Boston Legal

[pnewton]

Most of the answers attempted to redefine the problem, changing the parameters. None of the other answers had a solution to the actual question: find the child and arrest the kidnapper.

Yes, they do. Police are able to solve crimes all the time without the aid of priests who violate their moral obligation. Whatever channel lead them to the priest in the first place is still a lead. Likewise, footage to and from the Church turn up leads to investigation. Sure, it may cut into coffee and doughnut time, but there is a time to skip the breaks and go to work. Police do not mind working hard when it comes to kids.

The Catholic Church teaches that even child molesters are deserving of mercy.

 

[e_c]

A “moral” system, which is unable to provide solution for hard-hitting problems is useless.

…

An excommunication is lengthy process.

The solution is to bite the bullet. Every system has a moment where something against our intuition must be accepted, or else it ceases to be internally consistent. I challenge you to provide us with one which doesn’t have any bullets to bite.

Excommunication can occur in two seconds time… About as long as it takes to do such and such a crime which automatically incurs it. There are also crimes which require an imposition of the penalty. And there is also the possibility of publicly declaring a presumed censure.

There may be a way to provide information apart from the seal, but there may not be. If not, then the consequences must be resigned to. It is a sacrilege and a scandal to violate the seal… There exists no situation which can justify it. It is intrinsically evil.

 

[psalm90]

I see. So you cannot offer a solution. The kidnapping is irrelevant. The sexual molestation is irrelevant. Murder is irrelevant. Impending terrorist activities are irrelevant. Everything is irrelevant when it comes to “confession”. I sure feel sorry for your priests.

The funny thing is that there is a lawyer-client privilege, and there is a doctor-patient privilege, but these are superseded by the secular laws in extreme cases - like terrorism, child molestation, kidnapping and the like. But not confession. The canon law trumps the law of the land. Imagine what would happen if we lived in a theocracy… /shivers uncontrollably.

It seems that you are jumping to conclusions.

First of all, a defendant is entitled to the right against self-incrimination.
Second, a defendant is entitled to his first amendment rights to freedom of expression of religion, in this case, the presumption of privacy.
Third, what a penitent says in a confessional is hearsay statement. How can a priest assume it is true and go around accusing people?
Fourth, we’re talking about a TV program – have you forgotten that? Isn’t there a disclaimer that the program is not about any person living or dead (and all that disclaimer stuff)?
Fifth, it is unlikely that a priest would absolve the sins of a penitent who is in the act of committing them – absolving them in advance – I’ve never heard of such a thing. the sacrament of reconciliation assumes contrition and repentance. I don’t think you actually ASKED this question, you just shot passed it and assumed your preconceived biased view. The “penance” a person receives AFTER absolution is not a condition of the absolution. But, if such a situation as described here actually occurred, I’m sure the priest would urge the penitent in the strongest possible way to avert further damage.
Sixth, if the priest had foreknowledge of a crime, he would be an accomplice. I think that would be technically not a valid confession involved here. On this point, I would have to defer to someone more expert in these matters. The seal of confession might not apply to a crime-in-action or a future crime.

That show and your hasty conclusions are good theater, but I think they’re fictional, they’re certainly based on fiction.

 

[Corki]

Corki,
Respectfully, you missed the point.
What I am saying here is the same end was achieved via a different path, avoiding the public penance, by not providing absolution to begin with in that the penitent by continuing the sin via the on going criminal act cannot make a valid confession…

I think I know what you are trying to get at but you used quotes from a Church document on public penance and tried to apply that to withholding absolution. The quotes you provided were not relevant to the point you were trying to make.

A priest can withhold absolution for only very grave reasons. For example, if the person is excommunicated, the excommunication must be first lifted before absolution can be granted. But he can’t make turning oneself into the police a condition.

