Okay. I definitely get where everyone is coming from here. We all want to protect kids. I’m not sure this ruling is in the wrong though.
Here’s why. We demonize pedophilia to the point that people would kill someone that is attracted to children. I’m making a specific point here to NOT include child molesters. That’s a separate but very related issue. If we took the time to address the mental health issues that caused them to be attracted to children in the first place (eg, molested as children themselves, some other issue that therapy could address, etc), maybe we could stop them from going so far with their problem and actually save kids before they were abused.
Since they really don’t have anyone to talk to ever, maybe a priest could curb their behavior and act as a counselor to stop further abuse of children. If left unaddressed, maybe the molester would continue with many more victims, and the priest could stop them at 1. But if they no longer felt they could talk to a priest, then they continue.
Basically, as a country we should be doing MUCH better to stop pedophiles from dealing with their issues alone and help prevent them from actually molesting children. Failing that (since we are failing that), why are we trying to take away the next level of therapy for them? It makes no sense to continue to push them into a lonely corner and expect them to do differently. If the priests’ silence allows them to keep the molester from touching more kids, that’s a much better outcome overall.
The issue isn’t with therapy, or talking. The issue is what priests will do when they have evidence that a crime has occured.
I have enough of a Catholic background to know that confession isn’t a “Get Out Of Hell Free” card. You are supposed to be repentant, and part of that is owning up to any crime you might have committed and turning yourself in. Because of you are confessing a crime to your priest, they can’t really be sure that you are truly repentant until you make good for your transgression with the legal authorities.
But! Catholic priests have been caught diddling kids for years, and when the church found out about it, they preferred to deal with it “internally”. Instead of submitting the priests to secular authorities, they shuffled them off to some other parish to try to be repentant there. Often times, they just ended up doing it again. Where was the Catholic Church’s deeply held beliefs then?
This is why there is so much hostility with the church right now, they can act all sanctimonious when someone tries to impose reporting requirements on them but we know that they have covered shit like this up in the past. Any goodwill they might have had being religious leaders is now depleted. Why shouldn’t we treat them like everyone else?
No, we need hard-ass fucking laws to protect children because our moral-fiber as a nation has been eroded away deliberately by capital forces that would absolutely package underage children for consumers if they could get away with it.
We are in a country where the average American thinks that one out of five people is transgender and many think that they are a threat to children, people who think our biggest threat comes from people in drag stalking public bathrooms, and yet are giving passes left and right to actual predators in positions of power. The conservative base in America broadly believes children are property, to be owned, enslaved, abused or used as desired. Right below this post is an update on Florida’s efforts to bring back child-labor on factory farms.
We absolutely fucking need better, harsher, stronger laws to protect our vulnerable people, be it children or handicapped or elderly. Particularly from fucking PRIESTS who are one of the biggest groups of offenders who protect each other from consequence. Fuck off with this stinking mess we call “Christianity” in the United States, if Jesus came back he would be flipping every last table and smacking every “Christian” into last century.
Let’s rephrase. Think of talking to a priest in this case a really poor level of free mental Healthcare. You think the best response is to take that away? I’m all for that if it’s replaced with something better. If we aren’t doing that though, then sure, you’d catch a few molesters when it is first announced. Then the other molesters stop talking to their last resort free counseling. And they continue to mess with children.
The entire issue could be solved with better mental Healthcare in the first place. I like the comments that suggested priests be required to refer these people to a program designed for them. Not straight to jail, but straight to better help so they’d top touching kids, and others will still come through and benefit as well.
I didn’t realize we were already entering the “leftism is bad now” arc. Just let me know when it rolls back around to being cool.
The biggest issue we have right now is people generally are deeply unserious about anything. “Oh no, this thing I’m tired of hearing about again, pile that on top of Gaza and Epstein files with all the other cheap distractions that I don’t have the attention span or emotional intelligence to handle.”
Okay. I definitely get where everyone is coming from here. We all want to protect kids. I’m not sure this ruling is in the wrong though.
