this post was submitted on 09 May 2025
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The Catholic Church has issued a warning to its clergy in Washington state: Any priest who complies with a new law requiring the reporting of child abuse confessions to authorities will be excommunicated.

https://www.newsweek.com/catholic-church-excommunicate-priests-following-new-us-state-law-2069039

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[–] TheRealKuni@midwest.social 28 points 1 month ago (55 children)

Separation of church and state goes both ways.

Confession is a religious rite. Try to legislate that rite is a violation of that separation.

Priests are bound by their office to maintain absolute confidentiality of confessed sins. Otherwise people are not likely to confess their sins.

It doesn’t matter how you, personally, feel about this or their religion or the value of confession as a sacrament, that’s their religion. The state doesn’t get to intervene.

The church should stay out of state affairs, and the state should stay out of church affairs. Exceptions exist, like when practices are outright criminal in themselves. But the state cannot compel a priest to violate their office. This is long accepted. You cannot compel a priest to testify about confession, for example.

Priests can encourage people to go to the police, but that’s it. Their role in confession is between the sinner and their god.

[–] PunkRockSportsFan@fanaticus.social 9 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Yeah religion is a great cover for abusing kids.

[–] phx@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 month ago (2 children)

This isn't about priests abusing kids (though that's definitely a recurring issue as well), it's about people who have done so confessing such to a priest.

I'm not religious so don't really have any stake in this, but it's interesting that it is specifically about child sex abuse and not other major crimes such as rape, murder etc. That makes me worried as "for children" is often used as a testing ground for stuff that will be expanded upon later, and there's a lot of stuff people likely confess - supposedly under strict confidence - to their religious figures.

[–] Squirrelanna@lemmynsfw.com 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Confession is about reconciliation with god and anyone that comes to ask forgiveness from their deity should be willing to make it right with the people they hurt by taking responsibility and accepting the consequences in a tangible way rather than thoughts and prayers.

[–] phx@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I agree - and I would hope any advice given by a priest would cover this - but if it becomes a mandatory thing where does it end. Should priests report abortions in states that have made then illegal? How about sheltering an undocumented immigrant, or any number of things that the current administration might decide they don't like?

[–] Squirrelanna@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 4 weeks ago

No, and the difference is that reporting pedophilia isn't a slippery slope to criminalizing human rights. The source of the problem is completely unrelated.

[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 0 points 4 weeks ago

You can't make diddling a child right, ever. But man, so glad diddy had something named after him...

[–] Vandals_handle@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Along with the laity, priests must also go to confession. So it does provide cover for priests abusing kids.

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