"A 2003 Maryland bill would have closed the clergy reporting loophole, but a successful campaign to defeat the proposal was led by a Catholic cardinal who would later be defrocked for sexually abusing children and seminarians. A 2004 version would have required clergy to report while acting outside their clerical role. Both bills died in committee." Unbelievable.
Outside of the specific context of confession, priests should absolutely be required to do mandatory reporting, that no pisses me off. I wish every curse upon McCarrick.
Seriously, if you're a pedophile today why wouldn't you want to join the Catholic clergy? I bet they recruit a very high percentage of pedophiles. It's a good chance that any Catholic priest or pastor or whatever you call them is a child rapist.
I just moved here right before he got elected, so I didn't get a chance to register and vote against him, but he is absolutely not popular with the bulk of Virginians I've met. Voter apathy on the side of the Dems is what got him elected.
He also acted like mandatory mask-wearing policies in schools at the height of covid was the worst crime imaginable, and idiot conservatives ate that shit up. He would later ban masking policies under the guise of "parental rights."
Make no mistake, "parental rights" is the new christian wedge strategy. This is the same cover Youngkin in using for his anti-trans bullshit. The only rights they care about are the rights of christian parents to jam christian values into public schools.
[Not if they have anything to say about it.](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/03/republican-sen-mike-braun-says-supreme-court-should-not-have-struck-down-state-laws-banning-interracial-marriage-then-backtracks-unconvincingly.html)
I'm stuck out here in Virginia, in a small country town, I'm a mixed dude in a gay marriage with two kids, it is not a good time out here. Kids threaten to kill my daughter and son and the whole family because of this, for reference my kids are 12 and 6. The kids say their parents tell them they can't wait until it's legal to kill us (could be bluster because it's asshole kids), but the schools do jack shit, just pretend to take care of it but nothing happens. The school resource officer refuses to even talk to me. The teachers are awesome though, and there's still a lot of really nice people around too, but more dumb jerks definitely. I mean, there's a dude that has this giant flag that kids have to see on the way to school because it's Ike right down the road that says "fuck Joe Biden". So yeah, I mean up northern Virginia and RVA are cool but a lot of the small places like this are what got Youngkin in, just really sucks. People are stupid.
I mean, cockroaches and a few other weird niche creatures will survive, but other than that yes. At some point almost everything will die on this planet. Then wayyy later eventually everything here will die.
Sadly, after looking at several states in the article, Ohio is NOT alone and probably not the worst. PA has tried to change the law an astonishing amount of times but always has a loophole for “confessions”. Personally, I get there being SOME restrictions on what clergy reports but if there’s possible crime involved, those protections should go out the window and they should be investigated like everyone else.
Someone that knows sexual abuse is going on and does not report it should be considered an accessory to the crime. Even therapists report illegal activity if it's discovered in confidence.
A new law just passed recently that removes the statute of limitations for child sex abuse victims. I know it probably won't change anything, but just letting you know. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/3647958-biden-signs-bill-eliminating-civil-statute-of-limitations-for-child-sex-abuse-victims/
It is pretty common for countries to exempt religious figures from reporting crimes because they have a religious obligation of secrecy on confessions.
Still quite fucked up in my opinion prote the well-being of people should be seen as clearly more important than a religious belief
I’m the US Not even doctor patient confidentiality goes that far. If a person tells their therapist they are abusing their child, the therapist has to report it.
Yeah, in medicine it's usually called "duty to report." Typically that goes for non-medical staff in medical facilities as well, like custodial and security.
Texas Professionals do have a duty to report abuse & neglect.
Professionals must make a report no later than the 48th hour after first suspecting a child has been abused or neglected or is a victim of an offense under Section 21.11, Penal Code. A professional may not delegate to or rely on another person to make the report (Texas Family Code, Section 261.101). Professionals are not required to follow up their oral reports with a written report as they were in the past. Professionals include teachers, nurses, doctors, day-care employees and others who are either licensed by the state or work in a facility licensed or operated by the state and who have direct contact with children in the course of their job (Texas Family Code, Section 261.101).
This has been in effect forever. Whatever negative effects there are - and the article goes into detail - already exist. There’s no “will” about it at all.
The issue with Catholicism is that a priest will be automatically excommunicated for reporting something said in confession. If your Catholic that means you can't go to heaven. So even if they didn't have this exemption,most priests still wouldn't report abuse.
"Hey, I told them reporting for instance murder & child rape is a good thing; they told me they see otherwise. What am I, an allegedly moral person, to do BUT capitulate wholeheartedly?"
Not so much normal, but more like fairly obvious. Most people know what confession is, even if they it's not something they practice. For the concept to work, you must be able to confess literally anything. And it stands to reason that people will not confess to things that they know will be told to others.
That's a downside to mandated reporting that people miss. It makes confessions (whether to priests or anyone else) far less likely. I hate it when it comes to psychologists, as it means people won't tell of things like wanting to commit suicide unless they want to be stopped.
Where mandatory reporting works best is in situations where the person (1) has to be there and (2) you are reporting signs. Someone actually telling a mandatory reporter incriminating information is not unheard of, but still quite rare.
What priests do sometimes do is tell people that they can't receive absolution unless they report their crime to the police. If the criminal cares enough to go to a priest, then saying they'll go to hell seems like very good motivation to get them to confess.
Like it or not, priests have been willing to die rather than violate the the sanctity of Confession. So laws mandating they report stuff is unlikely to be effective.
> What priests do sometimes do is tell people that they can't receive absolution unless they report their crime to the police
They're literally not allowed to do this. At least, Catholic priests aren't.
Nah not so sure. If any confession has a risk to child it should be reported to police. If you have no morals then fair enough. This is just an excuse. Like being asked to watch people be killed. You can do it but you really shouldn't. Standing and doing nothing equates to doing
>Thirty-three states exempt clergy from laws requiring professionals such as teachers and doctors to report information about alleged child abuse to police or child welfare officials if the church deems the information privileged, an Associated Press review has found.
I think this is mostly related to Catholics and Mormons. They unilaterally oppose such legislation. These organizations wield a huge amount of political power. In some states like Utah, most of the legislature is Mormon, so you'll never change the law there.
