Posted on 11/14/2012 10:52:47 AM PST by marshmallow
Australian priests could be forced to breach the seal of the confessional to report child sex abuse amid growing calls to end cover-ups involving the Catholic Church.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Wednesday slammed the use of the confessional to avoid reporting abuse, saying it is a "sin of omission" and all adults have a duty to protect children.
She announced this week the launch of a Royal Commission to investigate offences involving religious and non-religious organisations and insisted it will examine not only abuse but the role of institutions in covering it up.
Though the commission's terms of reference are yet to be decided, Ms Gillard said on Wednesday she was concerned about adults "averting their eyes" from crimes against children.
''It's not good enough for people to engage in sin of omission and not act when a child is at risk," she said.
Australia's most powerful Catholic, Archbishop of Sydney George Pell, was this week widely condemned for insisting that priests who hear confessions of child sex abuse must keep quiet because "the Seal of Confession is inviolable".
He said priests should avoid taking confessions from colleagues suspected of being paedophiles but that they cannot then report the crime to police.
"If that is done outside the confessional (it can be passed on)," he said.
"(But) the Seal of Confession is inviolable If the priest knows beforehand about such a situation, the priest should refuse to hear the confession." The strict secrecy of confessions is believed to be more than 1000 years old.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
You’ll have to take that up with Jesus.
Good answer
I don’t understand the value of it anyway. The pope can’t change something that his priests do, yet a priest can tell someone to do penance, and then it’s ok?
Just as the Bible tells us, keep your self, that is your sins unspotted from the world but we are to confess our sins to one another.
Most of us would not be willing to turn one of our brothers in for something, at least if we thought they would repent and we would not even think of doing that to our father or mother.
Those who follow Jesus are his brothers, sisters and fathers and mothers and they are also each others of the same.
Personally i think there are many people wants other people to think the only sins are those of the church, and as bad as it may be i don,t think they are any worse than the average people, and saints compared to the people who are now running this nation.
So even if i don,t agree with the catholic church and do not entirely agree with most of the other churches.
If not for them i would not even know the gospel of Jesus which is more important to me than all of the laws in the whole wide world.
So what is the value of confession?
So what is the value of confession if God already knows what you did and what is in your heart?
What’s the value of a marriage ceremony if God already knows what’s in the hearts of the principals?
Besides not even being an answer, that isn’t even related. If ya can’t answer just say so or at least guess.
It cleans your soul of sins so that you may spend Eternity somewhere other than in the Fires of Hell.
Forgiveness of sins requires their formal acknowlegement and repentance.
That’s the position of the Roman Catholic Church, derived from the teachings of Jesus.
If you don’t like it, too bad; take it up with Jesus.
You remind me of a two-year-old, endlessly and mindlessly asking Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?
Pedophiles don’t go to hell if they’ve gone to confession?
So when people grow up, they shouldn’t ask why? They should just be sheeple? How else do people find out about stuff if they don’t ask why?
If they’ve actually repented, not just gone through the motions, no they don’t.
Why do they have to tell a priest, doesn’t God know this? How does the priest know they’ve actually repented and not just gone through the motions?
For the first question, see Post 49.
For the second question, absolution is given but doesn’t actually count without actual repentence. The priest doesn’t know, and doesn’t have to.
So the only reason the priest is there, is so someone can confess to another man? OK, thanks...makes one wonder why it even has to be a priest then?
See Post 41.
Good safe answer, thanks
They can help put pedophiles away now. They just can’t reveal the substance of confessions. By the way, legally these cannot be used anyway. But, is there any evidence that the info on these testimony of these confessions would help convict anybody? I doubt many of these pedophiles actually confess to their crimes. Is there a single case where this is known to be the case? I don’t know of any. I just know, “all Catholics are evil.”
If you ask enough people, I think you’ll find that just about everyone is evil.
So what is the value of confession?
The opposite happened, i don,t know how, at any rate although i wanted to be around people who had the same experience that i had i did not think i was even fit to call my self a Christian and still don,t for that matter, although i did not get it from the Bible.
Although there are few people, even Christians who understand, i finally did talk to some one and found that they also had been worried about the same thing.
I was made aware that Jesus and his apostles were outlaws as far as this world were concerned and that even a thief can repent and be saved.
The apostles were not a bunch of china dolls, they were men, yet in my view so many Christians would not even consider our lord himself to be a christian, so i do not even go to church any more.
Because i can not be other than what i am, good or bad.
I don,t know that this confession that we are talking about does any good at all but if a man or woman can see themselves in the same light they could see some one else it may help them to over come what they hate about them selves.
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