[Dr. Sivana]

The Mafioso are Catholic, too, and after confessing to their routinely heinous litany of crime, their Father Confessor prescribes to them the penance of giving a tithe of their ill-gotten gains to their local parish, which is well financed as a result.

No, that's not how it works, even among heterodox priests. No shortage of Mafia members who might think Last Rites will save their bacon provided they have an opportunity to have it done, rather than being dropped anonymously into the ocean.

Some of the Mafioso, as far as I know, might donate to a church as a salve or a way to improve standing in the community, not as part of an instruction in the confessional. The are likely culturally Catholic, but you as a Lubivitcher Jew should know very well about people who profess a Faith but live consciously immoral lives. I would never accuse a Rabbi or an organization of taking money for for absolution, and spreading such falsehoods is unfair.

[Eleutheria5]

I didn’t make it up. It was told to me by a former Catholic who related along these lines the experiences of a now-lapsed priest.

In Judaism there is no doctrine of clerical absolution and indulgences, but there is donating to charities to re-establish the connection with G-d that was damaged by the sin, albeit after a sincere repentance. Of course, this itself invites abuses similar to that which I described. Plenty of utterly repugnant people who have new wings of the synagogue named after them, or a Torah scroll commissioned.

By no means do I allege that this exclusively a Catholic phenomenon. Hypocrisy is as universal as ethics codes are. Can’t have one without the possibility of the other. And whatever your religious code, it’s meant for observance by humans, not angels, who always start out flawed, and often get worse instead of better over time.