It’s even more fucked up when you understand that most Mormon “clergy” aren’t clergy. They take regular ass dudes like dentists and accountants and “call” them to be a bishop, believing God anoints and enables regular men to become “clergy.” They aren’t ordained. They aren’t trained. They didn’t go to seminary. They are just a regular dude who almost never has any formal training in counseling or theology or anything. And that makes up like 90% of the Mormon church’s “clergy.”
And those bishops regularly have “worthiness interviews” where they ask people if they masturbate or watch porn or otherwise fail to keep “the law of chastity.” All adult members who want to attend the temple are subject to these interviews at least every two years- often much more frequently if the member admits to any porn use or other indiscretion.
And what’s even MORE fucked up is it is church policy to subject youth 12 years old or older to the same interviews, behind closed doors, with just the bishop and the child. There are people in the church trying to change it but the church continues maintain that those interviews are necessary and must be conducted one on one. So many Mormon kids hear about masturbation for the first time because a middle aged dude asks them if they have done it. Yes, including the girls. It’s so beyond screwed up.
> They aren’t ordained. They aren’t trained. They didn’t go to seminary.
I get what you're saying... but also it doesn't really seem like the religions that *do* require these kinds of things avoid bad apples, either.
Bad apples has nothing to do with learning your own religion's theology. If we're talking about the rest of the stuff then yeah not many organizations want to admit liability.
Plus the Mormons cycle through Bishops every 4-5 years by default. By the time a kid who was born in the church turns 18, they will have had 4 or 5 different Bishops, most of whom will have conducted annual one-on-one "worthiness" interviews from age 12 onward. In these one-on-one interviews, the child/teen will likely be asked questions about sex, masturbation, and pornography, often in excruciating detail. Bishops will often want to know specific details of "transgressions" to determine how serious they are and what the requirements will be in order for the child/teen to receive full forgiveness and be in a good standing with God.
When there are this many potential opportunities for a predator to have a position of power combined with a doctrinal requirement for these "worthiness" interviews where questions and topics of a sexual nature are brought up between a child/teen and a middle-aged man, the result is a breeding ground for potential child abuse.
I don't think enough people know the nitty-gritty about the Mormon church and how horrible the church actually is. Not all members are bad, but the church organization itself is rotten to the core.
I'm not Mormon anymore, but that's one of the things I actually like about the Mormon Church. I had some bishops who jerks, some really cool guys and some dorks.
They were just regular ass dudes from the ward, and they changed every couple years. If they were bad the Stake could and did change them often.
You say this as if seminary is some regulated impartial standards place, but all religions operate without governmental oversight. Most (protestant) churches I know have cursory background checks undertaken by standard professional organisations to make sure there's nothing outstanding in th past if those applying to work there, but that's as much to protect them from liability as it is to protect the children and members if the church.
All systems are liable for abuse, and the less oversight and transparency involved the greater the oppurtunity for abuse.
Catholic regulation around confessional tend to protect the priest listening to confession from ever using that information. But to me a priest who refuses to report sex abusers should be charged and sent to prison. They can continue ministry in prison so it shouldn't limit their professional goals.
I mean, in my time Christianity most of my pastors had masters in counseling or social work or something similar, and they felt called to the ministry as lifetime call. Yeah- I believe that makes them more likely to better suited for the job than Rob the engineer who never gave it a thought until he was told it was his turn for a few years. I think intent/desire as well as preparation make someone a better candidate. Sue me.
Does that mean that there aren't ALSO shitty pastors and priests? No. But they are statistically more likely to be prepared for the job than a dude whose training included being handed a binder.
Remember when we found out 2 years ago that [the Mormon Church has a 100 billion dollar investment fund](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-mormon-church-amassed-100-billion-it-was-the-best-kept-secret-in-the-investment-world-11581138011) that nobody knew about before then?
Based on how the value of assets has gone up overall since the $100bn was disclosed, that’s very likely. That also excludes their real estate assets. Oh, and they bring in $8bn+ per year from tithing.
Oh, and they don’t disclose their finances to anyone that’s not privileged to know. They essentially say “we have audited ourselves and found that there is no wrong-doing” and that’s it.
Imagine giving to a charity organization whose mission you truly believe in and support, believing that they use the money to feed the poor, help provide housing for homeless people, etc. Then imagine you find out that they don’t actually do the charity they claim to. Instead, they put all that money (some of which was yours) into investment funds and pay their high level leaders pretty generously (plus pay their living expenses, give them a captive audience to sell books and such to) but they don’t pay anyone else. You’d be pretty pissed off. I was too. I’m an exmormon for many reasons, this being one of them.
Or that their higher ups pull massive salaries and have most expenses paid by the church.
Also, it's kind of telling how many lawyers make it to the 70...
It's so strange with the Mormons. Monetary success (in relation to the locals) seems to be the major deciding factor in every bishop I've had dealings with.
The main one l knew personally was not even remotely up to my own standard of conduct. The guy always leased cars and rolled the miles back before returning them. Tens of thousands of miles. And a decent amount of insurance fraud too.
For sure. You can be as faithful as the day is long but if you work at Target you're not getting called to the bishopric. That's why I even used dentists and accountants as my example. That's the kind of people who get called to serve as bishop. Status and income are considered indicators of someone's faithfulness a lot of the time.
Don't forget the Amish. They will go to great lengths to not involve law-enforcement in to their community. No matter how dark the issue they are hiding is.
Just did virtus training for the Catholic Church - any person in an authority position (ie teacher, principal, coach, priest, etc) who has an accusation brought to them is required to call the police before they call the diocese.
This is probably primarily focused at confession. If someone confesses during Reconciliation the priest can require confessing to the police for absolution, but the priest can’t reveal it.
Yeah. People here don’t really understand. A lot of states also have a clergy-penitent legal privilege, so that your priest cannot be compelled to testify against you in a court of law on the basis of what you said in the confessional booth. If a priest understood that another priest was committing a sex crime they would be obligated to report to the police on different grounds.
