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Should the "confessional" be held "sacred"?

Darat said:
I know the USA has some weird laws but coveting the next-door neighbour's swimming pool or new car will get the police knocking on your door? :jaw-dropp

;)
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I hear you. Still, thee are some things that you might say to your god or his agent that you wouldn't want to chat with the constable about. Police can be a little more stringent over here regarding whether what you do is right or wrong. I've heard they will put a cap in a brothers ass for some pretty mundane actions.

My lot are from a branch that believes god forgives you everything and it's not for us to judge one another so the idea of confession is rather strange to me even culturally. (Mind you the "not judge one another" did not seem to mean my elderly aunts and their friends couldn't tear the stuffing out of "Betty from number 39" because she'd been seen in a pub with a man not her husband.)
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Mine are similar: being right with God is between you and Him, no intermediate necessary. But "societal conformity" is solidly in the community's department.

It sounds like the original Bishop would have known who it was and would have had enough details to make any tip off highly informative.
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Agreed, I get the impression that the Church knew exactly who this rapist was. Were I the priest, I'd be thinking seriously about what God would want; protecting his flock from hideous crimes against God and man, or deferring to lawyer's interpretations of propriety. Pretty sure I wouldn't have had to think about that for very long.
 
theprestige said:
Makes the discussion of such things with atheists pointless, since the result of such discussion is entirely predictable and arrived at almost immediately.
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Nailed it (although a blind man could see all the "no" answers coming).

Since a believer who commits such heinous crimes is likely to confess to a priest who doesn't know them, a corollary question could be "should the priest be required to detain the confessee and call the police if he hears such a heinous confession"?
 
Darat said:
Should the "confessional" be held "sacred" at the cost of children being raped?

I'm posting in the Social Issues... section rather than the Religious... section as I believe that secular should trump the sacred when it comes to child safety.

Thread was started after reading this story: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opin...ly-shocking-part/ar-AA1jTRvh?ocid=socialshare

Which is about a 5 year old and a 6 week old baby being raped by their father who confessed it to his Bishop, and these rapes went on for many years. This is the Mormon church which is why I've put "confessional" into quotes as I'm not sure what their dogma calls such confessions. Apparently the church is happy that they knew this was happening and that they had no duty to inform anyone because as the judge in a case trying to sue the church put it:

...Church defendants were not required under the Mandatory Reporting Statute to report the abuse of Jane Doe 1 by her father because their knowledge of the abuse came from confidential communications which fall within the clergy-penitent exception..​

Whilst that might be the law it is very wrong, a 6 week old baby was being raped by a member of the church and the Bishop who knew about it did nothing. He literally let a 6 week old baby and a 5 year old be raped over many years. Sadly even in the 21st century we are still reluctant to make religions act as responsible members of society.
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If the guy did not have the cloak of sure secrecy then he would not have 'confessed' in the first place. The point of confession is the idea of alleviating the burden of 'sin' which in Christian faith is a hindrance to attaining redemption. The philosophy being that the devil damned the human race but Jesus Christ the Saviour saves even the worst offender and washes away their sin via confession, AIUI.

In the protestant church there is no confession as Luther et al believed that a person could go straight to God via Jesus via prayer and taking the sacrament.

If the priest who took that guy's confession had a genuine faith (surely, Mormons are not Catholic...?) then I can see he has a point but if it was simply negligence and lack of due social responsibility then he should be duly prosecuted.
 
Darat said:
Should the "confessional" be held "sacred"?
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Yes. Overall, I think that policy does more good than harm. This case is not actually an argument for doing away with it, because without that policy, the perp likely would have simply not confessed and continued to offend.
 
Ziggurat said:
Yes. Overall, I think that policy does more good than harm. This case is not actually an argument for doing away with it, because without that policy, the perp likely would have simply not confessed and continued to offend.
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Which he did anyway, but with the Church's knowledge.
 
