Catholic priests should not have to report child abuse revealed during confession, Vermont bishop says - Why would Catholic priests not want to report kiddy diddling? Truly it's a mystery.

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-vermont-catholic-church-opposes-child-abuse-reporting-bill-20230303-fss5a6hfibanhgkwfos5sjtsrq-story.html

Catholic priests should not have to report child abuse revealed durin…

archived 6 Mar 2023 03:18:05 UTC

archive.is

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Vermont told state lawmakers Friday that the church opposes a bill that would remove clergy exemptions for reporting cases of child abuse and neglect to police.

Bishop Christopher Coyne, who has served as the bishop of the Diocese of Burlington since 2015, testified before the Vermont Senate Judiciary Committee that the church’s rite of confession must remain confidential — even when cases of child abuse are revealed.

“A priest faces excommunication if he discloses the communication made to him during confession,” Coyne said. “And the sacramental seal of confession is the worldwide law of the Catholic Church, not just the diocese of Burlington, Vermont.”

The Diocese of Burlington serves all 14 counties of the state of Vermont.

According to current state law, members of the clergy are obligated to report abuse and neglect, but it adds an exemption for when they’re acting as spiritual advisers or hearing a confession.

But a bill introduced by state Sen. Richard Sears, a Democrat who has worked for years to fight child abuse, seeks to do away with those exemptions. State lawmakers are currently holding hearings on the proposal before putting it to a vote.

The bill “crosses a Constitutional protective element of our religious faith: the right to worship as we see fit,” Coyne testified Friday.

But he noted that when priests receive any information on child abuse or neglect outside the rite of confession, they are encouraged to report it.

Vermont is one of 33 states with exemptions for clergy in laws trequire some professionals — such as teachers and physicians — to report alleged cases of child sex abuse or neglect to authorities.statutes,” he said.

And while protecting vulnerable children is essential, “disregarding fundamental religious rights is unnecessary,” he added.

Vermont is one of 33 states with exemptions for clergy in laws that require some professionals — such as teachers and physicians — to report alleged cases of child sex abuse or neglect to authorities.

 

[OrionBalls]

Priests already break the seal concerning abuse. They technically aren't supposed to break the preacher/penitent rule, but if an underage victim comes to them, they are required to report.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I don't see the issue in not reporting. It's not like the priest have hard proof to make police life easier, and they'll probably tell the abuser/victim to report the act anyways.

It's just yet another anti Christian law being justified by an imaginary edge case. Just remember that not allowing gay couples to adopt despite rampant pedophilia is hateful despite how far more it's statistically likely.

 

[Shidoen]

This is why despite being raised Catholic, I spite the Pope and his clergy.

 

[named]

Priests already break the seal concerning abuse. They technically aren't supposed to break the preacher/penitent rule, but if an underage victim comes to them, they are required to report.

The penalty for breaking the seal of confession in the Catholic church is excommunication, whether you're legally obligated to do so or not. This is a legally-recognized privilege of clergy in general ("clergy-penitent privilege"). There was some mess of a lawsuit over it in Louisiana, which eventually resolved in the priest's favor after almost a decade.

 

[Mothra1988]

The penalty for breaking the seal of confession in the Catholic church is excommunication, whether you're legally obligated to do so or not. This is a legally-recognized privilege of clergy in general ("clergy-penitent privilege"). There was some mess of a lawsuit over it in Louisiana, which eventually resolved in the priest's favor after almost a decade.

Where in the Bible does it say you should be excommunicated for stopping child abuse?

 

[derpherp2]

Where in the Bible does it say you should be excommunicated for stopping child abuse?

Where in the Bible does it say women are allowed to speak?

 

[St.Davis]

I think the argument would be more along the lines of "If priests must report crimes confessed to them, this would break trust between the congregation and those priests, which will ultimately lead to people simply not confessing". The end result there would be little to no uptick in crimes being resolved. The people who would continue to confess despite knowing they will be reported for it are the people who wish to be reported to begin with.