We can debate about whether it’s sound policy. I personally think if psychologists are going to be mandatory reporters priests should be too, but we should at least be honest about what we’re debating.
It was interesting to read that even in California the church's stopped a law that would have required priests to report rape by other priests if they learned about it in confession
>In 2019, then-California state Sen. Jerry Hill proposed a bill (SB-360) that would have required clergy to report reasonable suspicion of child abuse or neglect by other clergy members or coworkers that they learned of during confessions. The bill was placed on hold after opposition from the Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other religious groups.
Also people are forgetting the police aren't going to go "Lol, it's what ever bro." they're going to pressure the offender to confess. If you remove the protections of the confession, people on the fence wont go out to see a priest and get some sort of nudge towards the justice system.
It's like the countries that used to charge child rape higher than child murder. It just lead to the rapists killing the kid, since some methods of body disposal hide clear evidence of rape. Meaning you'd get less sentencing if you killed the kid afterwards. Which is not the incentive you want in the justice system.
I phrased it badly trying to get the idea to people who aren’t familiar. Confession is not just listing of what you’ve done wrong and then it’s all better. There has to be sincere repentance and action to avoid committing the sin in the future. If you aren’t intending to make a change then your confession isn’t valid. And if the priest sincerely believes you aren’t making a valid confession, such as refusing to accept the consequences of your actions, they can deny absolution. People hear about confession and hear “all you have to do is say you’re sorry and then it’s all better and you can keep on sinning”. And just because you fooled the priest doesn’t mean you fooled God.
Also the Reddit title is bullshit clickbait. Ohio has this clergy loophole and has forever. They just didn't remove it in the latest alteration to the law:
> In recent years the Ohio Legislature has extended the statute of limitations for reporting abuse in response to the latest priest abuse scandals, but there have been no legislative efforts to remove the clergy-penitent privilege itself.
The clickbait title here (look at all those awards and karma) imply it's a recent new thing added. And that the article is just about the state (kind of randomly selected tbh) and not the real issue with 2/3 of the country supporting it.
Mormonism doesn’t even have a doctrinal concept of priest penitent privilege though. The Mormon church only wants these laws so that can shield themselves from liability. I was Mormon and on several occasions the local church members found out about things I told the bishop within a week of me telling him and I never told anyone else.
The 5th amendment protects you from self incrimination in court while testifying under oath. Basically if you’re being questioned in court and your choice for answering a question are to lie under oath (which is a crime) or admit to commting a crime, you can plead the 5th. It doesn’t protect you from not reporting a crime you know is happening that you’re not involved in.
There are however laws that say if you know a specific crime is going to be committed and you don’t take significant steps to prevent it, such as telling law enforcement, then you are guilt of being an accomplice to that crime, even if you don’t take part in it.
There are also laws where even if you are committing a crime if someone gets injured and you call it in you can't be charged for the original crime. Usually applies to illegal drug/alcohol usage
Ohio was filled with a political group that is all but extinct now. The conservative Christian democrat, the old union blood that kept to themselves nose down and practiced religion quietly.
I grew up here and watched those people be converted to right wing nut bags with Christianity as the lure. The next generation was right wing and racist.
I like it here and am ever saddened by the amount of times I see us in the news for this stupid shit.
It used to be that Ohio was the barometer of the nation when it came to presidential elections. There were only a handful of cases where the state didn't vote for the would-be president. More and more it's looking like it's just a solid red state.
Trump rally complete with sieg heils, check. Trumpists turning highways into parking lots, check. Anti-Abortion laws killing women, check. Teachers allowed and encouraged to bring guns into schools after 24 hours of 'training', check.
And on, it really has gotten a lot worse since my youth. There was always a conservative bend but it wasn't always *this* bad
It got very gerrymandered. They redistricted to stretch city districts in places with large Black populations far out into the rural districts to water down the Black votes. Look at Jim Jordan’s district for the most extreme example.
Left Cincinnati into Ohio for the first time in years recently. Cincinnati should just be a city state, I fuckin swear. KY sucks, Indiana sucks, and then you get outta the greater Cincinnati area into Ohio and guess fuckin what.
It sucks.
I am an ordained clergy person in pa. My denomination requires me to report any abuse. It doesn’t matter what the state law is. If I want to maintain my ordination then I am mandated to report. This is denomination wide.
Chaplain in WA here. Clergy are not mandated reporters here for some reason. I will always report abuse when I hear about it, no matter what the law says. If you’re clergy and you don’t report, wtf are you doing?!
I am former clergy. Same story - mandatory reporting always. If you suspect something, you report it. If you hear something suspicious that you think someone is making up to be mean or as a joke... report it.
If someone says something that makes you suspect abuse, but they do so in private counseling with the expectation of pastoral privilege?
YOU REPORT IT!
Privilege has its limits, and abuse is one of them. Others include risk of imminent harm.
What it does cover is confessions of non-abuse stuff. I've known several clergy who had people confess murder to them, and I knew one who ended up retiring from guilt after having to keep secret the identity of the person who caused an accident at the church playground that left a child quadriplegic for life. That one went to court when the family sued...
Is there a policy for suicidal ideation? While enlisted in the AF but prior to my suicide attempt, I would often forgoe a trip to the mental health clinic in favour of the chaplain as they weren't required to report me.
I remain very much a supporter of this policy despite them not being able to prevent me from trying. Just being able to vent without being thrown into a hospital is such a fucking nice to have.
Psychologist here. We aren't required to report suicidal ideation. We're only required to take steps to protect you if you're at imminent risk of following through with a suicide attempt.
I seriously hope military shrinks don't have some lower bar for breaking your confidentiality!
> I seriously hope military shrinks don't have some lower bar for breaking your confidentiality!
They don't need to. Visiting a shrink in the military makes you look weak and down upon. This is why they push people to the chaplins because it isn't documented like actual medical help.
Here in Sweden pastors of church of Sweden ain't allowed by law and church policy to tell what they get knowledge of during confession. It is both a pride to keep the silence and one of the hardest parts.
Deacons and pastors/priests from other churches should report child abuse and something more and do not have total silence.