Now, if the kidnapper confessed the kidnapping but still had his victims captive, the priest could withhold absolution until the victims were released because he can’t absolve a continuing sin. But the sin confessed would still be covered under the seal even if absolution was withheld.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

One tenet of Catholic morality is the idea that it is not morally acceptable to do evil in order to prevent some other evil. It’s not utilitarian. For example, pretend you live in a village in eastern Europe 800 hundred years ago. A Mongol horde shows up and surrounds the village. The leader orders you to boil a child alive for his amusement. You refuse. He tells you that if you don’t do it, he’ll do it himself, then four more children as punishment for your disobedience. Let’s assume away all attempts to get out of the choice: you can’t run, the village is surrounded. It’s too late to hide the kids. You can’t resist by force with any hope of success: you’re a tiny village and you’re surrounded by 10,000 warriors. You can’t talk him out of it: his mind is firmly made up.

I hope you don’t insinuate that these two scenarios are even remotely comparable. In one of them you torture someone to death, in the other you SAVE someone from being raped, tortured and murdered.

Under a utilitarian framework, boiling the child alive is obviously the right choice. You’re sacrificing one life to save four. Under a Catholic framework, you can’t do evil to avoid evil, full stop. The only thing to do then is refuse and pray for the souls of everyone involved, including the warlord.

What you do here is wash away the difference between two “evil” acts. Giving out a few bytes of information to SAVE someone on one hand, and boiling a child on the other. To compare these two actions is irrational to the extreme.

But I will explain my ethical system.

Rule #1: Do no harm. (Borrowed from the Hippocratic oath)
Rule #2: If the circumstances FORCE you to do harm, then do as little harm as possible.

Simple, isn’t it?

 

[Corki]

I hope you don’t insinuate that these two scenarios are even remotely comparable. In one of them you torture someone to death, in the other you SAVE someone from being raped, tortured and murdered.

What you do here is wash away the difference between two “evil” acts. Giving out a few bytes of information to SAVE someone on one hand, and boiling a child on the other. To compare these two actions is irrational to the extreme.

But I will explain my ethical system.

Rule #1: Do no harm. (Borrowed from the Hippocratic oath)
Rule #2: If the circumstances FORCE you to do harm, then do as little harm as possible.

Simple, isn’t it?

Yes, simple. And under Rule #2, the priest’s logical, moral and ethical course of action would be to keep the Seal intact and do everything possible to help find the children. That would do less harm than breaking the Seal.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

The solution is to bite the bullet. Every system has a moment where something against our intuition must be accepted, or else it ceases to be internally consistent. I challenge you to provide us with one which doesn’t have any bullets to bite.

Sure. I will repeat it here:

Rule #1: Do no harm. (Borrowed from the Hippocratic oath)
Rule #2: If the circumstances FORCE you to do harm, then do as little harm as possible.

There may be a way to provide information apart from the seal, but there may not be. If not, then the consequences must be resigned to.

Easy to say for someone who has no skin in the game. I am pretty sure that the parents of the child would disagree.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Sure. I will repeat it here:

Rule #1: Do no harm. (Borrowed from the Hippocratic oath)
Rule #2: If the circumstances FORCE you to do harm, then do as little harm as possible.

Easy to say for someone who has no skin in the game. I am pretty sure that the parents of the child would disagree.

Why should one do no harm?

 

[pnewton]

Giving out a few bytes of information to SAVE someone on one hand, and boiling a child on the other. To compare these two actions is irrational to the extreme.

You said in an earlier post, “When you investigate a moral system, you need to examine even the most unlikely, far-fetched, but NOT impossible cases, and find out if the system offers a solution for the presented problem.”

In this case, you do no understand the harm that breaking the seal of confession will cause, harm that can last into eternity.

 

[porthos11]

Sure. I will repeat it here:

Rule #1: Do no harm. (Borrowed from the Hippocratic oath)
Rule #2: If the circumstances FORCE you to do harm, then do as little harm as possible.

Easy to say for someone who has no skin in the game. I am pretty sure that the parents of the child would disagree.

Yes. For someone with no skin in the game, the answer is clear. The child will die.

The parents will be outraged. You will be outraged. They will rant and rave and go all hysterical over the loss of the child. They will curse priests and the Catholic Church to the end of their lives, blaming those evil Catholics for the loss.

