Here's an interesting tidbit from our progressive cousins in Europe. The Irish government has made it a crime for a priest not to report child molestation, even if they came by the knowledge of the offense in the confessional.
I stand behind no man in my hatred of child molestation. It is a despicable act for which there is no doubt a special ring of hell. I am comforted only by the fact that the US prison population is so horribly abusive to those found guilty of the crime, that some measure of justice has managed to creep in to the process. I would just as easily see the penalty for such crimes be death, except then they would probably be getting off easy.
But if the Irish government thinks that Catholic priests are going to roll over and start giving up knowledge gained from the confessional, they've got another thing coming. There is literally nothing I can think of that you can do to a priest to make him tell that particular tale, and if there is, then he is certainly no priest. I wouldn't expect the Vatican to be willing to give up any ground on this.
The sanctity of the confessional is not just some randomly thought up rule designed to get the priest all the latest village gossip. It plays an absolutely central role in Christianity's oldest faith, and the salvation of the souls of the faithful. Give that up, and all of Catholicism crumbles around it.
So the Irish have put themselves in an interesting situation. They will have the option of either never trying to enforce this particular law, or being the first Catholic country in history to make Catholicism itself illegal.
It's a crazy world when the barbarians are all on the inside of the gates.
11 comments:
Tom..In Missouri if you have a 15 yo daughter and she has a STD I can tell you ..If she comes in with an STD and is pregnant she is an adult and I cant even tell you she is pregnant unless it could harm her. Now that was 1985 from experience and maybe its different now. I doubt it though.
OK. simplified. I m required to tell someone of child abuse/molestation.I can legally break patient doctor confidentiality. I would and have done it. I would want the priest to do it also.,..You have to protect the child.
Respectfully chess, the priesthood has been around longer than medicine. And I'd argue that confidentiality for the priesthood is more central to the task at hand than it is for a doctor.
The priest has an obligation to do all they can to get the perpetrator to turn themselves in, but are prevented from ratting them out because it eliminates their ability to hear other honest confessions. People need to know they can really rely on that confidentiality, for for two millennium they absolutely have been able to.
A civilization needs rules, and those rules sometimes have costs. Like it or not, this is one of Western civilization's oldest rules - one of it's founding rules. Priests have been jailed for life and killed for refusing to reveal the knowledge gained in the confessional. They take it that seriously. Compared to this, paying for a morning after pill is small potatoes.
It probably sounds harsh, but I think there is a bigger issue at stake in the confessional than the treatment of a single child.
I did alot of moonlighting at emergency rooms during 2 residencies..Everytime a broken bone came in you had to approach it as a possibility.
I cant understand alot of what the Church does and has done.Gazillions have died in the name of God and still do.So all the mayhem and murder is absolved cause its in the name of God?.The Crusades were decades of idiocy all in the name of the church.Those scars are still carried around over there.
Participation in the Catholic Church in Ireland has fallen off a cliff. There is no faith in the priests because of all the bad things..
You have said you dont run with the conspiracy crowd but when it comes to the Vatican/Church I do..So many things are done in the name of God that seem absurd..The thought that a priest would say"my son seek help" places that in the Joe Paterno case file for me...
I would say alot more victims have come at the hand of the church that has happened to priests.. So Ill back this one as a common sense approach ,finally... Put up a sign saying you are forewarned that I will report you if you confess to do harm to a child are another human being.I side with God would want to protect that child
Karen Carpenter sang..Bless the beasts and the children for in this world they have no voice.they have no choice.
I guess when I look around St. Louis and see some of the "mansions " that the church has built and that no real estate taxes are collected on that it really irks me.Its as if they flaunt the wealth.I understand separation of church and state but I doubt the intention was to let the Church escape not paying a penny.I can see no reason the the Vatican cant pony up and pay like the rest of us do.
It's easy to buy in to the media version of the broader effect of the Catholic church. It's especially easy if you aren't predisposed to cut the church some slack as I am.
But if you were to take a look at the actual effect of the church through its whole history, you'd see that the crusades and the child abuse scandals and anything else you heard about from those bastions of the left that told it to you are of an infinitesimal scale compared to all the good the church has done. You don't trust the left on anything else they say, why would you trust them on the disposition of the Catholic church?