I think it would be more effective to ask priests to more strongly urge people confessing these things to subsequently confess to the police, and to offer to accompany said confessor to do so immediately. In the case of children perhaps the church should have an on-site member of "staff" who is not a priest that the priest can insist the child speak to after confession with the priest accompanying them. The idea being that the child can then "confess" to that person as well, who is actually able to then make a report to the police without compromising the seal of confession.

The intention behind mandating priests to report crimes is noble, I think it might be counterproductive in practice.

Nonce priests should also be dealt with severely and immediately, though that is a seperate issue.

 

[named]

Where in the Bible does it say you should be excommunicated for stopping child abuse?

Nowhere, but it's a logical consequence of the necessity to confess your sins to a priest; it's impossible to fulfill the function if the priest can be immediately called to testify against the penitent, and the priest is fulfilling a well-established role. Trusted advisors (attorneys, priests, etc.) are generally exempted from criminal reporting. Do you think that attorney-client privilege is a conspiracy by lawyers to cover up crimes?

There have recently been some holes in privilege made for psychologists, and those holes apply in cases of child abuse also, but they're controversial because they make a psychologist's job impossible in some cases unless your client is an idiot. If you talk to your therapist about any criminal desires, whether you have acted on them or not, they're obligated to report if they think you represent a threat to anyone, and they have little to no liability for the consequences. If you think that has been beneficial for mental health, you're very optimistic.

In the case of children perhaps the church should have an on-site member of "staff" who is not a priest that the priest can insist the child speak to after confession with the priest accompanying them. The idea being that the child can then "confess" to that person as well, who is actually able to then make a report to the police without compromising the seal of confession.

If the child agrees to make a report in the first place, I don't think the seal of confession would apply to begin with. The problem is that it's difficult to convince children to report their parents / teachers / pastors / etc., and mandatory reporting laws are an attempt to side-step that by putting the obligation on random other people that the child has talked to.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

I have yet to see a Biblical rationale for why the priest can't report crimes like child molestation and murder to the police.

If there's zero Biblical evidence for this rule and it's just a "tradition,

Where in the Bible does it say you should be excommunicated for stopping child abuse?

I dunno where you are from, but this is proof enough that you're acting like those autistic American protestants who are too dumb to understand the Bible and yet follow it literal. It is truly dangerous that autistic people who lack understanding of context and nuance use the Bible like this. This is how you get fanatics and hypocrites. Is social media in the Bible? And yet, here we are, aren't we? Either you follow it to a T and live like an Amish or you acknowledge that this is impossible and move on.

For the record, Catholics don't do that. The whole "WHERE IN THE BIBLE?" argument is used a lot not only by protestants against Catholics, but by anti-christians to try to manipulate all of us Christians into action... well, it doesn't work for Catholics. Or rather, it shouldn't work for Catholics. We do follow the Bible, but many of the directions of the Catholic Church were made by Councils and other types of debates. We also have many different studies on how the Bible should be interpreted, aside from the personal spiritual interpretation a person can give it.

In any case, the Sacraments are part of the Catechism, which is like the Constitution of the Catholic Church. If you don't like it, that's fine, but this is the set of rules under which Catholics operate, and that includes of course, the priests.

"yeah, yeah, but Jesus never said Priests should hide predators!" Jesus didn't say a lot of things either. In Catholic Church, the idea of a Catechism and all Councils is to determinate what to do with the things Jesus never spoke about so we won't be let in the shadow about them. The sacrament of Confession, Penance, Reconciliation, or whatever you wanna call it, exists for people who want and need to clean off their sins and start new. Unless you confess your sins and get absolution, you can't participate in many others, like Communion because you're not in peace with yourself or others. You are a pariah for the other more important sacraments.