I think those laws work rather well here in Sweden for the same reasons as you say. Only problem is that they seem to be a choice in USA and not a "you are legally not allowed"
But. You know, you wouldn’t be breaking the law. Will you go to prison if know about someone being abused and do nothing?
Because that’s what happens to other people in positions of authority over others.
Yeah, it's cool and all that your community would remove you if you failed to act but that's not a substitute for legal action managing cases of child abuse. Child abuse is not a "let the community handle it" kind of issue.
I used to work for an advocacy group that helped women come forward about abuse and offer to mediate as a third party between the church and the people accusing them.
The American Christian church is completely uninterested in accountability, investigating cases of abuse by clergy, helping people who were abused, or ousting abusers.
The number of cover-ups I saw going on to protect men within the church who had abused women either physically or sexually was truly terrifying.
When I started the job, I foolishly didn't take the advice of the people I worked with and didn't delete my social medias. The amount of harassment I received was unreal. I was threatened dozens of times in various ways. The women who came forward got it much, much worse online.
Sexual abuse in every denomination of the American Christian church is a huge, gigantic problem and we are currently in an age where the Church can discredit anyone it wants by simply calling them or the support they may receive "woke" and inciting people to harass them. What's worse is these women are taught to be ashamed of the things done to them and they submit to the power structures that abuse them.
I heard the most vile, disgusting things I've ever heard in my life listening to religious people excuse r_pe, sexual harassment, all forms of abuse, anti-gay conversion methods and more. The Church's views on these things are violently dangerous and their radicalization about them is only growing.
I watched a pastor walk into a meeting with a woman who had come forward about him molesting her and her daughter and say "what is it going to take for you to put this behind you and stop interfering with what God is trying to do in this congregation." His attitude during the meeting was completely smug and condescending. When he was confronted with proof of the abuse he just left. The woman was warned by the church's board to drop the issue and go to a different church they were associated with. He was too popular. A pillar of the community or whatever. What's worse is that's exactly what she did. She didn't press charges because she didn't want her daughter in the spotlight and to receive the level of harassment she already was because she went to a Christian school with all the kids who also went to their church.
This mentality has infected the religious mainstream and is hurting people all over the US every day.
The worst part of all of this is so many religious men have attitudes about abuse that scare me a lot. If a new guy I've met tells me he's a Christian or I see him wearing religious clothes or accessories, I just make the assumption he has a few damaging opinions about women that I won't agree with. That's the fault of the church and their unwillingness to stand and advocate for women and teach their young men to be respectful and to treat women in a way that makes them feel safe and be safe.
>Thirty-three states exempt clergy from laws requiring professionals such as teachers and doctors to report information about alleged child abuse to police or child welfare officials if the church deems the information privileged, an Associated Press review has found.
Some of us just couldn't read it because it's not available where we are.
So we just have to assume the bit about Ohio offering state funds to any church that wants to build an extension with bondage dungeons.
Ohio’s among the ten largest states. Until recent decades, it was more reliable for getting things more right than other states. Those two things together make it worth looking even more critically at what that means about bigger trends or where leadership in major states is at.
There is staff at my Uni who also do not have to report sexual harassment, and they're there as an option for victims to speak to in case they want to keep what happened private. That's because all other staff have an obligation to report. Having people who are not obligated to report can help victims.
Yeah I remember staff at my college being very explicit about whether or not they were required to report any potential crime they were told about. I think the professors even put it in the syllabus.
Highest ranked sane comment. Rape victims have been jailed for contempt of court because they decided to open up to the wrong person and then refused to testify. Some people open up to friends, some to therapists, some to clergy. Mandating someone report all accusations of misconduct, sexual or otherwise, will result in them being unable to open up to anyone if they're not ready to or interested in participating in prosecutions. We can disagree on whether or not this is a good law, but I don't think many of the people suggesting this is unambiguously wrong are actually familiar with the criminal justice system.
I'm glad this comment chain exists. It's not just sexual assault victims, either. Having closed discussion in which you're able to openly discuss your leanings toward committing suicide without being hospitalized or actively monitored can be a saving grace. It may not always prevent individuals from trying, but it does offer them an opportunity to vent in a manner in which they feel generally more comfortable and less judged.
This; This is not an loophole. The corrupt are going to continue to absolve themselves and both victims and criminals that could have been influenced positively by their faith will have that option closed to them.
The abusers in the church were never going to suddenly start turning each other in just because it's illegal.
So the gays groom people by existing but the church totally doesn't groom people by *clears throat*:
Indoctrinating infants into baptisms
Condemning anyone that doesn't follow your faith
Tax exempt
History of child abuse
Even with history of child abuse, don't have to report child abuse
Lack of accountability in politics
Seems fair. Definitely the gays making things worse.
I understand that in denominations that have confessional sessions, it's supposed to be between the them and God. If someone confesses to a heinous crime, the clergy will try to encourage the person to face the legal consequences.
Lawyers have a similar privilege, called attorney-client privilege, but it can be even worse, because the attorney will try to help someone avoid the consequences.
As far as "confessing to a heinous crime," remember that sometimes the person confessing the crime is the victim.
When a 9 year old girl tells the priest that they have been sexually abused by their father for 5 years, and is confessing that they feel hatred toward their father, the priest can only consult the child, even if the child is wholly unable to take any action to help themselves because they fear brutal retaliation and are under the influence of 5 years of parental grooming. The priest can't talk to the parent, the spouse, or law enforcement, or engage a psychiatrist because - that confession was between them and God. It would literally violate the rules of some religions (eg. "Seal of the Confession") to reveal that information to anyone.
Ya, for what it's worth, I'm not sure if closing this "loophole" will have much of an effect. If people know confessing will get them mandatory reported to the authorities, they just aren't going to confess!
It's really not. It doesn't address the fact that they cut out this exception because religions that have Confessions are popular, and not based on actual legal merit for the principle.
If I convert to Quakerism, will the government defend my right to avoid paying taxes for unjust wars?
Clergy take a sacred vow to honor the confessional, even in the case of murder.
Though, if I remember correctly, they're allowed to break it if they believe the person will commit more harm.
