Do you think religions should be required to report sexual abuse when someone goes in to confess it? I have a family member that confessed to abusing

@Persephonee Should that same exemption apply to other clubs covering up crimes? Churches must not have any special status.

@NortiusMaximus Why shouldn't they? (The same exemption, insofar as there is a sacramental role for confession within, eg, Islam, should apply to other religions, it goes without saying).

Also, it's not an "exemption" at all. There is no exemption re. the confessional seal, about anything.

And the point is it's not "covering up" anything. Re-read my final paragraphs. If someone takes sacramental confession seriously, they will take an obligation to inform/admit guilt also seriously.

Now should the Church impose on confession of certain things, admission of guilt to secular authorities for full absolution? I'm not against that, but that has to be a Church matter.

The issue here is about immortal souls. I'm very sorry if that point, through your own beliefs, passes you by.

@Persephonee No, the issue here is about covering up serious crimes. If the leader of any other club discovered evidence that a club member was commiting serious crimes, such as child abuse, they would be expected to report it it. Exactly the same expectation should apply even when the club calls itself a religion.

Any person who has evidence of a crime, including a conffession, can be called to court to give that evidence in any trial. You seem to be asking for religious leaders to be given special exemption from that obligation.

@NortiusMaximus If a priest through regular day to day activities sees or hears evidence that there is abuse (sticking with this example, but it applies to anything at all) is taking place or has done, he is free to contact the appropriate authorities himself.

If he is told of something in the sanctity of the sacrament of Confession, he is not. It's as simple as that. This isn't a rule by a state (though many states recognise that a priest cannot be compelled to give evidence he received in private confession), but of the priest's Church. It's perfectly fine not to believe in God, (I've no idea whether you do or don't), but remember the priest does. And he will take his obligations to Him very very seriously, seriously enough that he will sometimes be prepared to go to prison for them. (The Church has enough martyrs in her history, after all). The state can threaten imprisonment but it cannot literally force words out of a man's mouth.

If he learns of the same crime, both through sacramental Confession, and also through day to day life in some other way, he remains, incidentally, free to report it (provided nothing he knows only through the Confession is related to the police).

This isn't carte blanche for a religious leader to cover up evidence of crimes. It is a very specific set of circumstances which only happen when someone says to him "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned" (or words to this effect). In any other situation, I don't have a particular problem with a reporting requirement. And the exemption relates to deeply held religious belief which the state isn't going to do much to shift anyway, so really, trying to enforce such a requirement vis a vis Confession is a non-starter.

@Persephonee So you're advocating a special exemption for religious leaders (all or just christian?) from the general legal obligation to give evidence when called to do so. If s/he's willing yo go to prison for his or her beliefs, sobeit. S/he can stay there and rot until s/he dies or decides to obey the law, whichever comes first.

That is exactly what it is. There would be no way of knoing whather a priest gained evidence of a crime through a confession or by some other route.

If your child were tortured and killed and the killer admitted the crime to a priest in the confessional, would you really want that priest to kept quiet about it? That's what you're advocating amounts to.

@NortiusMaximus
Yes.

I appreciate you find the difference completely intangible, but there IS a difference between 'keeping quiet' when a priest gains evidence of a crime through normal conversation, observation, etc, and keeping an absolute inviolable secret (even if something potentially awful).

I'd point out the following things, though:
1) As said previously, if a penitent comes to believe or or suspect that their confessor will immediately go to the appropriate authorities with the details of the confession, if they admit to a serious crime, then they probably won't confess it anyway. This is therefore worse than the status quo, because the crime is going unreported anyway, plus the perpetrator's own soul is in even greater jeopardy than it was already. (Which we might say, if he/she's genuinely done this awful thing then good, but surely we don't WANT anyone to be damned, even if we suspect plenty are).

2) a) While not all confessions these days are done in the traditional confessional where penitent and priest only hear each other, many are - and every penitent has the right to ask for the traditionally anonymous confession anyway. If one is going to confess something which, if divulged, would get one (rightly) in trouble with secular authorities, one will make arrangements for anonymity, meaning all a priest (and thus the police) would have to go on anyway would be an unattributable confession.

No matter how seriously the police take (in this continuing example) allegations of child abuse, I suspect they would demand some kind of evidence beyond this before they started looking into the matter (their resources are not infinite, after all). Whether confessed anonymously or not, the only 'evidence' the priest has is what someone has said to him - and what an (alleged) criminal may say to a priest, they may not say to anyone else.

3) A confession isn't a chat about something awkward (never mind, in this example, criminal!) between two people. It's an admission to God of one's wrongdoing. The priest is in the room for several interlinked reasons (which again you may or may not have time for). We confess to God, and the priest, in that moment represents God, and in effect speaks for him (which is why the absolution he gives includes the words "I absolve you..." and not "God absolves..."). By hearing those actual words said, we in a spiritual sense are of course absolved, but also comforted (the argument goes) emotionally, being literally reminded of the fact, and the support the Church and her ministers (despite the stereotype of priestly and sisterly arch-judgementalism!) in doing better thereafter.

