone was later murdered.

So, given the extraordinary recidivism rate of child molesters, and the fact that the priest in all likelihood still has access to that child he victimized, a person learning that someone molested a child has more than sufficient evidence that the confessant is an imminent harm to others and thus the protection of confidentiality is void.  Or, at least it would be if we were talking about an ethical profession like doctors rather than self-serving thieves like priests who get special exemptions out of ethical behavior in our society.

Blow up a few Catholic churches, then go to confession and tell a Priest what you did and see if they keep it between you and God.

 That’s true. What somehow continues to shock me is how many Church officials don’t even seem to put in the effort to look like they really care. It’s not even “We care about the children, but here’s why we think our concerns are still reasonable…” Instead they just blatantly sneer at the idea that anyone *else* could hold them morally accountable for their actions. They conceal thousands of cases of rape and other physical abuse for decades, and then claim persecution when they get told that they have to stop it.

If some super-powerful, super-secret society spent a thousand years trying to craft an organization that was nothing but hypocrisy incarnate, I’d be surprised if they could produce an organization half as self-contradictory, half as unabashedly authoritarian and corrupt, as the Vatican has become all on its own. All while producing a constant stream of real charity, and oppression masquerading as “charity”, and actual criminal activity, all intertwined almost to the point of being inseparable.

It’s a terrible marvel of nature, like HIV or a tsunami. The very existence of something like the Catholic Church is evidence against the type of God it claims to worship, because a truly good God would never let something like the Catholic Church persist in its claim to represent the interests and desires of the Almighty.

No, “ethics” is the study of rationally-derived principles for pro-social, honest behavior, and as such operate independent of one’s dogma.  Dogma may be ethical or unethical (although I would say that in the vast majority of cases, adhering to dogma for its own sake is fundamentally unethical because rationality is an ethical obligation in order to determine the real effects of one’s actions in the real world), but the ethical judgement is a result of study of the benefits and harms to the individual and society, and as such ethics cannot change because of dogma. 

If something is bad for other people, it is by definition unethical, and a different cultural context does not erase that.  So, it may be “unpriestly” or “unCatholic” to break the seal of confessional, but it is still ethical to do so (indeed, ethically required) in the case of imminent harm to others.

Maybe it is because I was raised Catholic (though I’m an Atheist now), but I kind of understand about how confession should stay private. It is kind of similar to how many would argue that patients should be able to have private conversations with their psychiatrists even if they admit breaking the law. If they don’t have that, then they will keep quiet and the psychiatrist might not be able to help talk them out of it.  

No, actually that undermines the entire principle of ethics.  Ethics concerns itself fundamentally with what we SHOULD do, not with what is done. As such, absolutes are essential: keep in mind, specifications do not undermine the absoluteness, i.e., “it is wrong to kill another human except to protect yourself or others from imminent danger” is still absolute even though it contains specifications.

Human beings have certain fundamental needs: to have control over our bodies, to have access to food, shelter, and safety, to be free of pain, to feel social bonds, etc., etc.  No amount of cultural relativism is going to change these basic drives of our neurobiology.In a society that holds slaves, we do not say it is ethical in that society to hold slaves–there is still an utterly unacceptable level of human suffering being perpetuated–rather, we say (or at least we should) that such a society is unethical and reprehensible. While our *understanding* of what is ethical must of necessity change (much like our understanding of all branches of knowledge), this means that we are getting better at respecting and achieving the fundamental needs of humans, and therefore are able to be more ethical, not that our previous ignorance and/or harmful behavior was just as ethical.

 attorney-client privilege (as well as doctor-patient confidentiality) can be violated if the attorney knows the client is going to hurt somebody. But then agian, Catholic priests are not attorneys or doctors. I don’t see why they should have this privilege.