Now, in topic, what many non-Catholic Christians don't understand about Catholicism and our relationship with priests, saints, and even the pope, is that these people don't hold any power themselves. They are only instruments of communication with and from God. God blesses your marriage through the priest, God baptises your child through the priest, and God listens your confession and pardons you through the priest. The priest who tells others your confession is betraying God's trust. The person confessing is not telling the priest, they are talking to God through him. That's why it's such a terrible sin to do this.

The idea of confession is for the person to save their souls. If the priest tells the police the person has committed a crime, there is no salvation. The person and they alone should repent and turn themselves to the police, accepting that a crime has been committed and that they deserve to face the justice. In the Catholic Church, that's the goal of the Sacrament of Confession, that the sinner accepts themselves as a sinner who needs to repent, confess, and atone by their own choice. We are not the law. Like I said, if you want to make us the law, go ahead.

 

[smeckt]

If priests were required to report it, then no child abusers would even confess. It's not like they are gonna go to the police by themselves, so why not let the priest influence them to either stop or report themselves to the police? Do I really need to remind you that religion serves a purpose in maintaining public order in areas where the state cannot reach?

 

[Zero Day Defense]

I dunno where you are from, but this is proof enough that you're acting like those autistic American protestants who are too dumb to understand the Bible and yet follow it literal.

They don't follow it "literal". They follow it according to another inherited tradition and then say that they're "just reading the Bible" (and a specific canon, at that) because they don't pay attention to the history of even their own tradition. Most Christians don't, granted, but it becomes a problem when you start comparing traditions or criticize one tradition from the vantage point of another-- and it's arguably worse in Protestant traditions because they lack material anchors in at least 75% of the timeline of Christianity.

The question has always been "which tradition is right, and why?"

At any rate, yours might have been a useful exposition to someone who wasn't fem-Vaush (though, it wouldn't have convinced even an earnest Protestant convinced of the illegitimacy of Catholicism). I seriously hope nobody believes that the Reddit refugee in a lesbian relationship is any kind of Christian, and that this isn't just another American playing religion-as-a-fandom (really badly, at that).

She won't even acknowledge that this isn't a circumstance unique to priests. Where can you go with that kind of person?

 

[VargReallyDidNothingWrong]

 

[Agamemnon Busmalis]

For the record, Catholics don't do that. The whole "WHERE IN THE BIBLE?" argument is used a lot not only by protestants against Catholics, but by anti-christians to try to manipulate all of us Christians into action... well, it doesn't work for Catholics. Or rather, it shouldn't work for Catholics. We do follow the Bible, but many of the directions of the Catholic Church were made by Councils and other types of debates. We also have many different studies on how the Bible should be interpreted, aside from the personal spiritual interpretation a person can give it.

Not to mention it took around four centuries for the Biblical canon to be finalized anyways and there is an enormous volume of writings outside of the Bible that document Church traditions.

It's also interesting the Protestants conveniently removed books from the Bible that didn't support their positions and theology. I guess Martin Luther somehow knew better 1,500 years after Christ than St. Jerome and the other Church Fathers did 300 years after despite the latter having likely access to a number of works that have been lost. And of course the fact that sola scriptura itself is mentioned absolutely nowhere in the Bible and is directly contradicted by St. John's Gospel.

 

[derpherp2]

Not to mention it took around four centuries for the Biblical canon to be finalized anyways and there is an enormous volume of writings outside of the Bible that document Church traditions.

It's also interesting the Protestants conveniently removed books from the Bible that didn't support their positions and theology. I guess Martin Luther somehow knew better 1,500 years after Christ than St. Jerome and the other Church Fathers did 300 years after despite the latter having likely access to a number of works that have been lost. And of course the fact that sola scriptura itself is mentioned absolutely nowhere in the Bible and is directly contradicted by St. John's Gospel.

That's the biggest issue about all of this isn't it.
A tradition almost as old as recorded history.

And it should be taken down because some woman in KiwiFarms is waving around a wikipedia article she didn't even bother to read.

