Exempt
Protect the children…except when it’s priests harming them.
In 33 states, clergy are exempt from any laws requiring professionals such as teachers, physicians and psychotherapists to report information about alleged child sexual abuse to police or child welfare officials if the church deems the information privileged.
That’s so interesting in the light of the fact that the Catholic church has a long long long and very full history of looking fixedly in the other direction while priests rape children.
This loophole has resulted in an unknown number of predators being allowed to continue abusing children for years despite having confessed the behavior to religious officials. In many of these cases, the privilege has been invoked to shield religious groups from civil and criminal liability after the abuse became known to civil authorities.
The very people most likely to take advantage of people’s trust to molest their children are the ones who get to tell the cops to take a hike.
Over the past two decades state lawmakers like Romero have proposed more than 130 bills seeking to create or amend child sex abuse reporting laws, an Associated Press review found. All either targeted the loophole and failed to close it, or amended the mandatory reporting statute without touching the clergy privilege amid intense opposition from religious groups. The AP found that the Roman Catholic Church has used its well-funded lobbying infrastructure and deep influence among lawmakers in some states to protect the privilege, and that influential members of the Mormon church and Jehovah’s Witnesses have also worked in statehouses and courts to preserve it in areas where their membership is high.
In Maryland a successful campaign to defeat a proposal that would have closed the clergy-penitent loophole was led by a Catholic cardinal who would later be defrocked for sexually abusing children and adult seminarians.
Hail Mary, eh?
“They believe they’re on a divine mission that justifies keeping the name and the reputation of their institution pristine,” said David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, speaking of several religious groups. “So the leadership has a strong disincentive to involve the authorities, police or child protection people.”
Or to put it another way, they want to get away with it, and they use religious privilege to bully lawmakers into letting them. I don’t believe they believe it’s anything to do with any divine mission. They just want to protect themselves and their racket.
Or should that be “Suffer the little chiildren to come unto me?”; no I mean “let the little children suffer when I come unto them.”
Anyway, a trip to the Confessional, a few ‘Hail Marys’ as penitence, and the Religiously Privileged are set to start another round of the same. Two abusers could even hear one anothers’ confessions and give each other absolution. Probably happens all the time. God only knows what additional clerical excitement the confessions arouse. Probably stuff in there for a hundred porno movies. Thousands even.
Christ to Peter: (Matt 16.19) “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.…”
That can certainly be taken more than one way. And probably is.
I don’t understand the reluctance of the authorities to clip the wings of these shrivelling institutions. But then again, I have a hard time understanding how a guy who rapes children can still stand before his congregation and presume to give them moral instruction. To live a life that is a complete lie like that …
This is the same church that still fights tooth and nail against same sex marriage, even as a civil institution, fights for the “dignity” of human life to prolong the suffering of terminally ill patients, and most loudly pushes laws against women’s reproductive freedom.
The Catholic Church is a den of vipers, sadducees and pharisees, hypocrites who would crucify Jesus to save their skins.
It isn’t just protecting clergy-rapists. A priest is uniquely placed to see abusers in his congregation. Catholics are desperate to keep ‘official’ confession above the law, for reasons… but this exemption means they have no obligation to concern themselves with the conduct of ANYONE in their ‘flock.’
‘Good shepherds’ huh?
When I started therapy, my therapist told me that, while our conversations were privileged communications, there was no exemption if I confessed a crime. (I didn’t – I had none to confess, at least not if I was honest, and I was). He said if I needed that sort of exemption, the only one who could give me that was a religious leader. I thought then, and I think now, that is bogus.
I don’t think therapists should be exempt from reporting crimes such as rape or murder that are discussed. I also don’t think clergy should.
Where I was at the time, it was not strongly Catholic. All the religious leaders have that exemption, and even those who don’t hear regular confessions often perform counseling services. They are all exempt. And it isn’t just the Catholic priests who rape; all the denominations seem to do that. It’s just the others don’t have a centralized structure led by a charismatic leader, and tons of money and other valuables stashed away. Those cases get a lot less attention in the press, but they are probably as frequent as the Catholics…just not with the same protection racket. They have to rely on their congregation’s loyalty – and often can.
Full of
graceshit.@iknklast,
It’s telling that the proposed law in Utah is also opposed by the Mormons. While the head of the church doesn’t have as high a profile as the daddy in Rome, it’s still very much a top-down organization, and it looks like the legislators in the state understand their orders.
The Catholic Church, like nearly all religions may have a core of worthwhile beliefs and ideals, but is (like all religions) utterly corrupted as an organisation. On top of that the Catholic Church is a fucking death cult that revels in the misery of it’s adherents and toys to persuade them there is beauty in it. I’m doing my best to care for my elderly father as he goes through the final stage of life. He’s in pain, has limited mobility and numerous serious physical ailments. Recently his once razor sharp brain has begun to falter and he is now deeply confused and bewildered by what is happening to him. On top of all that he is profoundly deaf. A catholic I know recently emailed me wishing that I ‘enjoy this special time with your father’. Fuck that shit.
Rob, I suppose there are some elements of good in their beliefs, and they did generate some amazing art over the ages (of course, part of that was because artists were only allowed to do religious art). But I can no longer see the good, because of other beliefs that mask them:
Anti-woman
Guilt
Anti-death with dignity
Guilt
Sex is only for procreation, not recreation
Guilt
We are all sinners
Guilt
We are born bad, with original sin
Guilt
We should hate ourselves and constantly beg forgiveness
Guilt
We should give money and property to the church so God will love us, even if it means we don’t eat
Guilt
And many more. As I recall from my years of enforced church, the beautiful things were all things that could be gotten elsewhere – even the Golden Rule existed before Christianity, no matter what they choose to believe. Some of the ugly things can be gotten elsewhere, too, so why did I need church? I could go to school and get treated like crap, but at least have the chance of learning something worthwhile while I was there.
(If you haven’t guessed, I’m in a bit of a mood right now)
iknklast, I totally get you and you can be as much of a mood as you like. I’ll be right beside you. You’re right of course that the good stuff is not unique to catholicism, christianity, or any other specific religion. I guess my point is that’s it’s better it’s there than not. But you’re right, they also have a lot of bad stufff baked in from day one, and then the power system accretes more self-serving and bad stuff over time.