Typical papist nonsense...

Someone exposes the church being dishonest, and it's the man's fault, not the church's...

because remember... everything god (church) says is right because it is even though it isn't, so man has to be wrong whenever he's right if the church also happens to be wrong... er... right.

I've gone and confused myself now.

 

Speaking of sexual abuse...

If you know anything about sexual abusers, you know that one of the most effective tactics they use to keep their activities secret is to convince the victims that the abuse was their fault.

It's not just sexual abuse, either. Do some research on the psychological makeup of domestic abusers, and you'll find that a large portion of them use mental abuse to allow them to continue physical and/or sexual abuse. In other words, an abuser will convince the victim that if they had just been a better person, or been able to do this, or not do that, then the abuse wouldn't have happened. So long as the victim believes there is a chance they can stop the abuse by being better, they tend to stay in abusive relationships. Only when they realize that the standards put before them are impossible to attain and contradictory do they become truly able to end the cycle of abuse.

Hmmm... sound like anything we might have been talking about?

I have seen things very similar to this, actually.

One of my beliefs (which is mostly anecdotal, so don't bust me on it. I know it's just a hunch!) is that there are a lot of believers who aren't really believers, including the clergy.

The thing is, they just haven't thought through things, or (ok, go ahead and call me an elitist) aren't capable of thinking through them, and continue on with this nebulous spiritual belief.

My anecdotal proof of this is the number of theists I've talked to in my life who, when pressed, will admit that they don't agree with what the church says, but that they just "feel" like there's something bigger. Some of them will even go so far as to say that they don't believe in god the way the church defines him. Just from my own experience, I'd guess this is maybe, 20-30% of the theists I talk to. We're going to have a much larger percentage of full-fledged believers on this site, of course, because the wishy washy ones aren't the ones who will get offended by this site.

Anyway... there's a point to all of this...

Imagine a thoughtful priest who hears a confession, and the sin is one that the priest doesn't particularly look down on. Say this priest has thought through the problems of population explosion and has a deep dark secret belief -- he's not opposed to abortion! He's going to go easy on the teenage girl who confesses that she had premarital sex, got pregnant, and had an abortion. In fact, he might even subtly encourage her to have safe sex, since he, as a thoughtful man, realizes that she will most likely not stop having sex.

Imagine a man going through this experiment, and going to 20 priests. Probably at least 3 or 4 of the priests are going to be closet semi-believers of the type I mentioned. They kind of believe, but they don't agree with the teachings entirely.

This is just one more nail in the coffin of divine inspiration for morality. Even the priests use their own judgment in deciding what's right and wrong!

It's a crime for a priest, perhaps. But not for this man, who clearly doesn't believe in the confession.

You've just trapped yourself into saying that religious "law" ought to be carried over into secular law. Either that or your statement is contradictory. But then, that wouldn't be a big surprise, would it?

Didn't the Catholic church just have a big to-do about the sanctity of the confessional? Unless I miss my mark, the current pope was at the head of the re-statement of the policy directing priests to use the "sanctity of the confessional" to suppress evidence that priests were molesting children.

Funny... you apparently don't know very much about your own church...

So, I'm getting the feeling you don't read what other people write. It's obvious you don't comprehend much of it if you do.

Sacrilege isn't a crime, dude. The religious consider it an offense, but you see if you have any luck getting someone thrown in jail for sacrilege.

Take 39 minutes and watch this video.

What everybody wants to say is that the confessional is indeed sacred, as long as it is made with the intention of it being sacred, and not simply a cover-up, screw-up or mess-up.

In the cases of sexual abuse (Google video, example given in a different thread), if you watched closely, you might have noticed what the method of hiding things out was: the priest/bishop who received the complain would consider this as a confession, and therefore neither he, or the victim would be able to speak more and publicly about it, thus making it impossible to be saved physically and spiritually at the same time.

The question thus remains: when is breaking the seal such a horrible crime? When it is used to unmask another horrible crime? I don't think so. Is unmasking a priest/group of priests that give false advice to people who rely on their advices such a horrible crime?

In my opinion, the action of the reporter wasn't but an attempt to prove a very old and very obvious problem in the Church, that, for some reason or another, isn't obvious to everyone.

It is sacred regardless of context.

