De Vaticanus GodwiniiFollow

A barn burner, indeed.

The fact that church leadership is still even discussing the question of whether or not the implicated clergy should be subject to common law rather than only the church directives is damning in the absolute.

I like that. Along the same lines, sort of, Jon Carroll says:

Completely agree with Moe here; sums up my views (as a lapsed Catholic, unabused) perfectly.

I think the problem with the Catholic Church in this regard boils down to the sanctity of the Sacrament of Confession. What is spoken during a confession is not allowed to be repeated, and is assumed to have been forgiven. This presents a problem if a priest is suspected of molesting a child and he confesses it to another priest (or Bishop, or whomever is in charge). That priest cannot report him to the authorities without violating the sacrament. The best he can do is transfer the priest to a location where he will hopefully not be able to do it again. He also has to accept the other priests promise not to do it again as truth.

If this were something done only for priests molesting boys, you could call it hypocrisy. But the reality is that the Catholic church is well known for this and applies it to anyone who walks in and confesses their sins to a priest. That may seem like a dogmatic bit of silliness, but it does happen to be a key point of faith for Catholics. We shed tears when we hear a rendition of "Amazing Grace", and it's based upon the same concept of unconditional forgiveness. You can't have one without the other.


Now, the Pope could theoretically state officially that the celibacy requirement of priest's Holy Orders outweighs the sanctity of Confession and therefore allow priests to report and defrock those who are found to have molested children. However, this might result in a secondary problem. Today, priests who are confronted with suspicious behavior and/or claims are presumably confronted, confess, and then are moved. What may happen is that a priest will deny the claim, which puts the other priest (and the church) in the position of having to investigate the allegations. While that's almost certainly going to be viewed as a positive from an external point of view, the real problem is that the church views its job as "saving souls". The whole point of confession is that it allows for a person to wipe their slate clean as far as God and the church are concerned. By creating a rule which encourages lying and discourages people from confessing sins, the church would view this as a step in the wrong direction. As strange as this may seem from an external point of view, it's more important to the church that a sinner confess their sins than that they be caught and punished for their crimes. The whole "Gods law vs mans law" bit...



I'll also point out that children are much much more likely to be molested by a member of their own family, or friends of their family, or day care workers, or pretty much any random adult placed even temporarily in a position of control over said child than to be molested by a priest at their church. While we certainly do place upon priests a higher expectation than the rest of society, what we're really looking at isn't a case of "why are they worse", but "why aren't they X amount better" than everyone else? It's an interesting question to ask "how much better" must priests as a whole be before we'll be satisfied.


Don't forget that there are groups out there that just plain have it in for any organization of religion, and the Catholic Church is a nice fat target. This is not meant to excuse the actions of these priests, but rather to put them into a larger perspective. We hear about these sorts of abuses by priests precisely because they are priests, and that ought to be taken into consideration.

So you're saying that I have a good knowledge of Catholicism and you believe people should pay attention to what I said? Outstanding! Or did you intend to write something else...?

Could be. Just observing that he didn't "help" much at all with his vague and poorly written post. Quite disappointing from our normally well-written Nobster in fact!

A more apt comparison would have been the covering up of US abuses at Abu Graib.

But instead of admitting they @#%^ed up, they just want to whine that they're getting picked on.

Really, what it boils down to is that there's a big shortage of priests, and the best way to make new priests is to abuse little boys, scaring them away from the girls, confusing them, and then telling them that the PTSD they're experiencing is a calling. This serves to protect the existing priests, and make more of them down the road.

One of my friends from CCD went to seminary to become a priest. I don't think he was abused by our church's priest, but after this scandal, I'm willing to believe anything.

Edited, Apr 5th 2010 8:29pm by catwho

And further, the penance to be performed frequently is turning oneself into the law.

The "seal of the confessional" only holds if the person is truly repentant and is not continuing to harm people. All priest are required to report instances of child abuse/endangerment, at least that is what I was taught in seminary.

You know, Doctor/Patient privilege is a pretty bad example.

I spent 12 years watching ER and I know a doctor, so I guess that makes me qualified to perform surgery. Shut up.

Hi. Welcome to Following a Conversation for Beginners. Based on your previously quoted passage, I don't think you're quite ready for this class yet.

What someone who is raised in the Catholic Church understands about Confession, and what someone who understands the Bible and how it is bastardized by the Catholic Church and her clingers understand about Confession are two entirely different things. You can call it whatever you like, but Catholicism's history hardly lends credibility to the idea that the priest is only a vessel. The Sacrament of Confession is a construct of Catholicism. It does not exist in the Bible. It's ok, most Catholic rituals don't actual have more than a loosely interpreted Biblical basis, so par for the course. Any rules set in place around the sacrament are mere constructs of vain and egotistical men held on to out of tradition more than anything else.

No, that's what you're not getting. No priest will turn that person over, aiding and abetting an alleged felon (in this case).

For years I have read the things you wrote and genuinely not believed you could be that stupid, but I have to tell you, I am not convinced anymore. You couldn't even make this sh;t up. Conversations with a doctor that reveal a crime, especially against a child, fall under mandatory reporting laws. Officers of the Court are bound by mandatory reporting laws in many cases to inform the court of certain conversations that they have with their clients. The same expectation should be made of priests.

And how in holy f'uck would that even remotely address the point. I know of no other right in this country that by its exercise facilitates the violation of the rights of another individual. Forget contempt, I said co-conspirator. Accessory to Rape. Conspiracy to Commit Rape. Conspiracy to Rape a minor. 15 years, level 3 sex offender. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Pay attention, alter boy.

Moe? I'm just the messenger here. The statements I've made about how priests treat information gained during confession is correct. No matter how much you think that's screwed up, or it should be different. That *is* how it is...


My only point here is that we should consider those facts before attempting to assign motivation to the actions of Catholic priests in this case.

Huh? We're not on page 2 yet Moe. Maybe I'm reading into the issue, but it sure seemed to me that the point of all of this wasn't just that there are incidents of child abuse committed by Catholic priests (shocker!), but that these cases of abuse have been shoved under the rug by the church, with priests shifted to new parishes when allegations of abuse arise instead of being turned over to authorities. If I'm wrong for viewing that angle of the issue, then I'm in the same company with about 2/3rds of the posts on this thread so far.

Seems to me that providing an alternative explanation for why the church might not run to the authorities to turn in the offending priests would be kinda relevant. But maybe that's just a bit too obvious?