But for those with and without skin in the game, answer is the same. The Seal cannot be broken, and if the child dies, then the child dies. The only difference is that those detached from it will accept the consequences of the situation. Those with skin in it will have an emotional response.

If that sounds cold to you, then so be it. But for Catholics, there’s more than just “skin” in the game. There are souls at stake.

So this is your answer, and this should be the end of it. We grant your scenario (I admit there are many people on CAF who have no idea how to treat hypotheticals), and the only acceptable outcome from a moral standpoint is that the child will die.

You will not like it, I can tell. As I said, I can see your contempt all over your posts. But that is what it is. And we have no skin in the game, so we can give our answers with clarity.

Take the answer and go.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

Yes. For someone with no skin in the game, the answer is clear. The child will die.

The parents will be outraged. You will be outraged. They will rant and rave and go all hysterical over the loss of the child. They will curse priests and the Catholic Church to the end of their lives, blaming those evil Catholics for the loss.

But for those with and without skin in the game, answer is the same. The Seal cannot be broken, and if the child dies, then the child dies. The only difference is that those detached from it will accept the consequences of the situation. Those with skin in it will have an emotional response.

If that sounds cold to you, then so be it. But for Catholics, there’s more than just “skin” in the game. There are souls at stake.

So this is your answer, and this should be the end of it. We grant your scenario (I admit there are many people on CAF who have no idea how to treat hypotheticals), and the only acceptable outcome from a moral standpoint is that the child will die.

You will not like it, I can tell. As I said, I can see your contempt all over your posts. But that is what it is. And we have no skin in the game, so we can give our answers with clarity.

Take the answer and go.

This reply deserves not contempt, but admiration for its honesty. That being said, I have a few comments to make.

First, there is no indication that the practice of confession is anything but a human concoction. It is a human invention, and its artificial rules. But that could be accepted, except for the following reasons.

If someone committed (past tense!) a deed, goes to a priest, repents and asks for absolution, the seal of confessional COULD be defended. Not really, because it prevents closure for the relatives of the victim (if there are any). But if someone confesses to an ONGOING set of acts, or - even worse - admits that he intends to commit an act in the FUTURE, then the “seal” is simply criminal. It is aiding and abetting a crime.

You said: “If that sounds cold to you, then so be it.” Well its not just “cold”, it is unloving. There is the penitent and there is the victim. To put the penitent ahead the victim is definitely NOT a loving act.

Yes, we - who have compassion - do get emotional about it. What is wrong with emotions? Emotion is the first step toward love.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

In this case, you do no understand the harm that breaking the seal of confession will cause, harm that can last into eternity.

Do you have any PROOF for that?

 

[porthos11]

This reply deserves not contempt, but admiration for its honesty. That being said, I have a few comments to make.

First, there is no indication that the practice of confession is anything but a human concoction. It is a human invention, and its artificial rules. But that could be accepted, except for the following reasons.

If someone committed (past tense!) a deed, goes to a priest, repents and asks for absolution, the seal of confessional COULD be defended. Not really, because it prevents closure for the relatives of the victim (if there are any). But if someone confesses to an ONGOING set of acts, or - even worse - admits that he intends to commit an act in the FUTURE, then the “seal” is simply criminal. It is aiding and abetting a crime.

You said: “If that sounds cold to you, then so be it.” Well its not just “cold”, it is unloving. There is the penitent and there is the victim. To put the penitent ahead the victim is definitely NOT a loving act.

Yes, we - who have compassion - do get emotional about it. What is wrong with emotions? Emotion is the first step toward love.

Since you are clearly not of the Catholic faith, you will never accept any explanation as to why things are the way they are. YOU might believe Confession is a human invention. WE believe it is of divine institution. Since WE don’t believe it’s a mere human invention, we cannot and will not treat it as such.

But it is the way it is. We believe in the soul and the good of the soul is higher than the good of the body. You don’t accept that, but we do, hence, our practice. You call it unloving. We call it a higher good.

So again, that is your answer. That should be the end of it. Whether this will drive you farther from the Catholic Church or draw you into it is something we will not be able to determine. But the Seal is not there on its own merits; it is there because of a whole lot of other truths that comprise the Catholic faith. The existence of the immortal soul is only the starting point.