Here’s why. We demonize pedophilia to the point that people would kill someone that is attracted to children. I’m making a specific point here to NOT include child molesters. That’s a separate but very related issue. If we took the time to address the mental health issues that caused them to be attracted to children in the first place (eg, molested as children themselves, some other issue that therapy could address, etc), maybe we could stop them from going so far with their problem and actually save kids before they were abused.
Since they really don’t have anyone to talk to ever, maybe a priest could curb their behavior and act as a counselor to stop further abuse of children. If left unaddressed, maybe the molester would continue with many more victims, and the priest could stop them at 1. But if they no longer felt they could talk to a priest, then they continue.
Basically, as a country we should be doing MUCH better to stop pedophiles from dealing with their issues alone and help prevent them from actually molesting children. Failing that (since we are failing that), why are we trying to take away the next level of therapy for them? It makes no sense to continue to push them into a lonely corner and expect them to do differently. If the priests’ silence allows them to keep the molester from touching more kids, that’s a much better outcome overall.
That hasn’t worked for the last 1,000 years and it isn’t going to start working now.
The issue isn’t with therapy, or talking. The issue is what priests will do when they have evidence that a crime has occured.
I have enough of a Catholic background to know that confession isn’t a “Get Out Of Hell Free” card. You are supposed to be repentant, and part of that is owning up to any crime you might have committed and turning yourself in. Because of you are confessing a crime to your priest, they can’t really be sure that you are truly repentant until you make good for your transgression with the legal authorities.
But! Catholic priests have been caught diddling kids for years, and when the church found out about it, they preferred to deal with it “internally”. Instead of submitting the priests to secular authorities, they shuffled them off to some other parish to try to be repentant there. Often times, they just ended up doing it again. Where was the Catholic Church’s deeply held beliefs then?
This is why there is so much hostility with the church right now, they can act all sanctimonious when someone tries to impose reporting requirements on them but we know that they have covered shit like this up in the past. Any goodwill they might have had being religious leaders is now depleted. Why shouldn’t we treat them like everyone else?
Question - do we know this is the case? Or is it like other sexual affinities, like S&M or fetishism?
No, we need hard-ass fucking laws to protect children because our moral-fiber as a nation has been eroded away deliberately by capital forces that would absolutely package underage children for consumers if they could get away with it.
We are in a country where the average American thinks that one out of five people is transgender and many think that they are a threat to children, people who think our biggest threat comes from people in drag stalking public bathrooms, and yet are giving passes left and right to actual predators in positions of power. The conservative base in America broadly believes children are property, to be owned, enslaved, abused or used as desired. Right below this post is an update on Florida’s efforts to bring back child-labor on factory farms.
We absolutely fucking need better, harsher, stronger laws to protect our vulnerable people, be it children or handicapped or elderly. Particularly from fucking PRIESTS who are one of the biggest groups of offenders who protect each other from consequence. Fuck off with this stinking mess we call “Christianity” in the United States, if Jesus came back he would be flipping every last table and smacking every “Christian” into last century.
Let’s rephrase. Think of talking to a priest in this case a really poor level of free mental Healthcare. You think the best response is to take that away? I’m all for that if it’s replaced with something better. If we aren’t doing that though, then sure, you’d catch a few molesters when it is first announced. Then the other molesters stop talking to their last resort free counseling. And they continue to mess with children.
The entire issue could be solved with better mental Healthcare in the first place. I like the comments that suggested priests be required to refer these people to a program designed for them. Not straight to jail, but straight to better help so they’d top touching kids, and others will still come through and benefit as well.
For the love of fuck, can we stop blaming literally everything on capitalism? These issues long predate capitalism.
How about calling out mental health care for profit?
deleted by creator
I didn’t realize we were already entering the “leftism is bad now” arc. Just let me know when it rolls back around to being cool.
The biggest issue we have right now is people generally are deeply unserious about anything. “Oh no, this thing I’m tired of hearing about again, pile that on top of Gaza and Epstein files with all the other cheap distractions that I don’t have the attention span or emotional intelligence to handle.”