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What a travesty. It's not surprising that a religion that advocates beating children (Proverbs 13:24 & 20:30) would not want to report parents who abuse children.
Proverbs 13:24 He who spares the rod hates his son. But he who loves him urgently instructs him.
The rod is a metaphor for discipline and instruction
Proverbs is full of parables
There are so many phrasing variants depending on translation. Do we believe the bible, or the actions of people who claim to be Christians? Many Christian parents have historically interpreted the bible advocacy not as metaphor for instruction, but of severe physical discipline and corporal punishment. 2000 years surely is long enough for Christians to refine their game to your gentler and kinder interpretation, yes?
See Religion and Child Abuse, Perfect Together, by Donald Capps.
The rod is a metaphor for discipline
It's not a metaphor, they would beat their slaves with the same rod, see Exodus 21:20.
Stop sanewashing your stupid death cult. It's all about normalizing abuse, and fuck you for participating in that.
It's beyond fucked up. Kids are let down by everybody in power. How come the pedos organise society and nobody stop them?
Capitalism (and most other organized hierarchical power structures) favor and reward sociopathy. Sociopaths might not be any more likely to have pedophilic inclinations than anybody else, but they are more likely to act on those inclinations if they have them, while others -- who have functioning empathy -- are more likely to realize it's wrong and resist those urges if they have them.
The disorders that make someone more likely to act on pedophilic impulses are the same disorders that help someone climb the hierarchy and claim dominance.
And the empathy and human decency that holds most people back from the ruthless pursuit of power are the same factors that can make someone with pedophilic attraction less likely to act on that attraction.
That's why we're ruled by pedophiles -- not just now, but for pretty much all of recorded history.
Narcissists too
Why aren't you stopping them? That's probably why nobody else is.
I think anyone hearing of any abuse heard in any context should be legally required to report it.
This is one of those things we've learned to do not out of ideal moral principles, but because the consequences of not doing it are so much worse.
The first beginnings of what would grow into modern concepts of religious liberty in Europe came out of the Thirty Years War. Millions died in the fighting, most civilians. When both sides think God's on their side, and that giving in will mean eternal damnation? It's gonna be ugly. Through this and other wars of religion, we learned the hard way to take a "live and let live" attitude with certain religious practices.
Religion makes people do terrible things. When someone truly believes their eternal soul is on the line, there's very little you can actually do to change their behavior. There is no punishment you can apply to them that is greater than an eternity in literal Hell.
I'm in favor of letting priests keep their confessions secret. First, forcing them to reveal confessions isn't going to actually help catch any abusers. If you establish that policy, even if you get the priests to go along, all that will happen is that priests will tell people before every confession. "Please note, there are some crimes I'm required by law to report." In that case, no abuser will confess their crimes to a priest. At least now there is a chance the priest can convince the abuser to seek out redemption and turn themselves in for their crimes. And if someone cares enough about religion that they're willing to confess molesting a child, they're probably on the verge of turning themselves in anyway. I would rather the priest be able to hear the confession and tell the molester, "the only way you will not go to hell for this is if you turn yourself in." That would at least result in a nonzero amount of predators being caught.
But historically, forcing people to violate their deeply held religious beliefs rarely works well. It's a short hop from "I will die for my religious beliefs," to "I will kill for my religious beliefs."
I don't support forcing priests to reveal any crimes confessed to them. Ultimately it won't catch many criminals, and it comes with a lot of risks. On the low end you end up risking locking up nonviolent priests for decades for no other crime than sticking to their sacred vows. On the high end you risk religious violence.
It's not something I support in principle, but merely out of practical reality. I'm agnostic myself. I just think forcing priests to report does more harm than good.
Damn, when I read the post and first comment I was ready to grab the pitch fork... After reading your very well reasoned, logical, argument that deals with the nuance of this situation. I completely agree with you.
Disappointed by how presumptuous and fast-to-anger I was.
Edit: word
It's a hard thing. Like, from pure moral principles? No. I don't think priests should get any exceptions. But simply from balancing the positive and negative consequences of forcing them to testify? It's not worth doing. There's a lot of religious practices that wouldn't exist in my ideal world.
For example, in an ideal world, I wouldn't let parents force their children to attend church. Ideally religion would be something you actively have to seek out, rather than something forcibly imposed on you by your parents.
But I shudder to think at what horrors would be unleashed if you actually tried to ban parents from taking their kids to church. From their perspective, without baptism, their kids would be one fatal accident away from an eternity in Hell. That kind of pressure will motivate people to do unspeakable things. It is terrifying to think of what someone who truly believes, "you are trying to damn my child to Hell," is capable of.
You just have to do a cost/benefit on it. It is practical to ban certain religious practices. If someone wanted to build a pyramid and start sacrificing people to the Sun god, even willing people, we wouldn't allow that. But we wouldn't allow that because:
The consequences of allowing it are extreme. (People are being murdered.)
The consequences of banning it are minor. (Not many people actually want to sacrifice people to the Sun god. There's few enough of them that they do not present a threat to the rest of society. We can easily arrest the handful of people that engage in human sacrifice without tearing society apart.)
If you therapists and priests are made untrustworthy, no one will trust them. If they are meant to work as a valve for suppressed psychological issues and decrease the probability of patients getting overwhelmed by their urges, they need to be trustworthy.
I assume that in general, therapists and priests do actually work to stabilize their patients in a lot of cases and by that prevent a lot of damage from happening. Obviously, if that isn't the case (I expect it to be, but I don't actually know), then making them generally untrustworthy doesn't hurt.