 I would also counter that reformation of the criminal is not the only purpose of putting them in jail. The other purpose is retribution. That person has harmed somebody and they should pay the penalty for it. Now, I’m not one for blood lust, and I would never advocate the death penalty or forced castration, but spending time in jail for molesting children is a fair punishment. I’m glad if somebody wants to get help and stop. That’s great, but they should still be punished for their offense.

I agree.  The penalty of prison is also supposed to serve as a deterrence.  

The intensive treatment programs I was referencing was from within a prison sentence, in the hopes of making them safe for society when they’re released.  Allowing the abusers to be free and just talk to a priest at their leisure just didn’t strike me as effective treatment anyway.

People have lost sight of morality. Given that Priests are told to protect the identities of child molesters and cover up their crimes, its unethical to be a priest or a member of the church, period. End of story. There is no reason to wait until such time that someone confesses and then claim its unethical to reveal their identity because you’ve taken vows. It’s already unethical to agree to cover up such acts. Keeping true to his vows has nothing to do with ethics except an additional reason to cite him as unethical for taking the vows

So the war against pedophiles is really a war against Catholocism. Who knew? Fucktards.

I agree with you so much it hurts. How can anyone continue to be a Catholic at this point? Imagine if you belonged to an organisation that has frequent contact with Children, let’s say it’s an international Martial Arts club. There are times when the instructors have contact with children with no other adults around, sometimes even having private, one on one tuition with kids who need extra practice. 

Then one, not several or many but one instructor is found to be touching the kids in his charge. The Heads of this organisation decide to move this instructor to a different city so he escapes prosecution for his crimes. Would you still send your kids there? Or would you find a different school?

If you’re still a Catholic at this point then you need your f*ckin’ head read. No-one, least of all your benevolent god could blame you for leaving the Catholic church and worshipping elsewhere. Remaining a member of the Catholic congregation is tacit approval of this behaviour if you ask me.

Why do we never hear from “Catholics against Paedos”? Surely a portion of Catholics  are against kiddy-fiddling. Where are their voices?

Hi Renshia –

The purpose of my post was simply to contextualize this news story. Reason being that (as far as my internet observation is concerned) many are — whether wittingly or not — interpreting the story exclusively in terms of pedophilia and the sex abuse scandal.

Another way to phrase my original point is this: had there not been a sex abuse scandal, these priests would still oppose the law of mandatory disclosure of crimes confessed in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, because the seal is a matter of principle not of particulars.

Also, you are aware that penitents have the option of anonymous confession? They are no required  whatsoever (but may do so if they wish) to make their confession face-to-face with the priest. An anonymous confession would make no valuable contribution to this Irish law (and it’s perfectly reasonable to suspect that child sex offenders would prefer to make an anonyous confession). Not only that, penitents are not required to go to a priest of their parish or to a priest that they’ve gone to before in the past. They can go if they go to a priest they’ve never met before in their lives.  

Furthermore, for those unfamiliar with confession — the priest only asks details to the extent that it will clarify what exactly is/are the sin(s). This may involve inquiring as to the person’s state of knowledge/awareness at the time of the commission or omission of the act, the person’s intent, and the person’s freedom of consent or lack thereof, because penitents can be vague.
(E.g. ” I drove irresponsibly.” Translation (after the priests probes for necessary clarification): “I drove while drunk”. )

Even setting aside the theological problems with this law, given how confession works in practice, I don’t see how this law is doing anything except mandating what is futile and encouraging hearsay.

You have provided no argument as to why absolutes are NOT accurate, you’ve just called it “ridiculous.” So, actually try to make an argument as to why “it is wrong to kill another human except to protect yourself or others from imminent danger” should not be absolute.

Furthermore, the idea that there is an absolute requirement for fundamental ethical principles does not in ANY way mean that we can’t change our ethical ideas–in fact, I argued exactly the OPPOSITE, that human beings MUST seek greater understanding of ethical ramifications and adjust our practical ethics to our greater understanding.