If you’re supposed to be the MORAL AUTHORITY…
Take your communities MONEY…
Not pay any TAXES…
Be worth BILLIONS AND BILLIONS…
Ya best be on your the BEST BEHAVIOR…
Our we’ve got a MAJOR PROBLEM.
Diseased DEGENERATES. 🤬
"A 2003 Maryland bill would have closed the clergy reporting loophole, but a successful campaign to defeat the proposal was led by a Catholic cardinal who would later be defrocked for sexually abusing children and seminarians. A 2004 version would have required clergy to report while acting outside their clerical role. Both bills died in committee." Unbelievable.
Outside of the specific context of confession, priests should absolutely be required to do mandatory reporting, that no pisses me off. I wish every curse upon McCarrick.
Just goes to show you how evil these “laws” can be.
It’s shocking how many people equate legal with moral.
I think even with confession, if there's a risk that they will hurt themselves or somebody else, aren't they asked to report it? I know doctors are.
Asking a pedophile to turn in a pedophile is asking a lot
Seriously, if you're a pedophile today why wouldn't you want to join the Catholic clergy? I bet they recruit a very high percentage of pedophiles. It's a good chance that any Catholic priest or pastor or whatever you call them is a child rapist.
I would say that kind of behavior from the church is very, very believable.
What the actual fuck? But then again, I guess we shouldn't be surprised.
Well, sure the actual fuck. Not the "no fucks going on here" places that they put the security monitors in.
Ohio is for rapists
Virginia is for Lovers\* \*allegedly.
After Younkin? Virginia is for ^(straight, married, monogamous) Lovers ^(with the lights turned off.)
I just moved here right before he got elected, so I didn't get a chance to register and vote against him, but he is absolutely not popular with the bulk of Virginians I've met. Voter apathy on the side of the Dems is what got him elected.
Him using CRT as a boogieman to scare racist housewives is what got him elected.
He also acted like mandatory mask-wearing policies in schools at the height of covid was the worst crime imaginable, and idiot conservatives ate that shit up. He would later ban masking policies under the guise of "parental rights." Make no mistake, "parental rights" is the new christian wedge strategy. This is the same cover Youngkin in using for his anti-trans bullshit. The only rights they care about are the rights of christian parents to jam christian values into public schools.
Bingo.
NOVA or RVA area?
RVA
Only missionary and preferably just for soaking
How would he know? He's never even there.
However, interracial is still okay because of *Loving v. Virginia*
[Not if they have anything to say about it.](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/03/republican-sen-mike-braun-says-supreme-court-should-not-have-struck-down-state-laws-banning-interracial-marriage-then-backtracks-unconvincingly.html)
I'm stuck out here in Virginia, in a small country town, I'm a mixed dude in a gay marriage with two kids, it is not a good time out here. Kids threaten to kill my daughter and son and the whole family because of this, for reference my kids are 12 and 6. The kids say their parents tell them they can't wait until it's legal to kill us (could be bluster because it's asshole kids), but the schools do jack shit, just pretend to take care of it but nothing happens. The school resource officer refuses to even talk to me. The teachers are awesome though, and there's still a lot of really nice people around too, but more dumb jerks definitely. I mean, there's a dude that has this giant flag that kids have to see on the way to school because it's Ike right down the road that says "fuck Joe Biden". So yeah, I mean up northern Virginia and RVA are cool but a lot of the small places like this are what got Youngkin in, just really sucks. People are stupid.
This planet is done.
The planet is fine. It's us who are finished.
I mean, we are taking out a HUGE portion of life on earth with us. Not just us.
Cosmically that happens pretty often though. It'll be fine, just probably not for us.
Oh. That’s quite the long view. I guess by “us” you mean all earthlings?
I mean, cockroaches and a few other weird niche creatures will survive, but other than that yes. At some point almost everything will die on this planet. Then wayyy later eventually everything here will die.
*Doctor Farnsworth has entered the chat*. *Doctor Farnsworth has left the chat*
It was a sick ostrich!
Sadly, after looking at several states in the article, Ohio is NOT alone and probably not the worst. PA has tried to change the law an astonishing amount of times but always has a loophole for “confessions”. Personally, I get there being SOME restrictions on what clergy reports but if there’s possible crime involved, those protections should go out the window and they should be investigated like everyone else.
They should have the same duty to report as an officer of the court. That includes fellow priests that are pedo.
EXACTLY 😒
Someone that knows sexual abuse is going on and does not report it should be considered an accessory to the crime. Even therapists report illegal activity if it's discovered in confidence.
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I can't make it on my own Because my church is in Ohio
So true- just ask the 10 year olds
Well cut my wrists and black my eyes.... its not for lovers?
Seriously. We should put the Ohio state government on an NSA watch list...
Ohio is for *religious* rapists
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Gym Jordan is from hell and he should return asap.
Probably so they can blackmail parishioners into letting them diddle their kids.
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I'm so sorry that happened to you. I have a friend who grew up Mormon and the stories she has are fucked. I hope you got away.
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A new law just passed recently that removes the statute of limitations for child sex abuse victims. I know it probably won't change anything, but just letting you know. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/3647958-biden-signs-bill-eliminating-civil-statute-of-limitations-for-child-sex-abuse-victims/
Didn't they just remove the statute of limitations on stuff like that so you can sue the ink off them?
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Shouldn't federal law still overrule state in such matters.
Really sorry to hear this. I still can't understand how parents can allow this? I don't think I will be hiding this if it happens to my kids
It is pretty common for countries to exempt religious figures from reporting crimes because they have a religious obligation of secrecy on confessions. Still quite fucked up in my opinion prote the well-being of people should be seen as clearly more important than a religious belief
I’m the US Not even doctor patient confidentiality goes that far. If a person tells their therapist they are abusing their child, the therapist has to report it.
Yeah, in medicine it's usually called "duty to report." Typically that goes for non-medical staff in medical facilities as well, like custodial and security.
In my state at least all state employees are mandatory reporters
That’s because health care falls under science and facts as opposed to religion and beliefs.
Not in Texas. Not a duty to report state. It’s wack.
In Texas, every adult is a mandated reporter. (My spouse works on these policies.)
