I can’t judge these people. I don’t know their hearts. How is it that you seem to know there hearts?
Are you playing God?
Just know that priests also go to confession.
You would be amazed (from stories from priests) how many people come back week after week confessing the same sin, whether it be pronography or adultery or alcoholism. They really do mean to amend their ways — that’s part of Confession, BTW, but fall into sin again. At least they are willing to recognize their sin.
“I can’t judge these people. I don’t know their hearts. How is it that you seem to know there hearts?”
I am not speaking of any individual, I’ve named no person in particular, so their are no hearts to know. However, there are cases, and I believe the hypothetical one that I have laid out fits, where we most certainly can make judgements based on outward evidences as to the state of grace they are in. If they are not only producing bad fruit, but doing so continuously, then the tree can’t be good. Don’t priests judge sometimes, by these outward signs, that some are not repentant, and can’t be absolved?
Catechism 1430:
“Jesus’ call to conversion and penance, like that of the prophets before him, does not aim first at outward works, “sackcloth and ashes,” fasting and mortification, but at the conversion of the heart, interior conversion. Without this, such penances remain sterile and false; however, interior conversion urges expression in visible signs, gestures and works of penance.”
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c2a4.htm
So, I would say, if someone is a serial abuser, for years on end, there are no visible signs of interior conversion. Their penance is false.