Furthermore, the very fact that you concede the point that if you compare ethics with someone and realize you might be “wrong” means that in fact there ARE absolute ethics that our understanding is trying to approximate, because if there weren’t and ethics were relative, there would be no way you could be “wrong.”

I have no idea what you even mean with that strange tangent about authority, especially as I defined ethics as a rational study of benefits and harms for the individual and society, and your conflation of reason and authority is just deeply, deeply confused.

Who are you to say an absolute is artificial?  Would you care to make an argument as to why “it is wrong to kill another human except to protect yourself or others from imminent danger” is not actually absolute?

I also think you’re conflating absolutes based on repeated, verifiable evidence that have withheld a great deal of logical scrutiny to absolutes declared on the basis of superstitious nonsense.  The superstition is the problem, not the possibility of absolutes–human rights are, for instance, things we have discovered to be ethical absolutes.

“Coming from within” is absolute nonsense–this evades critical thinking and leads to a degree of subjectivity that defies the very point of valuing ethics and a healthy society in the first place.  By your extremely misguided definition, Charles Manson is an ethical person because he is true to his beliefs.

As others have noted. If a priest has developed an internal understanding of ethics, that says he cannot report someone who abuses/kills children. He can follow his conscience. If his conscience violates laws that protect the innocent, he can go to prison and suffer the consequences of his private conscience. If my conscience requires me to harm children, you would not argue that should make me exempt from the laws that would punish that behavior would you? No! Let the law punish those who protect evildoers, and let the ones punished fell good internally that from their perspective they suffer “for righteousness sake”.

Well, you clearly don’t know much about ethics because that
“conflation” was just an allusion to Kant (who essentially took
religious “religious authority as the source of ethics” and put
“reason” in its place).

“A study of benefits and harms to the individual and
society” is simplistic. Ethics is not an analysis of harms/benefits (per
your central point earlier mentioning “fundamental needs” and
neuro-biological drives). To say that it’s only that means that a lot of
“reprehensible” things are allowed. Rationally, the number of people
benefiting from the murder of an innocent or the preemptive attack of
a country could lead you to have to condone those actions (look into the
dilemma of “is it morally permissible to kill an innocent man”). But
maybe you want to elaborate on that and put exceptions to your own rules and
“things that cannot ever be done no matter how many people benefit.”
In which case, things get complicated, more realistic, a little more arbitrary
(“cause it feels wrong”), and a bit more relative.

The idea that “you could be wrong” in no way concedes
the idea of a universal ethics. First, to suggest that you take the “you
could be wrong” stance is to be sensitive to the well-known fact that ALL
people take their ethical statements to be “factual” statements (even
though they differ in what those factual statements are). It’s like saying: in
actuality, there is no free will, but you can’t help feeling “free”
anyway and there are plenty of benefits to acting as if you are “free,” so
act as if you are “free” despite having that knowledge. Does that mean that
that person is saying that there is “free will”? No. So, you know that there
are no absolutes in ethics, so blah blah blah (you get it).

Second, if there were some magical book with all these absolute
ethical guidelines (written into our genes or something or even waiting to be
thought out rationally or some “equation” of benefits/harms [it just
makes no sense for absolutes to “exist” so bear with this terrible metaphor]),
no one would be able to come to that in the same way. Humans are fallible and,
as you know, take away different things from the same exact experiences. So,
even if they were to encounter these absolutes, there would be variation on
what is taken away from it. Ethics are a human, individual, and societal thing.
If it doesn’t exist an as absolute there (like 2 + 2 exists in an absolute),
then it’s not an absolute (even though it’s an absolute in some written form).

