Ken wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 11:52 am
Child abusers typically don't confess to anyone, priests or otherwise. What happens in the real world is that children do. So the actual scenario is this:
An 8 year old child who is being sexually abused by a neighbor, parent, uncle, older sibling, teacher, or another clergy finally winds up the courage to tell a trusted adult about it in the hopes that it will stop. Or maybe the child thinks that SHE is at fault (and that is why she is confessing). And so decides to tell her priest because he is one of the few trusted adults that she might be alone with and have the opportunity to do so away from her abuser.
And so the priest who has built themselves up as a trusted adult for that child is now going to sit on that information and violate that child's trust by doing nothing? Just let the abuse continue because it was discovered during confession? An 8 year old child knows nothing of reporting laws. She simply told an adult she trusted because she wants the abuse to stop.
That is the most likely real world scenario we are talking about here. You have a Bible. Tell us where Jesus comes down on the question of protecting little children versus protecting the institutional prerogatives of the church.
As a teacher I'm a mandatory reporter under the law and this has come up twice in my career. It wasn't the parent coming to me and confessing to abuse. In one case it was a student who came to me and told me what was happening at home. In another case it was a friend of a student who told me that she thought her friend was in an abusive relationship and that someone needed to intervene. In both cases I notified the school administration and filed a report with child welfare as I'm required to do.
You seem to be unclear on how the confessional seal works. It is between the priest and the person confessing. It doesn't cover random third parties.
Thanks for your hypothetical scenario, though, that was completely irrelevant.
Ken wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 12:07 pm
You do realize it typically isn't adult abusers who are going to be confessing to priests. It is children who will be telling the priest that they are being abused because the priest has built themselves up as a trusted authority with whom the child can confide. And the trust being broken here is that of the child who expects help but doesn't get it.
Which is irrelevant to the topic of the confessional seal. It doesn't cover some third party who wasn't in the confessional booth.
Ken wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 11:52 am
Child abusers typically don't confess to anyone, priests or otherwise. What happens in the real world is that children do. So the actual scenario is this:
An 8 year old child who is being sexually abused by a neighbor, parent, uncle, older sibling, teacher, or another clergy finally winds up the courage to tell a trusted adult about it in the hopes that it will stop. Or maybe the child thinks that SHE is at fault (and that is why she is confessing). And so decides to tell her priest because he is one of the few trusted adults that she might be alone with and have the opportunity to do so away from her abuser.
And so the priest who has built themselves up as a trusted adult for that child is now going to sit on that information and violate that child's trust by doing nothing? Just let the abuse continue because it was discovered during confession? An 8 year old child knows nothing of reporting laws. She simply told an adult she trusted because she wants the abuse to stop.
That is the most likely real world scenario we are talking about here. You have a Bible. Tell us where Jesus comes down on the question of protecting little children versus protecting the institutional prerogatives of the church.
As a teacher I'm a mandatory reporter under the law and this has come up twice in my career. It wasn't the parent coming to me and confessing to abuse. In one case it was a student who came to me and told me what was happening at home. In another case it was a friend of a student who told me that she thought her friend was in an abusive relationship and that someone needed to intervene. In both cases I notified the school administration and filed a report with child welfare as I'm required to do.
You seem to be unclear on how the confessional seal works. It is between the priest and the person confessing. It doesn't cover random third parties.
Thanks for your hypothetical scenario, though, that was completely irrelevant.
Abused children are taught to believe that they are at fault for their own abuse. That is why they are confessing to a priest. It is THEIR confession.
And that is exactly what the Catholic Church wants to be excused from reporting.
And Washington is by no means unusual here. Apparently 47 other states include clergy in list of mandatory reporters and 17 other states provide no loophole or exception for the confessional. Including Texas. Don't believe me? Look it up (bottom of page 1289): https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs ... LYCODE.pdf
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Ken wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 12:46 pmAbused children are taught to believe that they are at fault for their own abuse. That is why they are confessing to a priest. It is THEIR confession.
Which is irrelevant.
And that is exactly what the Catholic Church wants to be excused from reporting.
The confessional seal is between the priest and the person confessing, not unrelated third parties.
And Washington is by no means unusual here. Apparently 47 other states include clergy in list of mandatory reporters and 17 other states provide no loophole or exception for the confessional. Including Texas. Don't believe me? Look it up (bottom of page 1289): https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs ... LYCODE.pdf
Ken wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 12:46 pmAbused children are taught to believe that they are at fault for their own abuse. That is why they are confessing to a priest. It is THEIR confession.
Which is irrelevant.
And that is exactly what the Catholic Church wants to be excused from reporting.
The confessional seal is between the priest and the person confessing, not unrelated third parties.
It is relevant because that that sort of 3rd party information is exactly what the Catholic Church wants to be excused from reporting. Why does the Catholic Church want to be exempt from reporting ANY information that it becomes aware of in the confessional, INCLUDING information about 3rd parties?
