This isn’t really news. This has always been their stance. Priests will always urge the person to turn them self in for true repentance but they won’t ever break the confidentiality of confession.
this post was submitted on 09 May 2025
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To be fair and if we consider Catholic lore and dogma technically any kind of breach of the confessional seal is a major breach in Catholic law or whatever. So I understand this from a faith based perspective.
On the other hand, I'm an atheist so fuck the confessional seal and report major crimes. Especially fucking child abuse! Any kind of child abuse!
Catholics and all christians by extension are also bound to do good and protect those who can't defend themselves.
I'm going to risk that denouncing and delivering to secular authoroties those who practice one of the most heinous acts we can think of falls under that responsibility.
Or because the church has lost its power to deliver "justice" of their accord (read inquisition and the follow up torture and mutilation) it has also lost the will to persecute evil deeds?
A priest is substantially closer to a therapist in function than to a lawyer.
Catholics are enablers and they are disgusting. Nothing like Christian love. We all have to follow the laws....why do catholics think they are above this? Stop diddling children and providing cover for pedos. I grew up and became a man when I left Christianity. There is a reason why people burn down catholic churches. What a cancer on the spirit of the human soul. The Catholic church is a major land owner. Charity is tyranny. Fair wages NOW. Justice for the global south. No more missionaries of any christian variety. No War but the Class War
Let's do the thought experiment where this is about muslims instead of christians...
How does that play out?
Call me crazy, but I don't think any religion should be molesting children or hiding it for others.
Ill call you Thomas the Tank Engine if i care to call at all, and i was pointing out the selective exceptionalism at work.
Take away their tax exempt status and tax them as the huge profitable businesses that they are.
The legit response. And continue to arrest members of this self aggrandized gang for the crimes they commit.
: reads headline
Woo! Good for them! Stick it to The Man!
: reads article body
ahhhh fuck these guys
I was really hoping they'd be refusing to comply with unjust laws. If they wanted ways to look like the good guys, these days we've got plenty.
Fuck. Religion.
Agreed its a cancer on humanity. Fake ass shit.
Separation of church and state goes both ways.
Confession is a religious rite. Try to legislate that rite is a violation of that separation.
Priests are bound by their office to maintain absolute confidentiality of confessed sins. Otherwise people are not likely to confess their sins.
It doesn’t matter how you, personally, feel about this or their religion or the value of confession as a sacrament, that’s their religion. The state doesn’t get to intervene.
The church should stay out of state affairs, and the state should stay out of church affairs. Exceptions exist, like when practices are outright criminal in themselves. But the state cannot compel a priest to violate their office. This is long accepted. You cannot compel a priest to testify about confession, for example.
Priests can encourage people to go to the police, but that’s it. Their role in confession is between the sinner and their god.
There's a Christian duty to follow laws that are just as well. From a very Christian perspective, the right thing to do would be convincing them to confess outright at least.
I'm no priest and I was definitely never catholic, but that's how I see it as someone who grew up in a protestant house.
I can tell you that that's also what I got. The way confessions work, the priest gives you... "penance" is what it might be called? What you need to do to repent for your sins and be absolved of them. Usually that's some prayer, but they can tell you that you have to turn yourself in and admit to your crimes to the police.
I have no idea if priests actually do that, and I imagine with the secrecy it'd be hard to get any information.
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Geez... I never thought I would see so much support for religious bullshit on this site. I'd rather see fewer children harmed than preserve the "sanctity" of confession, and every excommunicated priest is a priest with actual integrity.
It's funny, the post above this one on my feed is a bunch of people crowing about how you'd have to be a "tankie" to not support the new head of this organization.
I do think it's funny that Republicans are attacking the Pope for being "woke" and other nonsense, but are leaving out calling him a pedo. They do it for just about everyone else they call "woke".
Gee, I wonder why this one is different. Lol.
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