I don’t have to argue with your proposed absolute, because I agree
with it. My issue is with your general presentation of ethics. It’s simple,
inadequate, and no better than what has come before it. First, ethics/morality
were edicts from some form of higher authority (be it gods or nobles). Then, it
was (and this is where you still seem to be) the absolute result of rational/logical
endeavors. Now, people are realizing that there’s more to it than that and that
something like “emotions” plays a big role in how people make their ethical
judgments and that there’s a sense of moral dumbfounding at which point some
people can’t even explain why something is “wrong.” “Oh, but that’s not
rational,” you say. Ok, but then there’s the fact that the people who make
rational ethical judgments have been found to be predictably susceptible to many
of the same biases that appear when making other decisions (most important
being the framing effect) and then their ethical judgments don’t reflect their
ethical principles. And their ethical judgments of situations vary depending on
irrelevant information (two system theory of moral judgment). Hmmmm…

You’re right, though. Ethics is concerned with what we SHOULD do,
but that’s always constricted by what we CAN do. Absolutes are nice and all.
They simplify things and they help guide your own decision making and judgment
(though not absolutely). However, ethics are a human project and, unless
someone determined a goal for it in the beginning of time, it doesn’t aim for
any specific thing. Rather, it aims for many, many things and plenty of these
things are in conflict with each other (Bernard Williams stuff on values is
great to read on this point).

Hmmm, are you telling me that it hurts because you are
suggesting that it’s unethical for me to respond and cause you more pain?

When it comes to ethics, things like values and such also
are important in determining the harms/benefits. I’m glad that you mentioned
that you don’t have a “simplistic” view of harm because now we can get into a
more interesting discussion…but this is a terrible f-ing forum for that. I
could barely read what you wrote, and I’m sure you had the same problem.

I enjoy discussing ethics…especially with people who don’t
resort to “well the bible…” (ugh, so tired of that). This kind of discussion is
the kinds of discussions that are important for ethics in general. If you want
to continue, just e-mail me here: BlahBlahBlah AT Guerrillamail.com.

Lawyers and Psychologists have to report the illegal activity of their clients. Priests should be no different. Period.

This whole double standard is ridiculous, and yes, I know I am preaching to the choir here.

I agree it is a shameful situation in the Catholic church. The Catholics are not alone in this crime. I know from being an ex-member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses religion that their legal department pays off victims with member donations. For the most part, they have kept themselves out of the sex scandal news—at least up till now. But I personally know of several instances of sex abuse hidden under the rugs of the Jehovah’s Witnesses Watch Tower Society. Thanks to the sheer volume of complaints made against them, light is now being shone on the corruption in the Jehovah’s Witness religion. Read more from victims of the Jehovah’s Witnesses religion at  http://www.silentlambs.org/sllist.htm

There are many figures throughout history who suffered punishment because their personal ethics differed significantly from the norms of their societies: Mandela, Ghandi, even Jesus if you believe the stories.

 Exactly. So the law should stand as is to protect the children, and the priest should do like Gandhi, Mandela and Jesus which is gladly receive punishment for what their conscience tells them. The fact that by the standards of caring about children’s welfare their conscience is completely screwed up is irrelevant, but they should not get legal protection for thinking like that. They are free to practice their religious views, and if their views require them to break laws protecting children they should gladly suffer the consequence. Not try to fight the law. If my “religion” required me to rape children society would rightly mock my claim that making laws against child rape was “war against my religion”, and I would need to accept, that practicing my “faith” will land me in jail, not try to get a legal exception carved out. Capeesh?

The sooner the EVIL ROTTEN ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH is made to pay for it’s crimes and then banned from the World the better.

What a priest should say, if someone comes to him confessing a child sex crime, is “God forgives you, you will go to heaven, but we don’t forgive you, you will go to jail.”  That’s what I think, anyhow.

Hi
Renshia —

*My apologies if this post is a duplicate. My first reply to you apparently disappeared so I am re-typing it.

— 1)The reason for my original comment on this thread was to contextualize the news story since (as far as my internet observation is concerned) it is commonly, and whether wittingly or not, being nterpreted exclusively in terms of pedophilia and the clerical sexual abuse scandal.