And they wonder why their congregation age averages 85.
Freedom of religion was a mistake. Idgaf what your imaginary friend says, if you know a kid is being abused and you keep it to yourself Hell should seem like a vacation you get to run off to when the prison system is done with you.
Fucking cultists. What an utterly unhinged ruling.
In the 23-page ruling, John Lopez, the supreme court vice-chief justice, said the US constitution’s first amendment – which addresses religious freedom – prevented courts and juries from assessing religious doctrine when considering a clergy member’s reasons for choosing not to report abuse.
This seems backwards to me. If the Constitution states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" then that should mean that one's religious faith should have no bearing on the enforcement of the law. Granting church members exclusion from mandatory reporting laws is giving particular religions a special class with regard to such laws. No religion should get special benefits or restrictions under the law and this ruling is the opposite of that.
The fact that the LDS church considers confession to be sacred should not mean that members should be allowed to remain silent when they learn about heinous abuse that any other member of society would be required to report.
Another win for religion! /s
Disgusting slimy fucks
It's not very surprising. There's a legal rationale behind it.
Certain classes of people are granted privileged communications.
Lawyers are permitted privileged communications with the people they represent, as those people need to be able to be honest with them about their situation. You cannot compel these communications to be handed over, and I don't believe that there's an obligation to report. The idea is that we donlt want communication to break down with lawyers, because thst causes other social harm.
Similar is also true for certain other relationships, like husband-wife.
Doctor-patient.
And I guess there priest-parisoner; priests often provide a similar counsel-and-advise role.
searches
Privileged communications exist because society values the privacy or purpose of certain relationships. The established privileged communications are those between wife and husband, clergy and communicant, psychotherapist and patient, physician and patient, and attorney and client.
These relationships are protected for various reasons. The wife-husband and clergy-communicant privileges protect the general sanctity of marriage and religion. The psychotherapist or physician and patient privilege promotes full disclosure in the interests of the patient's health. If patients were unable to keep secret communications with psychotherapists or physicians relating to treatment or diagnosis, they might give doctors incomplete information. If doctors received incomplete information, they might be unable to administer health care to the patient, which is the very purpose of the doctor-patient relationship.
The attorney-client privilege exists for roughly the same reason as the physician-patient privilege. In order to secure effective representation, a client must feel free to discuss all aspects of a case without the fear that her attorney will be called at trial to repeat her statements. Likewise, to retain the client's trust and do his job properly, the attorney must be allowed to withhold from the court and opposing party private communications with the client.
A communication is not confidential, and therefore not privileged, if it is overheard by a third party who is not an agent of the listener. Agents include secretaries and other employees of the listener. For example, a communication between a psychotherapist and patient would be privileged even if the psychotherapist's secretary happened to overhear it. In such a case, the secretary could not be forced to testify about the communication. However, a communication between a psychotherapist and a patient on a public elevator occupied by third parties would not be privileged and could be used in court.
The key difference is that lawyers and psychologists have a duty to report if they believe the person is likely to commit a future crime, depending on the severity of the crime.
This is protecting a priest from a duty to report even violent crimes that lawyers and doctors would be required to report, simply because some people believe that the priests would be excluded from heaven for reporting.
EDIT: It doesn't even prevent priests from going to heaven, only excommunicates them from the church. They could still repent and go to heaven.
So I can get excused from my heinous crimes if I belong to cult that doesn't mind?
There's a reason they're full of pedophiles
No, only your religious confession can't be disclosed to the authorities.
Our society has prioritized a priest's desire to remain part of the Catholic church over the very real torture of children. This doesn't prevent a priest from going to heaven, just from being part of the church. As long as the priest repents at the end of his life, he'll still go to heaven.
Now, where it gets tricky is if the priest doesn't actually repent. Then he is choosing between his belief in a hypothetical god and his hypothetical eternal soul... and the very real torture of children. If he, again hypothetically, believes he did the right thing and doesn't repent, then his soul will be damned... hypothetically.
If the only real lasting punishment for a priest is if they do not repent, then the people who support this KNOW that they SHOULD report it and that they would NOT repent doing it. They just don't care.
Good thing I was smart enough to report my own abuse and people believed me. God forbid a kid try to say something and people ignore them. I'd be a lot more fucked up than I am if nobody listened to me or reported it.
Once again special privileges for religion.
Weird use of the Fifth Amendment.
If one of the sacraments of the largest denomination of the largest religion on Earth wasn't protected by the first amendment, then religious freedom would truly be dead.
And absolutely nothing of value would be lost.
As an atheist (one of the most hated religious groups in country), I deeply value the freedom of religion.
You got it right. This entire comment section is why an independent judiciary is protected from the public when they make unpopular rulings.
No, you value freedom from religion.
We absolutely need a lot more of that, but the only freedom of religion that should be guaranteed is that no one will be persecuted for a belief. As soon as that belief turns into an action or inaction that is harmful to others that freedom should evaporate fast.
USA seems otherworldly to me
There's a difference between "are not required" and "are not allowed". If a confession and crime is particularly heinous or serial, in the knowledge of the priest, the priest should have the moral discretion to report it if he thinks that's the best decision for public safety.
But aren't we kidding ourselves a little in expecting child molesters to confess their crimes?
🤨
We could confiscate every church and house the homeless. Dont worry, their religions want us to do it. Ideally it would be the believers, but they have abdicated their duties.
In the US there's already more vacant housing than homeless people. A lot more.