A rather muddled discussion so far, because at least three distinct questions of secular law are under discussion:

1. Should a priest (or bishop, etc.) be required by law to report certain incriminating information from confessions, the way doctors and teachers often are required to report certain incriminating information that comes to their attention?

2. Should a priest be permitted by law to report information from confessions to secular authorities? (2A, should those authorities be permitted to use such information so reported, to investigate and prosecute crimes?)

3. Should a priest be permitted by law to refuse to answer questions from authorities when such answers would violate the confidentiality of the confessional?

The question in the OP mixes questions 1 and 3. The special privilege afforded to priests under present U.S. law is applicable to #3 only. With regards to reporting requirements as per question 1, priests are just like nearly everyone else. Your spouse, your friend, your boss, your bartender, your hair stylist, your butler, are not legally obligated to proactively report your confessions of illegal activity to authorities.

Changing #3 would be taking away a special legal privilege, which arguably should not exist and should never have existed in the first place. But note that making that change would have no effect on the case the OP discusses. The bishop in question didn't get a free pass for obstructing a police investigation or interfering with a prosecution by refusing to answer questions. He simply didn't tell the government about what he knew.

Changing #1, on the other hand, which is what the OP really seems to be asking for, adds a special legal obligation, a reporting requirement similar to those of doctors and teachers. That's going a lot farther. What justifies such a reporting requirement? Apparently, simply that priests, due to their involvement in priest-ing, are likely to be in a position to learn about illegal acts and who perpetrated them. Such a requirement is going farther than removing a special religious privilege. It's a capture of a traditional religious practice into becoming a component of the criminal justice system. That's going, in my opinion, too far.

Teachers and social workers are already part of the apparatus of state in the U.S. (and have been so for generations). Doctors have become a de facto part of the apparatus of state as well, more recently. (Many Americans, it appears, were horrified to learn this in 2020.) So their respective reporting requirements are consistent with their existing roles. But in the U.S. there's supposed to be separation of church and state, for very good reasons. That separation, in arguing for a negative answer to question 3, also argues for a negative answer to question 1.

What about question 2 (and 2A)? As far as I know, it's already perfectly legal for a priest to bring confessional information to the authorities, and perfectly permissible for the authorities to use that evidence if that happens. It's only against "church law" not criminal law. So that's already a yes, and no one's arguing it is or should be otherwise. Perhaps a more relevant question would be:

4. Should a church, in its role of the employer of a priest, be permitted to fire or otherwise penalize that employee for bringing confessional information to the attention of authorities? In other words, should the "church law" that makes willfully violating the "sanctity of the confessional" a potentially termination-worthy breach of policy, itself be legal?

In the U.S., due again to First Amendment rights, churches are exempt from a lot of employment laws (e.g. against sex and gender discrimination) where matters of the actual practice of the religion are concerned. So I could see discussing the possibility of a negative answer to #4, it's an uphill argument against a lot of tradition and precedent.
 
Ziggurat said:
Only by violating their religious beliefs. Are people entitled to have those? Are people entitled to live by them?
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:rolleyes:
Are the entitled to force those "beliefs" on others? Are they allowed to support rape and sexual abuse in furtherance of those "beliefs"?
 
Ziggurat said:
Yes. Overall, I think that policy does more good than harm. This case is not actually an argument for doing away with it, because without that policy, the perp likely would have simply not confessed and continued to offend.
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And with that policy he continued to offend.
 
Religious superstitions, 'scuse me, beliefs can be left alone as long as they're harmless. That's the usual practice in secular societies.

And when religionists claim immunity from prosecution for their crimes, i.e., their harmful acts, the law comes down on them with full force.

As it goddamn well must, or we tip over into an abyss of mindlessness.
 
Darat said:
And with that policy he continued to offend.
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True. And? Do you have any reason to believe he wouldn't have continued to offend under a policy where confession wasn't confidential? I don't. If the absence of confidentiality wouldn't have helped, then why would it be preferrable?
 
sackett said:
Religious superstitions, 'scuse me, beliefs can be left alone as long as they're harmless. That's the usual practice in secular societies.

