Why doesn’t the Pope just change the seal, an make it ok to report pedophiles?
When did you stop beating your wife?
Ok, let’s follow that thought exercise:
First a disclaimer, I’m Protestant and a Deacon in my church. However, in that capacity I often have conversations (confessions) with the church membership. Many that touch on legal and very sensitive issues. As a church leader, I am expected to have guidance and advice and most of all - to not share what has been spoken in confidence to me. I do not share it with other deacons or the pastor, not even my wife or anyone else unless the member says it is ok for me to share the details. But back to our thought exercise.
So the state first forces the reporting of Pedophiles (for the children). Then it is murder, then it is domestic abuse, then it is tax cheats, then it is cases of fraud, then theft and then ....
Well you get the point. So at some point in time, the person decides to not FULLY confess because their words could be used against them. This is in direct contravention of the scriptures which tell us to confess our sins one to another. The state is then using intimidation to censer a persons’ faith and the free exercise of their religion.
Next the person decide that confession is just not worth the risk, and then they decide that they don’t need to come to church at all. The state’s use of intimidation is now forcing the person away from a possible resource to come clean or to get help.
This is nothing more than a DIRECT attack on the Christian community and an attempt to make irrelevant one of the direct commandments from the New Testament.
He doesn’t have the power to do that.
how many pedophiles would confess to a priest under that circumstance? Confession would pretty much cease if there were any category of reportable confession at all. If one thing then sooner or later something else and on and on to everything. Reporting any confession defeats confession and would only happen once. What is the profit to the state of that, other than bringing Religion more under state control?
Why doesn’t the Pope just change the seal, an make it ok to report pedophiles?
Better they become martyrs than that. Plus if the government can do that why not also force lawyers to still out thier knowledge of crimes too.
Why not require defense attorneys to report to the prosecutor, during the “discovery” process, whatever their clients have told them?