This world we live in - the western world - and all the good things that have come with it; the idea of fairness as a virtue, and for that matter even the concept of the nobility of the individual, is entirely a product of Catholicism and more broadly, Christian thinking. the idea of merit being worthy of a reward, or personal liberty as something to be strived for are all as tightly bound in Christian thinking as any of the sacraments. Even the tolerance to not force others to at least pretend to believe is a product of Christian thinking too. And the first 1500 years of that thinking was exclusively Catholic. That's worth something. Compare Augustine and Francis to anything the left has ever produced that passes for 'thought'. There is no contest.
You can no more remove our society from Christianity than you can remove a fish from the water. The left is trying very hard to eliminate the influence of Catholicism because they object to the morality it advocates. They point to men (who are all flawed) and their sins, and then try to use that to claim that the message they advocate is therefore flawed as well. It's straight from the Alinsky playbook. And If they're successful, then the west will end up as dead as any fish taken from the tank. Our culture will rot around our feet and we'll all be forced to accept a new kind of morality. We'll all be lousy Muslims probably. But we certainly won't be men of the west anymore.
That rap about the crusades and the child abuse is a product of purely leftist thinking. Maybe you don't recognize it as such, but think about who taught you to see the Catholic church that way. To me, it sounds as ridiculous as calling the US Army baby killers because you didn't like Vietnam. And complaining about churches isn't about how offensive you find them, only about how none of it is yours. There is no doubt that some children were killed, but that was never the point, and to believe so would make you a fool.
Same thing with the church.
The tension between Church as a state withing a modern state has been around longer than Thomas Beckett and the Constitutions of Clarendon.
So maybe there will be a Church of Ireland that will follow the lead of the Anglicans, where confessiona is a part of the service. Who knows, if the Irish pierce priest penitent privilege
it might lead to increased sales of the the iPhone "Confession: A Roman Catholic App," though I somehow think those confessions would be less secure than the confessional, and would probably result in alot of Viagra spam.
In all seriousness, from 1 Corinthians 11:
Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. 29 For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. 30 That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. 31 But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we would not come under such judgment. 32 Nevertheless, when we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be finally condemned with the world.
The power of admitting the exact nature of your wrongs to another human being is so extraordinarily important that the fastest alseep never wake without it. They die. Dimming the beacon of the confessional darkens the world for the weak and sick.
"Dimming the beacon of the confessional darkens the world for the weak and sick."
I am profoundly moved by the eloquence of this statement. To those who had no where else to turn, and I am among them, the clergy was my last resort.
We crumble as a civilization, undeniably. And largely because we discarded tenets of Christianity.
Damn the people within the institution of Catholicism that should well be damned. They should be grateful I don't get to them first. But I agree with Tom that history is "worth something."
yep its midnite and i have had a snoot full of bourbon. 2 things. once i grew up and actually believed gods house was where I was I no longer needed the churcH as an intermediary. Gods house is where I am at that moment when I talk to Him. I dont need a priest or bricks to get me a line tO HIm. So I have 0 use for the church/. I can talk to him every am at 4am when I am in the hot tub with a mug of coffee. He goes with me no matter where I am. that any and I mean any of his legion would harm aa child is beyond me.They have covered crap for eons.\\So in essence I beleieved the Church when they say hE IS WITH YOU ALWAYS. i DONT NEED THEM TO HELP PUT THRU THAT CALL NO MORE.
2ND . I WILL SAY --AND i KNOW kEITH__ THERE ARE VERY FEW ON THIS BLOG THAT HAS BEEN IN AN er AT MIDNITE WHE A 5 YO HAS COME IN TREMBLING AND THE MOTHER COWERING AND THE FATHER WITH ETOH ON HIS BREATH AND YOU TAKE THE FILMS AND SEE THE FRACTURE AND ASK HOW DID YOU BREAK YOUR ARM AT MIDNITE????? AND THE CHILD SHAKES AND THE MOTHER STUTTERS AND YOU KNOW THAT YOU MAY---JUST MAY BE THE ONLY ONE THAT STANDS UP TO THE OLD MAN CAUSE HE HAS BEAT HER ALSO AND SAY NO MORE. i DID IT IN mOBERLY MO A LONG TIME AGO AND IF THE POLICE HADNT RESPONDED I WOULD HAVE BEAT HIS ASS TO DEATH AND ZIPPED UP THE BODY BAG MYSELF. SO I GUESS I WOULD SAY UNTIL YOU HAVE BEEN THERE.....ETC ETC.
Chess, just because we're not doctors, doesn't mean we've never been in the emergency room at midnight.
So I will repsectfully disagree and look forward to all your blogs.. They make me think and re-think and re-think again... That is always a good thing.
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