And when religionists claim immunity from prosecution for their crimes, i.e., their harmful acts, the law comes down on them with full force.

As it goddamn well must, or we tip over into an abyss of mindlessness.
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Sure. But we aren't considering a case where anyone is exempt from the law. We're considering a case where the law permitted confidentiality, and the priests committed no crime. We're considering whether the law should be changed to compel a different course of action.

I haven't seen a real argument for how removing confidentiality actually improves anything.
 
Ziggurat said:
Beyond offending your sensibilities, is that outcome worse in any important way? If so, why and how?
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Anyone having credible knowledge of such a sickening and ongoing crime continuing for years and making no effort to save its victims is a tad offensive, yes. Allowing children to be continually raped is one of those things you should act to stop in any way available to you, and this particular brand of silence is unconscionable.
 
Jesus Christ & all his bewhiskered disciples!

Ziggurat said:
....I haven't seen a real argument for how removing confidentiality actually improves anything.
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Not just removing it but abrogating it, canceling its existence, deleting it altogether from the law. Those god-mongers were aiding and abetting child sexual abuse. Their motives aren't hard to imagine: Don't make waves! is a priestly commandment older than all the gods. Why should they perturb their fattish lives of Mormonoid privilege, prestige, and prosperity? Those weren't THEIR kids! 'N hizonner backed 'em, yessir he did.

Changing that state of affairs would work a real improvement in society. Deny that if you like.
 
Ziggurat said:
Only by violating their religious beliefs. Are people entitled to have those? Are people entitled to live by them?
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And if one's religious belief system involves, say, paedophilia?

How can it be possible to draw a firm line agreeable to all concerned parties as to what constitutes the threshold of protection for activities of a religious nature where secular law exists?

Why does a church get to claim the right of silence in the knowledge of a crime, where a citizen would be charged as an accessory? This to me is an untenable tension borne of a fundamental unfairness. It is to admit to the coexistence of two or more systems of law. If every religious faith can demand special dispensation for its own beliefs, that undermines the very concept of common law for all, equally.

If a lawyer knows his client is breaking the law, is he not duty hound to report it?

Any belief system should be limited to the believer and whatever deity he worships. It must never cross into the realm of secular law and thereby conflict with the administration of justice. Whether a priest or layperson, if one is subject to secular law the other must be equally so. Any difference in application of law is fundamentally unjust.
 
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Ziggurat said:
Beyond offending your sensibilities, is that outcome worse in any important way? If so, why and how?
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For me it's axiomatic that more people knowing about a crime and not reporting it is worse than fewer people knowing about a crime and not reporting it.

It's also axiomatic for me that institutions that make not reporting crimes a rule are worse for society than if they don't make that rule.
 
As an atheist, no of course not. Should confessors legally be required to report crimes confessed to them? IDK, as bad as this was, if the bishop had to report the crime, the only real difference is that the crime wouldn't have been confessed to anyone.

If I knew my priest had the obligation to report me for murder, I sure as hell wouldn't confess to murder to him.

Edit: to the best of my knowledge, its only the Catholics that really have the confessional requirement, even so, A catholic priest would be morally culpable for letting such a crime continue even if he isn't legally.
 
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I dunno, maybe the religious aspect is a red herring. You could easily have a secular confessional. People struggle with guilt and shame, often over trivial things, often over things that are not crimes. Confiding in a confidant can help to relieve some of that emotional stress. But the confidentiality is an important part of what makes the confessional helpful to people.

Though I suppose that's one of the functions of having a therapist. People seem to sign up for therapy all the time, even though they must understand that they can confidentially unburden their heart of any sin except an actual crime.
 
We're talking about mandatory reporting requirements here, not a general obligation to report crime. The nature of the crimes in question (they're severe and likely ongoing) is more than sufficient, in my view, to overcome whatever dubious good is done by exempting clergy from such requirements.
 