IF you begin to learn the Catholic faith from the beginning, starting with the basics, then perhaps you will eventually understand. But if you start here with the Seal and hypotheticals, no explanation will ever be sufficient for you. So I will leave you with my “cold”, “unloving” answer. But it’s way more than that.

And contrary to what you might think, we do have compassion, as do you. The only thing is that your compassion extends only as far as this temporal existence. Ours goes beyond that.

To put the penitent above the victim, as you put it, IS in fact a loving act, not just for THIS penitent, but for all other penitents out there. And the fault is not the priest’s, but the killer’s. Again because we believe in the good, first and foremost, of the immortal soul.

Again, I don’t expect you to understand. If you don’t believe in the immortal soul, in God, in Christ, inf sin, in grace and of salvation, then this is all nonsense to you. But this is not the right point of entry for a catechesis of the Christian faith.

But we will explain it from OUR perspective. THIS is what we believe. Do with it what you will. Scorn us, or take it as our explanation. But this is what you are going to get, and no more than that.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Why should one do no harm?

Again.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

WE believe it is of divine institution.

It there a dogma that declares it? Because if it is NOT dogma, it can be changed.

To put the penitent above the victim, as you put it, IS in fact a loving act, not just for THIS penitent, but for all other penitents out there.

But it is NOT loving to the victim, who would be spared if impending crime would be reported and prevented. No matter how you twist it, you put the best interest of the criminal before the interest of the victim.

And the fault is not the priest’s, but the killer’s.

If you have information about a crime to be committed and fail to report it, you are considered “aiding and abetting” that crime - and should be treated as such.

Again, the important part is the PREVENTION of an impending crime.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

Again.

If you don’t know, it is useless to explain.

 

[porthos11]

It there a dogma that declares it? Because if it is NOT dogma, it can be changed.

That Confession is of divine origin is dogma; it cannot be changed.

The Seal, however, is not; it’s a discipline, and it CAN be changed or lifted, or even repealed. It is, however, one of our strictest laws. It will NOT be changed, whether for this or anything else.

But it is NOT loving to the victim, who would be spared if impending crime would be reported and prevented. No matter how you twist it, you put the best interest of the criminal before the interest of the victim.

Effectively, yes. In principle, no. We are not in the habit of protecting criminals, but if a criminal is protected by the keeping of the Seal, or a victim dies, then that’s double effect.

If you have information about a crime to be committed and fail to report it, you are considered “aiding and abetting” that crime - and should be treated as such.

Except that civil law has recognized the inviolability of the Catholic seal of confession and its tighter confidentiality than that of doctors and lawyers.

Again, the important part is the PREVENTION of an impending crime.

Important to you, maybe,. More important to us is the protection of the Seal and the good of souls. It cannot be broken, even to save a life. Prevention of a crime is not as important to us as is preventing one soul from falling into hell.

Look, enough with this. You have your answer and as I knew from the beginning, you do not like it. Fair enough. You will never grasp any of this without building on and accepting first of all the foundational principles of the Catholic faith.

That is the end of my participation in this thread.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

If you don’t know, it is useless to explain.

No no no no.

That is not the way honest conversation works. You can’t deman answers and assume things about others morality systems without having to state and back up your own.

So again, why should people do no harm?

Or if you prefer, why is rape wrong?

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

Except that civil law has recognized the inviolability of the Catholic seal of confession and its tighter confidentiality than that of doctors and lawyers.

It is being challenged in Ireland - of all the places. Isn’t life ironic?

Prevention of a crime is not as important to us as is preventing one soul from falling into hell.

Unfortunately you have no control over that. But you can prevent an impending crime.

That is the end of my participation in this thread.

In that case, I thank you for your participation. It was informative.

 

[pnewton]

Do you have any PROOF for that?

Proof of Heaven and Hell? Is this a joke?

You miss the point. The priest has a job of getting souls to Heaven. As important as protecting the innocent is, it pales in comparison to the greater task. As Jesus said, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”