Wow.
A lot of you want to criminalise access to God’s mercy.
Whom do you really serve?
People do, or are tempted to do, the most appalling things.
Some of them, driven by horror of what they have done, or what they contemplate doing, will lay their wicked compulsions before Christ.
If they do this, they do not magically become immune to prosecution. How can any of you be confused on this point?
These malefactors expose their sinful souls to God, and repent. Or they don’t repent, and their confession is a lie.
In either event, what business is it of Government? Why would FReepers demand that our relationship with God be policed by the State?
You might begin by showing where ‘God’s mercy’ is housed in a confessional.
Some people worship the State as though it were 'god'. That attitude is not confined to the political "left".
You have it backwards. The real question is why should
a nation’s laws be dictated by the head of a foreign state?
Not only that, but dictated from a walled compound where open borders are preached, and with a disposition to hide the very crimes under consideration?
The winning post!
Good. The free exercise of religion is not superseded by the district attorney’s prosecutorial interest in an individual possible case.
There are many ways to catch abusers, sacred confession being probably the least likely while subverting the church to theoretical ideas of law. It would be the ‘letter of a law’ and the absolute denial of real justice.
Point: these anti-Catholic proposals violate the religious rights of 2 individuals: the priest and the penitent!