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Every entity and citizen should provide authorities with any and all information about crimes for which relevant information comes into their possession.
Agreed. While failure to do so doesn't precisely make you an accomplice, it doesn't exactly leave you pristine either. It makes you, I'd say, an enabler, regardless of your motivations. Essentially, a priest who hears the confession of a pedophile is enabling that pedophile (particularly given the nature of such urges, which is that they don't ever just go away) if he does anything other than prescribe the appropriate penance: turn yourself into the authorities and confess to everything, and take your punishment. If he simply absolves him or prescribes five Hail Marys or whatever and sends him on his way, then he's complicit in a supporting role.
Protests about confidentiality or the imagined sacred nature of the confessional have no bearing on this question. In fact I believe that there are reasonable exemptions from professional ethics for similar types of caregivers, like psychiatrists, doctors, etc. For example there's a general exemption for therapists when the therapist believes the patient presents a serious risk of harm to others, and disclosure is necessary to prevent that harm. Certainly child rape is such a "serious risk" and "harm" if anything is.
I'm sorry to say I don't understand the point of view that would knowingly leave innocents in society at continued risk.
People like you think that all things are simple. They're not. I may now be an atheist, but that does not mean that I want to destroy the denominations that exist; I do want to put them in their place.
The seal of confession has for centuries been an integral part of Catholic doctrine. It seems to me that there are two ways out of the dilemma. One is for the church to decide that the seal of confession is more problematic than worthwhile, to acknowledge that people can talk directly to god and confess their sins, and to abolish the seal of confession, and in fact abolish the concept of confessions to a priest. Problem solved. The second course of action is for American law (and the legal system in other countries) to actually pass laws that require anyone with knowledge (not gossip) to bring forth that information to law enforcement. In that scenario, any priest would be forced to decide whether or not to remain a priest, but knowing that he is under legal obligation to report such violations under penalty of law. As far as I know there are no such laws, and I wonder how such laws would square with the Constitution.
But there is also a third consideration here. Catholics know that this is a problem. Most of the children abused (at least in the discussion we are having here) are/were altar boys and were placed to some degree under the care of priests under certain conditions. Maybe Catholic parents need to step up and condemn this more actively and demand change. They don't seem to. And let's face it: children being abused are not just abused by priests. Some are being abused by Uncle Harry or Cousin Joe, and families still choose to ignore or hide it. The problem is bigger than just priests, and part of the issue is a lack of supervision by parents; that needs to change, as well.
And that's the end of the credibility of your comments. You can expect no more respect for your views as that which you're willing to give to those who disagree with you, and respect starts with acknowledging others as individuals.
And that's the end of the credibility of your comments. You can expect no more respect for your views as that which you're willing to give to those who disagree with you, and respect starts with acknowledging others as individuals.
That's fine, because I found the tone of your comments to be dismissive of other than your own views from the very beginning. And, I don't have a lot of respect for people who see all issues as "either/or", "all or nothing at all", or "simple". Most of the issues that are discussed in these religious forums and in great debates are complex issues and cannot be dismissed by a wave of the hand. In my view, good priests are put in an entirely untenable situation. They have dedicated their lives to a religion and are then put in the position of either "tattling" or breaking the seal of confession, the former of which will result in others being harmed, the latter of which will get them excommunicated from their life's work. The solution to the issue should not be on the heads of priests, but rather on the Vatican and/or the state justice system.
Pope Francis either willfully ignored abuse report, is a liar, or is very forgetful
The hallmark of an ignorant or uninformed poster is the resort to attacking the character of a person instead of addressing the relevant issues. It is very prevalent in our society at large and especially so in this forum. This not very subtle attack on the Pope's character is just one of the many instances of it.
The hallmark of an ignorant or uninformed poster is the resort to attacking the character of a person instead of addressing the relevant issues. It is very prevalent in our society at large and especially so in this forum. This not very subtle attack on the Pope's character is just one of the many instances of it.
I do not think anyone is beyond criticism. It's not an "attack" to simply observe, particularly in the context of the ongoing and seemingly endless pedophile scandal in the Church -- and the Church's seemingly endless inability to do anything but ignore it or cover it up rather than, as you say, "address the relevant issues" -- reflects on the leadership. The buck stops with the Pope. He IS either willfully ignorant, lying, or out of touch. He was directly involved in this matter, too.
Do I think this makes him a bad man? No, life isn't that simple. I think it makes him a flawed man, and tiptoeing around this flaw is not going to be helpful or appropriate in this situation in which the welfare of the weakest among us are at stake.
And that's the end of the credibility of your comments. You can expect no more respect for your views as that which you're willing to give to those who disagree with you, and respect starts with acknowledging others as individuals.
On the other hand, you could simply respond as if she had omitted the first two words. Dismissing her actual points because of one phrase makes no more sense than her assigning her perception of a group to you personally.
If you're truly interested in dialog then you have to be a little less brittle than that.
On the other hand, you could simply respond as if she had omitted the first two words. Dismissing her actual points because of one phrase makes no more sense than her assigning her perception of a group to you personally.
If you're truly interested in dialog then you have to be a little less brittle than that.
I do not think anyone is beyond criticism. It's not an "attack" to simply observe, particularly in the context of the ongoing and seemingly endless pedophile scandal in the Church -- and the Church's seemingly endless inability to do anything but ignore it or cover it up rather than, as you say, "address the relevant issues" -- reflects on the leadership. The buck stops with the Pope. He IS either willfully ignorant, lying, or out of touch. He was directly involved in this matter, too.
Do I think this makes him a bad man? No, life isn't that simple. I think it makes him a flawed man, and tiptoeing around this flaw is not going to be helpful or appropriate in this situation in which the welfare of the weakest among us are at stake.
The fact that you intuit your own set of possible states of the Pope "willfully ignorant, lying, or out of touch" is sadly reminiscent of your rejection of God based on a similar set of intuitions about the state of your Omni God regarding suffering. The Pope is head of a bureaucratic institution comprised of independent human beings. He is NOT God and has no absolute method of effecting change absent the willing accession of its entrenched members.
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Pope Francis either willfully ignored abuse report, is a liar, or is very forgetful