Another way to state my original point is this: had the clerical sexual abuse scandal never occurred in the Catholic Church, priests would still refuse to comply with a law mandating that they report the committed crimes that are disclosed to them in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This is because preserving the seal of the sacrament is a matter of principle, not of particulars.

2) Are you aware of anonymous confession? While penitents may make their confession face-to-face with their confessors if they wish (I do), it is not required of them to expose their identities. They must be given the option of making an anonymous confession. And it is perfectly reasonable to suspect that a past child sex offender who is seeking the sacrament, will choose to make an anonymous confession.

Tying this back to the is Irish bill — even setting aside the theological problems with breaking the seal of confession, there are still practical problems. The “passing on” of an anonymous confession would not be a valuable contribution to civil authorities.

(Cont ..)

 Greetings Ana,
I do understand the point you are making. I was an alter boy and I am fairly aware of the most common Catholic doctrine and laws. I served as an alter boy for about 7 years. I also lived right next door to the parish. I can honestly say the priest, Father Major held a very important roll in my life. To make it short, his place was a sanctuary for me, in the mist of a home life that was filled with anger, violence and drunken stupidity. If I was to used my experience, as a gage for the church, I would not believe any of the stories about the atrocities that have come out it.  Simply because if it had not been for the priest next door, I believe I would probably be dead.

So I am probably one of the few here that can really understand that fine line that the priests must walk between servant of the church and servant of the community.

I understand that there are times and places where there is a need for silence and that not every word uttered in a confessional can be brought before local authorities. I don’t think this law is intended for that. I think the church is trying to emphasize this point to try and avoid the areas that fall outside of the confessional. For instance, if the person is anonymous, then there is obviously not enough info to go to the police with.  I do not think this law will bring the police knocking after the confessions are done, to see what the latest scapes of info are, that have come out of each session.

But let me tell you from the heart of a person that was an 8 year old boy, who had black and blue marks from the top of his neck down to his calves. For those that did know of the abuses that occurred, because I know my old man was not sharing his activities in a confessional.  It would have been nice for someone to have said something. There are many instances that will and do fall outside the  Sacrament of Reconciliation. Whether it is a fellow priest sexually abusing someone or a member of the congregation known for his violent outrages.
It is these circumstances that will hopefully be avoided in the future and that those who choose to be silent will be held accountable.

It is to late for me, the damage has already been done. But for those who are suffering now, maybe a few can be rescued.

So let’s not split hairs, and only look at the worst possible scenarios. lets take a look at the whole.

You even respect beliefs that are harming children in a way that will scar them for life?  If we really want to  “respect” their beliefs, we should ask the priests if they think Jesus would think it’s moral not to report and try to stop the suffering of others. 

Is this even about the confessional, or is it more properly about priests worried that they would be forced to report fellow priests for molesting children? They can’t castrate children anymore, so they’re setting for this.

I think the Catholic church lacks the credibility necessary to handle this internally. Their complete and utter failure on this issue is more than enough reason to warrant legal intervention.

 So it’s more important to keep a pinky promise than it is to prevent a child from being abused?

that is bullshit…religion needs to be held accountable for their behavior. religion is out of control…since they are going to be defiant by this law, it should pass and throw all their ass’s in jail…

A psychiatrist or doctor would be required to report an active child molestor, on pain of being struck off and even legal repercussions.

Just because someone pretends to be speaking for an imaginary god should not let them off the hook.

 The SS/HSE still cover up for rape of children in their care.

Nothing has changed.

The child rapists are not always men in frocks, but those paid to care for the children.

because the priests got away with it, why not lay people? who call themselves social workers in Ireland, but are really facilitators for the child rapist rings.

Torture, rape, abuse, death  and ECT are the order of the day in the Irish “care” system.

ECT used to burn out memories of the abuse- keep it all hidden lest children talk and sue.

It is all kept hidden using the same system as the Roman church- for they control the courts and various depts involved.

If only people would research.