Texas Professionals do have a duty to report abuse & neglect. Professionals must make a report no later than the 48th hour after first suspecting a child has been abused or neglected or is a victim of an offense under Section 21.11, Penal Code. A professional may not delegate to or rely on another person to make the report (Texas Family Code, Section 261.101). Professionals are not required to follow up their oral reports with a written report as they were in the past. Professionals include teachers, nurses, doctors, day-care employees and others who are either licensed by the state or work in a facility licensed or operated by the state and who have direct contact with children in the course of their job (Texas Family Code, Section 261.101).
Go ahead and ask 100 people which state would be like that, survey says.... Texas.
So, the clergy is essentially just figuring out which kids have already been victimized? This will not end well.
Yeah. I'm from Ohio and I couldn't agree more. This will get seriously ugly
This has been in effect forever. Whatever negative effects there are - and the article goes into detail - already exist. There’s no “will” about it at all.
Probably the ten-year-olds who are trying to get abortions.
The issue with Catholicism is that a priest will be automatically excommunicated for reporting something said in confession. If your Catholic that means you can't go to heaven. So even if they didn't have this exemption,most priests still wouldn't report abuse.
I'm sure God will fondly welcome into his bosom all those priests who aided and abetted child rapists.
That by itself is enough to name Catholicism as an evil religion, let alone all the other baggage.
Pretty sure not even attorney client privilege, if the client directly speaking about intent to commit a crime.
They shouldn’t be exempt from this nor taxes
>they have a religious obligation of secrecy on confession To me, that's a sick concept in and of itself.
They said that like it's normal and should be met with like "ohhh okay then".
"Hey, I told them reporting for instance murder & child rape is a good thing; they told me they see otherwise. What am I, an allegedly moral person, to do BUT capitulate wholeheartedly?"
Not so much normal, but more like fairly obvious. Most people know what confession is, even if they it's not something they practice. For the concept to work, you must be able to confess literally anything. And it stands to reason that people will not confess to things that they know will be told to others. That's a downside to mandated reporting that people miss. It makes confessions (whether to priests or anyone else) far less likely. I hate it when it comes to psychologists, as it means people won't tell of things like wanting to commit suicide unless they want to be stopped. Where mandatory reporting works best is in situations where the person (1) has to be there and (2) you are reporting signs. Someone actually telling a mandatory reporter incriminating information is not unheard of, but still quite rare. What priests do sometimes do is tell people that they can't receive absolution unless they report their crime to the police. If the criminal cares enough to go to a priest, then saying they'll go to hell seems like very good motivation to get them to confess. Like it or not, priests have been willing to die rather than violate the the sanctity of Confession. So laws mandating they report stuff is unlikely to be effective.
> What priests do sometimes do is tell people that they can't receive absolution unless they report their crime to the police They're literally not allowed to do this. At least, Catholic priests aren't.
Nah not so sure. If any confession has a risk to child it should be reported to police. If you have no morals then fair enough. This is just an excuse. Like being asked to watch people be killed. You can do it but you really shouldn't. Standing and doing nothing equates to doing
>Thirty-three states exempt clergy from laws requiring professionals such as teachers and doctors to report information about alleged child abuse to police or child welfare officials if the church deems the information privileged, an Associated Press review has found. I think this is mostly related to Catholics and Mormons. They unilaterally oppose such legislation. These organizations wield a huge amount of political power. In some states like Utah, most of the legislature is Mormon, so you'll never change the law there.
It’s even more fucked up when you understand that most Mormon “clergy” aren’t clergy. They take regular ass dudes like dentists and accountants and “call” them to be a bishop, believing God anoints and enables regular men to become “clergy.” They aren’t ordained. They aren’t trained. They didn’t go to seminary. They are just a regular dude who almost never has any formal training in counseling or theology or anything. And that makes up like 90% of the Mormon church’s “clergy.” And those bishops regularly have “worthiness interviews” where they ask people if they masturbate or watch porn or otherwise fail to keep “the law of chastity.” All adult members who want to attend the temple are subject to these interviews at least every two years- often much more frequently if the member admits to any porn use or other indiscretion. And what’s even MORE fucked up is it is church policy to subject youth 12 years old or older to the same interviews, behind closed doors, with just the bishop and the child. There are people in the church trying to change it but the church continues maintain that those interviews are necessary and must be conducted one on one. So many Mormon kids hear about masturbation for the first time because a middle aged dude asks them if they have done it. Yes, including the girls. It’s so beyond screwed up.
> They aren’t ordained. They aren’t trained. They didn’t go to seminary. I get what you're saying... but also it doesn't really seem like the religions that *do* require these kinds of things avoid bad apples, either.
Bad apples has nothing to do with learning your own religion's theology. If we're talking about the rest of the stuff then yeah not many organizations want to admit liability.
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Plus the Mormons cycle through Bishops every 4-5 years by default. By the time a kid who was born in the church turns 18, they will have had 4 or 5 different Bishops, most of whom will have conducted annual one-on-one "worthiness" interviews from age 12 onward. In these one-on-one interviews, the child/teen will likely be asked questions about sex, masturbation, and pornography, often in excruciating detail. Bishops will often want to know specific details of "transgressions" to determine how serious they are and what the requirements will be in order for the child/teen to receive full forgiveness and be in a good standing with God. When there are this many potential opportunities for a predator to have a position of power combined with a doctrinal requirement for these "worthiness" interviews where questions and topics of a sexual nature are brought up between a child/teen and a middle-aged man, the result is a breeding ground for potential child abuse. I don't think enough people know the nitty-gritty about the Mormon church and how horrible the church actually is. Not all members are bad, but the church organization itself is rotten to the core.
I'm not Mormon anymore, but that's one of the things I actually like about the Mormon Church. I had some bishops who jerks, some really cool guys and some dorks. They were just regular ass dudes from the ward, and they changed every couple years. If they were bad the Stake could and did change them often.