But. you see, the seal of the confessional only applies to the priest who hears the confession. The person is obligated to tell the proper authorities if such action took place. I ought to have clarified about the previous statement where I said that the reporter broke the seal of the confessional, where I meant that he had committed a sacrilege against the sanctity of the confessional in general, and against the seal of confession only indirectly. My apologies if I generated confusion. The penitent may directly tell the bishop about his sins if this is pertinent. The irreligious statements of the reporter are given about men who cannot defend themselves, because of the seal which binds them and is an injust abuse of the privilege of confession. It is also sacrilege because it is the case of a man (who I'm not even sure was Catholic) basically lying to God about sins. This, in itself, is a mortal sin.

Yes for the above reasons. He also is not unmasking anyone, as the priests have no way to defend themselves against his charges due to the seal of confession.

It is an offense against God, which sends you to hell, which I'd say is a pretty big consequence. And, even if the reporter is not Catholic, it is insulting, disrespectful, and an injustice against what Catholics believe. It is like someone raping your mother's dead corpse on national television - it's not a just thing to do to anyone.

There are legal precedents in almost every country which maintain the right of a priest to maintain secrecy in the case of the confessional. Further, there are Church laws which would excommunicate and degrade any cleric who dared to break the seal, as well as being the fact that the action is mortally sinful.

Pentitent. And I already showed how that was wrong in the above.

Yours In Christ, Eternal Wisdom,
StMichael

Pedophilia and these sorts of actions ARE condemned by Church law. They are clear grounds for degrading one from the priesthood. The action in moving them around and covering up abuse was in violation of what the Church teaches. There will always be bad priests and bishops - remember Judas Iscariot?
The same can be applied where priests have broken the seal of confession. Some priests have done so, very infrequently, but they have. But just because they have doesn't mean that the Church sanctions such; in fact, the opposite is clearly true.

Yours In Christ, Eternal Wisdom,
StMichael

The problem is that the "higher-ups" either did not know about the problem or had a hard time correcting it (due to curial inefficency, among other things). The slowness of the curia reacting and in processing cases is still an issue. However, these things are being fixed.
I also don't see what you mean when you say it's the "whole tree." These problems don't occur with the sort of frequency we find in America when we look at Asian Catholic dioceses, or African ones, or South American ones. European dioceses do not have nearly as many. They might have problems, but pedophilia is not found in the same degree you find it in America. But even in America, the problem is only among 1-2% of all priests, which is about the same as the faculty at most universities, which is bad, but not as widespread as you might believe.

Yours In Christ, Eternal Wisdom,
StMichael

Yes, the priest would be bound regardless.

Yours In Christ, Eternal Wisdom,
StMichael

There are two species of sin, as you might already know, which are "mortal" and "venial." A mortal sin, as the name implies, is like a "mortal wound" to the soul - it "kills" the soul, cutting it off completely in its relationship with God. A venial sin is any act that is sinful, but does not totally cut one off from God. It merely "wounds" the soul in its relationship with God. There are conditions which make a sin mortal: fulness of consent, knowledge that the act was evil, and that the sin was a grave matter. A lack of any one of these conditions makes the sin venial. However, habitual venial sin can likewise cut off one's relationship with God. Venial sins can be remitted by acts of prayer, good works, and the like. Mortal sin may only be remitted by God's grace in the Sacrament of Penance and inhibits the soul from recieving the grace of the other sacraments, as well as generally cutting the soul off from God (prayer, ect.). Contrition and penance is necessary to remit the mortal sin.

Yours In Christ, Eternal Wisdom,
StMichael

While it depends upon the specific belief of their various sects (Protestants have different beliefs almost between each individual member), generally sin is a somewhat sticky notion for them. Each sin, no matter how small, could be said to carry infinite punishment. Likewise, the whole of humanity is intrinsically corrupt and every act which is committed prior to faith is an infinite sin (according to Luther, Calvin, and many of the other Reformers). So, in a certain sense, individual sin doesn't so much matter, as human beings have no capacity to do the good naturally or even really supernaturally by God's grace. This is what is generally meant by the term "sola fide" or "by faith alone." It is a total and utter reliance on God for any and all good done. This is why Luther wrote the treatise, "On the Bondage of the Will" (why free-will doesn't exist). It is also why the Catholic Church condemned him as a heretic and excommunicated him.

Yours In Christ, Eternal Wisdom,
StMichael