How about a compromise. The confessional guys revise the rules to say: if you confess to ongoing serial child sexual abuse or ongoing serial murder, we'll tell you how many hail marys to do but we'll also report you. Everything else stays the same. Campaign a bit to make sure everybody is aware of the new rules.
 
theprestige said:
I dunno, maybe the religious aspect is a red herring. You could easily have a secular confessional. People struggle with guilt and shame, often over trivial things, often over things that are not crimes. Confiding in a confidant can help to relieve some of that emotional stress. But the confidentiality is an important part of what makes the confessional helpful to people.

Though I suppose that's one of the functions of having a therapist. People seem to sign up for therapy all the time, even though they must understand that they can confidentially unburden their heart of any sin except an actual crime.
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But do they as a result of confessing feel less guilty and are thereby empowered to continued sinning? If I steal an apple from my boss and say two Hail Mary's at the priest's direction, can I then steal another?
 
There's nothing stopping the U.S. government (or any government) from setting up their own competing confessional system. A properly Mirandized booth or room at your local police station, perhaps. Or on a secure .gov Web site. Theirs can tie in directly with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, and offer not only divine forgiveness (once penance in the form of fines or prison sentences has been paid of course), but also a percentage discount on those penalties (first time customers only) along with convenient pre-payment options for traffic fines. They don't have to horn in on the LDS's or the Roman Catholics' action. That's like dispatching approved trained bullies to torment home-schooled students.
 
Way back in the day when I left all this nonsense behind, they were starting to call it the sacrament of reconciliation and you could opt to confess face to face with a priest.

Do they still call it that because I haven't a clue?
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
But do they as a result of confessing feel less guilty and are thereby empowered to continued sinning? If I steal an apple from my boss and say two Hail Mary's at the priest's direction, can I then steal another?
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Probably but in my experience that's because most Catholics don't realize they are actually supposed to be repentant. Just saying "I'm sorry" won't fool god, you are supposed to actually feel bad about it and not want to do it again.
 
Lithrael said:
How about a compromise. The confessional guys revise the rules to say: if you confess to ongoing serial child sexual abuse or ongoing serial murder, we'll tell you how many hail marys to do but we'll also report you. Everything else stays the same. Campaign a bit to make sure everybody is aware of the new rules.
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Earlier I had considered something a little more elaborate and ritualistic:

Impose a penance: Ten Hail Maries (Hails Mary?), ten Our Fathers, and turn yourself in to the authorities. Don't complete your penance, you're obviously not of the faith. Not of the faith, get excommunicated. Once you're excommunicated, you're no longer entitled to the sanctity of the confessional, and the priest can turn you in with a clean conscience.
 
sackett said:
Not just removing it but abrogating it, canceling its existence, deleting it altogether from the law. Those god-mongers were aiding and abetting child sexual abuse.
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Facts not in evidence. Keeping silent isn't aiding and abetting. If they did something beyond just keeping silent to actually help in the commission or coverup of a crime, then that's already a prosecutable offense.

Changing that state of affairs would work a real improvement in society.
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How? What's the mechanism? Do you think criminals will actually confess their reportable crimes to clergy? Do you think not confessing will hamper or dissuade them? You have presented no reason to think any of these things. You have not even tried to come up with an argument for them. You seem to be taking the notion of an improvement as simply an article of faith.
 
theprestige said:
For me it's axiomatic that more people knowing about a crime and not reporting it is worse than fewer people knowing about a crime and not reporting it.
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I don't get this axiom at all. I mean, you're declaring it as an axiom, and as such, I guess there's no grounds to challenge it to you.

But it doesn't make any sense to me. The harm done is to the victims of the crime, not third parties who know about it. If the number of people who know doesn't affect the odds of the crime happening or the harm that the crime does, then I don't think you can make any serious claim to it being worse beyond your axiom. But it's such an odd axiom to hold that you can't expect others to hold it as well, and you really can't expect the law to be based upon it.

