Posted on 01/17/2020 7:02:49 PM PST by marshmallow
January 16, 2020 (Catholic League) — Earlier this week, we contacted the Speaker of the House in the Utah legislature, Rep. Brad R. Wilson, expressing our outrage over a bill sponsored by his Democratic colleague, Rep. Angela Romero, that would vitiate the seal of Confession. The pretext of her legislation is knowledge of the sexual abuse of minors learned in the confessional.
We are very pleased with the response by Speaker Wilson: he is opposed to the Romero bill. Rep. Romero is now doubling down, saying she is going forward with her bill, accusing me of making a “soft threat.”
Romero is obviously referring to the following concluding portion of my letter of January 10 to her. “You are treading on dangerous territory. When the government seeks to police the sacraments of the Catholic Church — or encroach on the tenets and practices of any world religion — it is gearing up for a court fight. The First Amendment secures religious liberty, and that entails separation of church and state.”
I stand by that statement. Regarding her remark, I would never accuse her of making a “soft threat.” She moved well beyond the “threat” stage when she introduced a bill that attacks a sacrament of the Catholic Church — and there is nothing “soft” about that. Now she is claiming victim status because of a pushback by Catholics. What did she expect? That Catholics would allow an agent of the state to trample on their constitutionally protected rights?
(Excerpt) Read more at lifesitenews.com ...
Romero is just doing what the current pope is doing, attacking the Catholic sacraments.
Ping
They can make all the laws they like. A true priest will never break the secrecy of the confessional.
Jesus himself does not back up covering for a child rapist and doing nothing more than trying to talk him into turning himself in.
If a priest hides the crimes of a molester, he should be arrested too and an accomplice after the fact. His time in prison can be a demonstration of his faith.
A true priest would never promise secrecy to a child rapist but rather would go with him and pray for him while he turns himself in.
Should the child rapist not turn himself in a true priest would bring in whatever government God had put in place to administer justice and would offer consolation to the child and counsel to the incarcerated.
“It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.”
Jesus Christ
“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.” Romans 13:1 “Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities.”
Jesus Christ
Couldn’t find one about Jesus saying to cover up and keep secret the knowledge of sodomizing a child from the law.
A Priest shouldn’t break the seal of confession no matter what the law says.
So how does the government force a priest to break the seal of confession? If the priest keeps his silence, no one will know a crime was confessed.
Some criminal says, “I told Father Smith where the bodies were buried, ask him.” Or hearsay. “My boyfriend told me he confessed something really really bad to a priest at St. Joseph’s.”
A lot of priests out there who aren’t true priests, then.
You are correct.
I doubt if any law like that WILL be enacted but it's a horrible thought nonetheless.
As I recall Father Edward J. Flanagan who founded Boys Town was aware of at least some of what was going on even in his day, and railed against it.
A complacent laity has allowed it to flourish.
I can’t find any examples of laws like this ever being used. Supposedly some have been on the books for a while. I think they just pass them to make people feel good. No one that supports them has ever even described how it supposed to work in practice, or given a single example of it working, at least that I have seen. That seems like a pretty low bar.
Freegards
I wonder if you could take away the defendant’s privileged communication to a member of the clergy.
That is, if the priest wanted for some reason to reveal the confession (and excommunicate himself) the state would not bar it at trial.
And if a child molester confesses to his defense attorney, that attorney should be required, under penalty of law, to inform the courts that his client confessed. The same applies if the molester tells his wife.
ALL DEMOCRATS ARE VILE EVIL VICIOUS PEOPLE.
Activist goes in with recording device, confesses to something the priest is legally obligated to report, and police arrest if no report is made.
While the state of the Church today is caused in part by “complacent laity” (who could more accurately be described now as “absent laity” - most have simply walked away), very few lay people bear any responsibility for the homosexual child rape scandal in the Church. Parents of victims often had a noble desire to protect the Church from scandal, and had no idea how systemic the problem was - or how many bishops were complicit in simply moving the perps around. They never suspected the bishops themselves were homosexuals; this was decades before the Washington DC cardinal was outed as a child predator.
I wouldn’t judge the laity of decades past in the same light I would today; now there are no excuses - it is very clear that the clergy has become a hotbed of homosexuality. There is no reason for lay people today to believe any action will be taken against the perps, and the hierarchy has acknowledged that broken trust - and doubled down by continuing with the status quo.
The same with the rapes he is caused to undergo.
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