The point being, certainly in a spiritual-moral sense, a priest does no more than overhear a penitent name his sins to God. Unless God is going to get put on the witness stand, this presents further difficulties of evidence, because we're going to wade very deeply into issues of hearsay.

4) Related to (3), a priest hearing confessions is going to hear boatloads of them, of major and minor sins, in a short space of time (especially today when there's such a priestly shortage anyway). Combine this busy-ness (he can't after all leap out of a confessional and go straight to a policeman, even if he felt so inclined), with the fact that priests are essentially trained to broadly forget and generally blur confessions together (for their own sanity as much as anything), evidential issues are compounded further. Certainly by the time an alleged offence came to trial, any priest would be a hopeless prosecution witness.

5) More fundamentally priests shouldn't be the state's spies vis-a-vis their congregations, which is basically what a reporting requirement entails. Were they to start doing this, we loop back to the outcome of (1) above anyway.

@Persephonee

So, even if your child were tortured and killed, you would still want a priest to withhold evidence about the crime. It's clear you put special privileges of priests (just christian ones?) over the safety and well being of your own children. Have you told your child(ren) and those of your friends and relatives that? Obviously, if a priest doesn't know who made the confession s/he won't have much evidence to pass to the authorities anyway.

That's just a matter of religious belief. Not everyone shares that belief.

Again, that's just a matter of religious belief. If a person wants to confess to their imaginary friend, they can do it directly, no need to to involve a third party. You're advocating special treatment/rights for members of a particular club that you approve of. If christian priests are to be allowed to withhold evidence, there is no reason to not extend that right to everyone.

No, confession is not hearsay. Hearsay is when a person passes on what another person said about a third party. i.e.' X' told me that 'Y' did it. 'X' admitting to doing it herself is confession and, as such, admissible in evidence (at least in the UK).

That same arguement could be applied to anyone, not just religious leaders.

@NortiusMaximus Yes, finally, we're in agreement.

It's a matter of religious belief.

Most of the time precepts of one's faith and demands of the state don't necessarily conflict, but sometimes they do and this would be one of those times. The Church's history (and this is broader than Christianity, after all) is littered with examples of courageous men and women, both in ancient times and the 21st century, who refused to kowtow to excessively intrusive demands of their state, even to the point of suffering death. Sorry but the simple matter is that the confessional seal is so fundamental that it's not negotiable, and has never been.

You don't need to resort to "imaginary friend" insults. You yourself recognise that to me (and millions of others), God isn't imaginary anyway. Again this is not something that you can argue away, if one has belief.

The point I was making about hearsay was that in the sacrament of Confession, the penitent talks to God. The priest is there as an intermediary, and in effect is merely overhearing a conversation between a human being and God. While a priest ideally offers advice and counsel during a confession, he also doesn't actually need to (and arguably shouldn't) listen to every minute detail. The priest says words of absolution in return, of course, but he does so on behalf of God, rather than acting in his own power as a human being.

God can't be a witness (and I can't help feeling would be rather hostile, whichever side called him!), and He is the addressee in the sacrament of Confession. That's the point I was making.

Yes, we can in real privacy admit to God our own wrongdoings. The sacrament, however, is something which Christ established, and the tradition descends entirely from Apostolic times (even if the form, such as public vs private confession) has changed over time.

Were Confession to be abolished (as though that were possible) and we all in the privacy of our bedrooms admitted our own faults, there would be even less likelihood of information a priest discovered being reported, so don't argue for that.


Exactly. But religious leaders are in a particular and very personal position of trust, as well.

@Persephonee

I presume you referring to the fact that you would be happy for a priest to cover up a crime of your child being abused and killed. TBH, from what a lot of christians say here, I can't say I'm surprised. :(

A religion is just a club for people with similar interests. Club rules must never be permitted to take precedence over the law but that's what you're advocating - allowing the club leaders (priests) to withhold evidence of serious crimes.

The law is not negotiable either. No one, not even someone claiming to speak for a god, can be permitted to pick and choose which laws they want to obey.

Your beliefs do not change the facts. Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy, The Easter Bunny etc. are not imaginary to millions of children either.

That still wouldn't make what the priest hears hearsay. Don't just take my word for it, you can find a an explanation of hearsay and the rules of evidence in any basic legal textbook.

Irrelevant, it all comes down to whether rules made or established by a club should be allowed to override the law. I say they shouldn't; you appear to advocate their being allowed to in the case of a certain club.

No, it would not make any difference if priests withheld evidence anyway.

That's no excuse for covering up serious crimes.