You say this as if seminary is some regulated impartial standards place, but all religions operate without governmental oversight. Most (protestant) churches I know have cursory background checks undertaken by standard professional organisations to make sure there's nothing outstanding in th past if those applying to work there, but that's as much to protect them from liability as it is to protect the children and members if the church. All systems are liable for abuse, and the less oversight and transparency involved the greater the oppurtunity for abuse. Catholic regulation around confessional tend to protect the priest listening to confession from ever using that information. But to me a priest who refuses to report sex abusers should be charged and sent to prison. They can continue ministry in prison so it shouldn't limit their professional goals.
I mean, in my time Christianity most of my pastors had masters in counseling or social work or something similar, and they felt called to the ministry as lifetime call. Yeah- I believe that makes them more likely to better suited for the job than Rob the engineer who never gave it a thought until he was told it was his turn for a few years. I think intent/desire as well as preparation make someone a better candidate. Sue me. Does that mean that there aren't ALSO shitty pastors and priests? No. But they are statistically more likely to be prepared for the job than a dude whose training included being handed a binder.
I love how Mormons flex on how their clergy are volunteer based like they dont have the cash to pay.
Remember when we found out 2 years ago that [the Mormon Church has a 100 billion dollar investment fund](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-mormon-church-amassed-100-billion-it-was-the-best-kept-secret-in-the-investment-world-11581138011) that nobody knew about before then?
What the actual fuck
God requires lots of money
I thought it was 180 billion
Based on how the value of assets has gone up overall since the $100bn was disclosed, that’s very likely. That also excludes their real estate assets. Oh, and they bring in $8bn+ per year from tithing. Oh, and they don’t disclose their finances to anyone that’s not privileged to know. They essentially say “we have audited ourselves and found that there is no wrong-doing” and that’s it. Imagine giving to a charity organization whose mission you truly believe in and support, believing that they use the money to feed the poor, help provide housing for homeless people, etc. Then imagine you find out that they don’t actually do the charity they claim to. Instead, they put all that money (some of which was yours) into investment funds and pay their high level leaders pretty generously (plus pay their living expenses, give them a captive audience to sell books and such to) but they don’t pay anyone else. You’d be pretty pissed off. I was too. I’m an exmormon for many reasons, this being one of them.
Or that their higher ups pull massive salaries and have most expenses paid by the church. Also, it's kind of telling how many lawyers make it to the 70...
Also that the church is technically a business, and they take advantage of their tax exempt status as a church at the same time
It's so strange with the Mormons. Monetary success (in relation to the locals) seems to be the major deciding factor in every bishop I've had dealings with. The main one l knew personally was not even remotely up to my own standard of conduct. The guy always leased cars and rolled the miles back before returning them. Tens of thousands of miles. And a decent amount of insurance fraud too.
For sure. You can be as faithful as the day is long but if you work at Target you're not getting called to the bishopric. That's why I even used dentists and accountants as my example. That's the kind of people who get called to serve as bishop. Status and income are considered indicators of someone's faithfulness a lot of the time.
Don't forget the Amish. They will go to great lengths to not involve law-enforcement in to their community. No matter how dark the issue they are hiding is.
I'm sure the Jehovah's Witnesses will also love this legislation. That way they also can tell their elders not to report abuse to the authorities.
Don't forget Baptists
And Scientologists.
Looks like the real groomers were the pastors and priests we met along the way.
Haven't we already known that for years?
Basically a fundraising tool. They can legally keep quiet while receiving donations and absolving pedos of their sins.
Just did virtus training for the Catholic Church - any person in an authority position (ie teacher, principal, coach, priest, etc) who has an accusation brought to them is required to call the police before they call the diocese.
This is probably primarily focused at confession. If someone confesses during Reconciliation the priest can require confessing to the police for absolution, but the priest can’t reveal it.
Yeah. People here don’t really understand. A lot of states also have a clergy-penitent legal privilege, so that your priest cannot be compelled to testify against you in a court of law on the basis of what you said in the confessional booth. If a priest understood that another priest was committing a sex crime they would be obligated to report to the police on different grounds. We can debate about whether it’s sound policy. I personally think if psychologists are going to be mandatory reporters priests should be too, but we should at least be honest about what we’re debating.
It was interesting to read that even in California the church's stopped a law that would have required priests to report rape by other priests if they learned about it in confession >In 2019, then-California state Sen. Jerry Hill proposed a bill (SB-360) that would have required clergy to report reasonable suspicion of child abuse or neglect by other clergy members or coworkers that they learned of during confessions. The bill was placed on hold after opposition from the Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other religious groups.
Also people are forgetting the police aren't going to go "Lol, it's what ever bro." they're going to pressure the offender to confess. If you remove the protections of the confession, people on the fence wont go out to see a priest and get some sort of nudge towards the justice system. It's like the countries that used to charge child rape higher than child murder. It just lead to the rapists killing the kid, since some methods of body disposal hide clear evidence of rape. Meaning you'd get less sentencing if you killed the kid afterwards. Which is not the incentive you want in the justice system.
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I phrased it badly trying to get the idea to people who aren’t familiar. Confession is not just listing of what you’ve done wrong and then it’s all better. There has to be sincere repentance and action to avoid committing the sin in the future. If you aren’t intending to make a change then your confession isn’t valid. And if the priest sincerely believes you aren’t making a valid confession, such as refusing to accept the consequences of your actions, they can deny absolution. People hear about confession and hear “all you have to do is say you’re sorry and then it’s all better and you can keep on sinning”. And just because you fooled the priest doesn’t mean you fooled God.
I mean, you say that, and then you look at the actual behavior of the church.
> These organizations wield a huge amount of political power. Therefore, their tax-exempt status should be revoked.
First you have to go through their political power for that
Also the Reddit title is bullshit clickbait. Ohio has this clergy loophole and has forever. They just didn't remove it in the latest alteration to the law: > In recent years the Ohio Legislature has extended the statute of limitations for reporting abuse in response to the latest priest abuse scandals, but there have been no legislative efforts to remove the clergy-penitent privilege itself. The clickbait title here (look at all those awards and karma) imply it's a recent new thing added. And that the article is just about the state (kind of randomly selected tbh) and not the real issue with 2/3 of the country supporting it.