 

[Zero Day Defense]

Not to mention it took around four centuries for the Biblical canon to be finalized anyways

There was never any unified Biblical canon before any of the major sustained splits. They were all mostly the same, but there were contentious books and epistles, putting aside disagreements on what to include of what we now call "deuterocanon". Different churches within patriarchates had made their own canons. It took a long while before everyone was okay with including Revelation in their scriptural lists-- so long in fact that I don't think the Orthodox even now have any designated readings from it. If not for Athanasius, the Church of Rome would have never included Esther.

This was largely not an issue.

What did the lion's share of unifying the Church in doctrine and practice was their liturgy, which they consistently maintained was ultimately inherited from the Apostles, accordingly serving as part of the "apostolic deposit" that also included the Scripture they delivered and their other oral traditions. Part of determining what was right to be called canon, therefore, was determining what was right to be read in the Liturgy of the Word. Everyone kept appealing to Scripture during the Arian controversy, but-- among other things-- it was being able to point to the fact that even the Arians called Christ "God" in their liturgy (again, inherited ultimately from the Apostles) that significantly discredited them.

It's also interesting the Protestants conveniently removed books from the Bible that didn't support their positions and theology.

The very first edition of the KJV included some deuterocanonical books, but they were removed in 1885. There's a possibility that they were removed because of printing costs. Alternatively, they might have been removed on account of the violent ping-pong that the Church of England had between Catholicism and Calvinism.

Also, Luther almost removed the epistle of James because he (for some reason) couldn't reconcile it with his theology.

And of course the fact that sola scriptura itself is mentioned absolutely nowhere in the Bible and is directly contradicted by St. John's Gospel.

It's contradicted by a number of things. The Apostles absolutely make reference to "good" traditions (apart from scripture) they didn't write in their epistles. Every document in Scripture is occasioned, and were never written at one specific point in time-- they couldn't by themselves constitute the entirety of doctrine, especially not when the Church had been functional for 17 years before the earliest document in the NT (Paul's first epistle to the Thessalonians) was written. We may have lost the epistle to the Laodiceans that Paul mentions in his epistle to the Colossians (or it might just be the epistle to the Ephesians, also sent to the Laodiceans). The Apostles had no reason to believe that their epistles would be included side-by-side with the Scripture of their time-- that was a decision that the Church made after their deaths.

 

[Safir]

If priests were required to report it, then no child abusers would even confess.

^ Exactly. If a priest tips off the police, good. But if he's required to report, no one will ever confess, and every report that becomes public undermines the trust of rapists in the church. Priests who get found out should be treated like successful but doxed vigilantes: cool, you're a hero, but you're still going to jail / getting excommunicated.

(As to why pedos would ever report -- a lot are mentally ill beyond being a pedo, some see nothing wrong with raping children, for others sin is a part of the fantasy.)

If the priest tells the police the person has committed a crime, there is no salvation. The person and they alone should repent and turn themselves to the police, accepting that a crime has been committed and that they deserve to face the justice.

Salvation and secular punishment are completely orthogonal. The rapist can repent in prison or in the chair. If a victim says, while confessing, that s/he's been raped, the priest would be 100% in the right to tell her/him to make a report to the police, "even though" it'll "deprive" the rapist of a chance to repent first. Instead of, like, confronting the rapist, begging him to repent for the sake of his immortal soul or something, and letting him rape other children in the meantime.

accepting that a crime has been committed

Crimes are a secular rubric.
Also that's an awfully suspicious passive voice.

 

[Seventh Star]

Where in the Bible does it say you should be excommunicated for stopping child abuse?

Traditionally faggots should be condemned by a shower of fire and brimstone, here you are.

 

[OrionBalls]

The penalty for breaking the seal of confession in the Catholic church is excommunication, whether you're legally obligated to do so or not. This is a legally-recognized privilege of clergy in general ("clergy-penitent privilege"). There was some mess of a lawsuit over it in Louisiana, which eventually resolved in the priest's favor after almost a decade.