In any event, this isn't some bill targeting Catholics. The change in the law was actually inspired by an clergy abuse coverup by Jehovah's Witnesses in Washington: https://www.investigatewest.org/investi ... s-17692697
Last edited by Ken on Thu Jun 19, 2025 1:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Ken wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 1:11 pm
Then why does the Catholic Church want to be exempt from reporting ANY information that it becomes aware of in the confessional, INCLUDING information about 3rd parties?
Because the police don't need to be present in the confessional booth; once they are, it isn't a confessional booth anymore, but rather becomes some kind of bizarre interrogation room.
It also should be rather obvious that once you give an inch to the police, they'll take a mile. We do not need to live in a surveillance state, nor do we need to live in a society where all kinds of people are "obligated" to go turn people in to the police. That doesn't lead to a free and open society. It leads to a police state.
Ken wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 1:11 pm
Then why does the Catholic Church want to be exempt from reporting ANY information that it becomes aware of in the confessional, INCLUDING information about 3rd parties?
Because the police don't need to be present in the confessional booth; once they are, it isn't a confessional booth anymore, but rather becomes some kind of bizarre interrogation room.
It also should be rather obvious that once you give an inch to the police, they'll take a mile. We do not need to live in a surveillance state, nor do we need to live in a society where all kinds of people are "obligated" to go turn people in to the police. That doesn't lead to a free and open society. It leads to a police state.
No one is inviting police into the confessional or church in general. Suspicions of abuse are not reported to the police but to child welfare to investigate. And then only if there is suspicion of illegality are the police involved.
If the Catholic Church wants to be part of the problem and not part of the solution that is their choice. It is not a good look to come down on the side of protecting abusers rather than protecting children. But this is probably only reason 105 for why the Catholic church is continuing to decline in America.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Surely turning the clergy by force into police informants never turned out badly in the past. For religion, or for free society. Nope, surely not. Not in Germany. Not in Russia. Not behind the iron curtain. Not in China. Nope, this has always been a failsafe way to enhance the freedom of society, and it is wonderful how it seems to always build the credibility of the faith too!
R7ehr wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 1:43 pm
Surely turning the clergy by force into police informants never turned out badly in the past. For religion, or for free society. Nope, surely not. Not in Germany. Not in Russia. Not behind the iron curtain. Not in China. Nope, this has always been a failsafe way to enhance the freedom of society, and it is wonderful how it seems to always build the credibility of the faith too!
Here in Washington this change is actually in response to a massive sex abuse scandal in the Jehovah's Witness church in which the church was made aware of over a thousand cases of abuse and reported not one single instance to the authorities. Not one. And so Washington finally decided to join the rest of the country and require clergy to report abuse same as all other people who work with children. If churches didn't put themselves forward as counselors of children and trusted authorities for children to confide in, this would be less of an issue.
No other denominations or faiths are protesting or opposing this law in court except for the Orthodox church which is joining the Catholic Bishops. They might well win, who knows. But going to court for the right to protect child abusers over children isn't a good look. And isn't going to bring them any good publicity. It will be just one more reason why parents will decide they don't want priests anywhere near their children and move on from the Catholic Church.
The Mennonite Church (in any of its various denominations) hasn't objected to this law and is already subject to the same reporting requirements in every other state in which it operates in the country. Your church in Oregon has been subject to the same mandatory child abuse reporting requirements for decades. Has that lead to encroaching Nazism or an iron curtain in Oregon? Has it infringed on your ability to worship as you see fit?
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
R7ehr wrote: ↑Thu Jun 19, 2025 1:43 pm
Surely turning the clergy by force into police informants never turned out badly in the past. For religion, or for free society. Nope, surely not. Not in Germany. Not in Russia. Not behind the iron curtain. Not in China. Nope, this has always been a failsafe way to enhance the freedom of society, and it is wonderful how it seems to always build the credibility of the faith too!
Here in Washington this change is actually in response to a massive sex abuse scandal in the Jehovah's Witness church in which the church was made aware of over a thousand cases of abuse and reported not one single instance to the authorities. Not one. And so Washington finally decided to join the rest of the country and require clergy to report abuse same as all other people who work with children. If churches didn't put themselves forward as counselors of children and trusted authorities for children to confide in, this would be less of an issue.
No other denominations or faiths are protesting or opposing this law in court except for the Orthodox church which is joining the Catholic Bishops. They might well win, who knows. But going to court for the right to protect child abusers over children isn't a good look. And isn't going to bring them any good publicity. It will be just one more reason why parents will decide they don't want priests anywhere near their children and move on from the Catholic Church.
The Mennonite Church (in any of its various denominations) hasn't objected to this law and is already subject to the same reporting requirements in every other state in which it operates in the country. Your church in Oregon has been subject to the same mandatory child abuse reporting requirements for decades. Has that lead to encroaching Nazism or an iron curtain in Oregon? Has it infringed on your ability to worship as you see fit?
Ya, go ahead. Keep talking about the tree and ignore the forest. What other confessions do you think should priest be required to report?