New Australian Law Requires Priests to Break Seal of Confession to Report Admissions of Child Abuse

[margaret42]

there are so many people out there who hate the Catholic church, that they will say anything to hurt the clergy… and accusations of sex abuse is one of them. I often feel guilty criticizing clergy

 

[Prodigal_Son]

I don’t think it’s a matter of criticizing clergy. It’s a matter of criticizing policies, most of which were just ignorant, and none of which were malicious. It’s called negligence.

This is not to say that I think all revised policies are better in every way. But some of the old policies were awful, in some dioceses.

 

[margaret42]

It’s complicated matter for me, even saying “the pastor needs more hours to have for confession”. Sometimes these feelings ease up, like during spiritual direction.

 

[SnoopSword]

there are so many people out there who hate the Catholic church, that they will say anything to hurt the clergy… and accusations of sex abuse is one of them. I often feel guilty criticizing clergy

The religious deception that will ‘shake the faith’ of many believers.

Actually, the word ‘abuse’ somewhat implies something long term in an ongoing improper ‘relationship’, ie ‘an abusive parent/coworker/boss’. So people magine this to be what happens.

I would have preferred to avoid ‘specifics’ of the actual abuse and cases, but it now seems fitting to mention this. How can I say this… hmm… Lets just say that I came accross a headline recently that referred to a case as ‘s*xual misconduct’. Big difference between that and what might be conjured up in our imaginations.

Also when looking at specific allegations, I noticed that they were very ‘incident’ based. ie: an incident happened once or twice. One I read happened three times over a 4-5 year. (Post puberty teens of course.)

Again, I’ll spare details, but obviously considering all the factors involved, someone can only get away with so much, and hence the term ‘misconduct’ is used in one of the headlines I saw recently so hopefully they will change. its not perfect but often closer to the truth.

But yes they are indeed victims and this is clearly wrong etc. Its just that we believe in the same Sin having more ‘weight/force’ behind them. ie Suppose someone in private commits ‘sin x’ 100 times in the past year and confesses it.

However, suppose that on one of those occasions ths sin was committed at a certain time/place that was very shameful. Even though its the same sin, it now carries more weight and therefore needs to be confessed separately - evem if its a private sin that ‘doesn’t hurt anyone’ and no one saw. Indeed the surrounding cicumstances can increase the ‘weight/force’ of the sin. Same with the sins regarding the s*x abuse/misconduct allegations.

The labels we give them could cause ourselves to be partaking in adding MORE weight to their sins … this is unjust and can possibly be a sin for ourselves.

Anyhow, those who are bankrupting diocese by demanding cash payouts are taking money from the laity. The are serving the wrong side. All this is unprecidemted though. It must be prophecied in the Bible somewhere.

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

The only benefit I can find in the massive wave of church persecution I can think of is that it’s a massive system shock. I’m willing to bet this won’t happen again.