However, a child reporting being abused is not a penitent. They are a victim.

 

[Megaton Punch]

I dunno where you are from, but this is proof enough that you're acting like those autistic American protestants who are too dumb to understand the Bible and yet follow it literal. It is truly dangerous that autistic people who lack understanding of context and nuance use the Bible like this. This is how you get fanatics and hypocrites. Is social media in the Bible? And yet, here we are, aren't we? Either you follow it to a T and live like an Amish or you acknowledge that this is impossible and move on.

For the record, Catholics don't do that. The whole "WHERE IN THE BIBLE?" argument is used a lot not only by protestants against Catholics, but by anti-christians to try to manipulate all of us Christians into action... well, it doesn't work for Catholics. Or rather, it shouldn't work for Catholics. We do follow the Bible, but many of the directions of the Catholic Church were made by Councils and other types of debates. We also have many different studies on how the Bible should be interpreted, aside from the personal spiritual interpretation a person can give it.

In any case, the Sacraments are part of the Catechism, which is like the Constitution of the Catholic Church. If you don't like it, that's fine, but this is the set of rules under which Catholics operate, and that includes of course, the priests.

"yeah, yeah, but Jesus never said Priests should hide predators!" Jesus didn't say a lot of things either. In Catholic Church, the idea of a Catechism and all Councils is to determinate what to do with the things Jesus never spoke about so we won't be let in the shadow about them. The sacrament of Confession, Penance, Reconciliation, or whatever you wanna call it, exists for people who want and need to clean off their sins and start new. Unless you confess your sins and get absolution, you can't participate in many others, like Communion because you're not in peace with yourself or others. You are a pariah for the other more important sacraments.

Now, in topic, what many non-Catholic Christians don't understand about Catholicism and our relationship with priests, saints, and even the pope, is that these people don't hold any power themselves. They are only instruments of communication with and from God. God blesses your marriage through the priest, God baptises your child through the priest, and God listens your confession and pardons you through the priest. The priest who tells others your confession is betraying God's trust. The person confessing is not telling the priest, they are talking to God through him. That's why it's such a terrible sin to do this.

The idea of confession is for the person to save their souls. If the priest tells the police the person has committed a crime, there is no salvation. The person and they alone should repent and turn themselves to the police, accepting that a crime has been committed and that they deserve to face the justice. In the Catholic Church, that's the goal of the Sacrament of Confession, that the sinner accepts themselves as a sinner who needs to repent, confess, and atone by their own choice. We are not the law. Like I said, if you want to make us the law, go ahead.

Uh oh Mothra, you've got a South American talking about Catholicism. Now you're really in trouble.

Although I doubt you're in any danger considering Tel-Aviv is a long way from Peru.

 

[Balalaika Z Bree]

If there's zero Biblical evidence for this rule and it's just a "tradition," I don't see why the pope can't make an exception for priests that act on their conscience and report those kinds of heinous crimes especially in light of the church's history of abuse. If that happened, there would be no need for legislation. The huge problem with this is people like child molesters and serial killers are almost guaranteed to act on their predatory instincts again, so the priest in this scenario would be condemning future children to be molested or people to be tortured and murdered. I can't really buy that as a moral stance at all.


It's not the GamerGate article or something that is being actively fought over. I haven't seen many cases of the maisntream reporting on Catholic child abuse cases being objected to on a factual basis, and those are the citations used in the article.

If you are confused about why the Church teaches something, you should probably avoid starting from an alien organizations idea of teaching authority, unless you want to avoid seeing it from their perspective.
If confession is a Sacrament then it must be treated as such. If you view it as just a private conversation or just counselling then of course they should spill the beans to try to stop crimes and harm, but that is like arguing that they should marry people and animals, if it's not a sacrament why not?

Wikipedia is a trash-tier site, even if it contains some truths and even whole articles that are not misleading. Mainstream reporting has a bad record too, overall, I think the courts in most countries are the most compelling reason to believe the problems were widespread.