It's also axiomatic for me that institutions that make not reporting crimes a rule are worse for society than if they don't make that rule.
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Then lawyers are a much bigger problem than the clergy. Probably psychologists too.
 
theprestige said:
I dunno, maybe the religious aspect is a red herring. You could easily have a secular confessional. People struggle with guilt and shame, often over trivial things, often over things that are not crimes. Confiding in a confidant can help to relieve some of that emotional stress. But the confidentiality is an important part of what makes the confessional helpful to people.

Though I suppose that's one of the functions of having a therapist. People seem to sign up for therapy all the time, even though they must understand that they can confidentially unburden their heart of any sin except an actual crime.
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No, this is wrong. Most crimes confessed to a therapist are still covered by confidentiality. There are exceptions (child abuse being one), but for most past crimes, confidentiality is in fact supposed to hold. Here's the rules for California, most states are broadly similar.
https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/supplemental/Essential-Ethics-Psychologists/exceptions.pdf
General criminal activity is not included in this list.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
But do they as a result of confessing feel less guilty and are thereby empowered to continued sinning? If I steal an apple from my boss and say two Hail Mary's at the priest's direction, can I then steal another?
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It's worse than that. You can go in, confess to cannibalism, and then an half-an-hour later they're trying to get you to do it again!
 
I have a hard time interpreting the following in any other way than the prep should've gone to the police himself, with the insistence of the church if necessary...
It is a duty of all persons to confess all their sins to the Lord and, when necessary, to the person or persons sinned against. Sins against the public must be publicly confessed (D&C 42:88–93).
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churchofjesuschrist.org

And I suppose this is unfair, but I find it hard to believe the clergyman didn't bring the the guy to the authorities regardless of what it meant to him (the clergyman) spiritually. Surely there's a time to sacrifice oneself when others are desperately in need. And you'd hope a clergyman would have that kind of courage.
 
Myriad said:
With regards to reporting requirements as per question 1, priests are just like nearly everyone else. Your spouse, your friend, your boss, your bartender, your hair stylist, your butler, are not legally obligated to proactively report your confessions of illegal activity to authorities.
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That's a good point. If priests should be required to report confessions of illegal activity then should everybody be held to that standard and not just people in certain professions?

It would be a chilling thought if you were required to dob in everybody who you had a reasonable suspicion had committed a crime. That is the way of totalitarianism.
 
psionl0 said:
That's a good point. If priests should be required to report confessions of illegal activity then should everybody be held to that standard and not just people in certain professions?
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If we're talking about mandatory reporting (and I think we probably should be, given the nature of the crimes), I'd say no, because most people are not going to have any relevant training and will be bad at correctly identifying abuse or neglect. You'll end up with CPS workers with huge backloads of bogus or mistaken reports to deal with. We've already run this experiment, and it doesn't work.
 
mumblethrax said:
If we're talking about mandatory reporting (and I think we probably should be, given the nature of the crimes), I'd say no, because most people are not going to have any relevant training and will be bad at correctly identifying abuse or neglect. You'll end up with CPS workers with huge backloads of bogus or mistaken reports to deal with. We've already run this experiment, and it doesn't work.
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Identifying signs of abuse in a child is not quite the same thing.

If your friend tells you that they have abused a child then should you be required to report that to the authorities?
 
psionl0 said:
Identifying signs of abuse in a child is not quite the same thing.
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Not quite the same thing as what?

If your friend tells you that they have abused a child then should you be required to report that to the authorities?
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I think I just answered this. No, it's counterproductive.
 
The issue of mandatory reporting is at the opposite end of the matter of a system which demands mandatory silence.

Merely permitting clergy the option of operating under their own human conscience to report crime is a good step up from requiring that they remain mum.
 
Lurch said:
Merely permitting clergy the option of operating under their own human conscience to report crime is a good step up from requiring that they remain mum.
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Both the bishop and the church were permitted to report in this case. Mandatory reporting is about the only way to get around the problem that they didn't see it as congruent with their interests to do so.
 
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