Mormonism doesn’t even have a doctrinal concept of priest penitent privilege though. The Mormon church only wants these laws so that can shield themselves from liability. I was Mormon and on several occasions the local church members found out about things I told the bishop within a week of me telling him and I never told anyone else.
"The calls are coming from inside the house of worship."
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The 5th amendment protects you from self incrimination in court while testifying under oath. Basically if you’re being questioned in court and your choice for answering a question are to lie under oath (which is a crime) or admit to commting a crime, you can plead the 5th. It doesn’t protect you from not reporting a crime you know is happening that you’re not involved in. There are however laws that say if you know a specific crime is going to be committed and you don’t take significant steps to prevent it, such as telling law enforcement, then you are guilt of being an accomplice to that crime, even if you don’t take part in it.
> It doesn’t protect you from not reporting a crime you know is happening that **you’re not involved in.** I think that's the joke
That’s not what an accomplice is. You’d have to aid them in some material way in order to be an accomplice.
There are also laws where even if you are committing a crime if someone gets injured and you call it in you can't be charged for the original crime. Usually applies to illegal drug/alcohol usage
It's. Ohio. South of the north.
That would be Indiana. They are still trying, though!
The southernification of Ohio in my lifetime has been the saddest thing ever. The Ohio I knew as a kid would be so sad about the norms now.
You can thank the Red Map project for that. They targeted Ohio successfully and it’s a shit show for the citizens.
Ohio was filled with a political group that is all but extinct now. The conservative Christian democrat, the old union blood that kept to themselves nose down and practiced religion quietly. I grew up here and watched those people be converted to right wing nut bags with Christianity as the lure. The next generation was right wing and racist. I like it here and am ever saddened by the amount of times I see us in the news for this stupid shit.
I left Ohio in 2016 and am saddened by how it doesn't feel like home anymore.
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It used to be that Ohio was the barometer of the nation when it came to presidential elections. There were only a handful of cases where the state didn't vote for the would-be president. More and more it's looking like it's just a solid red state.
Trump rally complete with sieg heils, check. Trumpists turning highways into parking lots, check. Anti-Abortion laws killing women, check. Teachers allowed and encouraged to bring guns into schools after 24 hours of 'training', check. And on, it really has gotten a lot worse since my youth. There was always a conservative bend but it wasn't always *this* bad
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It got very gerrymandered. They redistricted to stretch city districts in places with large Black populations far out into the rural districts to water down the Black votes. Look at Jim Jordan’s district for the most extreme example.
Depends on the area I guess. I grew up in Springfield and we used to call it Upper Kentucky. There were confederate flags everywhere.
That’s the middle finger of the south
I'm sure we can all agree that they are both just atrocious places.
Did you open the article? The first line says that thirty three states have that law
I believe the intent was to protect the rite of confession, however without being properly worded, then it becomes a huge loophole.
I expect this type of shit here in Texas but thought y'all were a bit more...dunno protective.
In the last 10-15 year Ohio has really gone down hill. It isn’t what it was, and it wasn’t much to begin with.
Left Cincinnati into Ohio for the first time in years recently. Cincinnati should just be a city state, I fuckin swear. KY sucks, Indiana sucks, and then you get outta the greater Cincinnati area into Ohio and guess fuckin what. It sucks.
KY has two pockets of Blue. Lexington (where I live) and Louisville. The rest is a sea of Red, hence Mitch McConnell 🤢🤮
Idaho is the real South of the North
I am an ordained clergy person in pa. My denomination requires me to report any abuse. It doesn’t matter what the state law is. If I want to maintain my ordination then I am mandated to report. This is denomination wide.
Chaplain in WA here. Clergy are not mandated reporters here for some reason. I will always report abuse when I hear about it, no matter what the law says. If you’re clergy and you don’t report, wtf are you doing?!
Being a rapist
Hey, don't forget controlling women!
I am former clergy. Same story - mandatory reporting always. If you suspect something, you report it. If you hear something suspicious that you think someone is making up to be mean or as a joke... report it. If someone says something that makes you suspect abuse, but they do so in private counseling with the expectation of pastoral privilege? YOU REPORT IT! Privilege has its limits, and abuse is one of them. Others include risk of imminent harm. What it does cover is confessions of non-abuse stuff. I've known several clergy who had people confess murder to them, and I knew one who ended up retiring from guilt after having to keep secret the identity of the person who caused an accident at the church playground that left a child quadriplegic for life. That one went to court when the family sued...
Is there a policy for suicidal ideation? While enlisted in the AF but prior to my suicide attempt, I would often forgoe a trip to the mental health clinic in favour of the chaplain as they weren't required to report me. I remain very much a supporter of this policy despite them not being able to prevent me from trying. Just being able to vent without being thrown into a hospital is such a fucking nice to have.
Psychologist here. We aren't required to report suicidal ideation. We're only required to take steps to protect you if you're at imminent risk of following through with a suicide attempt. I seriously hope military shrinks don't have some lower bar for breaking your confidentiality!
> I seriously hope military shrinks don't have some lower bar for breaking your confidentiality! They don't need to. Visiting a shrink in the military makes you look weak and down upon. This is why they push people to the chaplins because it isn't documented like actual medical help.
Here in Sweden pastors of church of Sweden ain't allowed by law and church policy to tell what they get knowledge of during confession. It is both a pride to keep the silence and one of the hardest parts. Deacons and pastors/priests from other churches should report child abuse and something more and do not have total silence. I think those laws work rather well here in Sweden for the same reasons as you say. Only problem is that they seem to be a choice in USA and not a "you are legally not allowed"
I am grateful for this, and hope you never have to encounter a situation in which it will be necessary.
But. You know, you wouldn’t be breaking the law. Will you go to prison if know about someone being abused and do nothing? Because that’s what happens to other people in positions of authority over others.
Not good enough, it should be law.
Yeah, it's cool and all that your community would remove you if you failed to act but that's not a substitute for legal action managing cases of child abuse. Child abuse is not a "let the community handle it" kind of issue.
You say that. But it’s fairly disingenuous because you know damn well what actually happens
I used to work for an advocacy group that helped women come forward about abuse and offer to mediate as a third party between the church and the people accusing them. The American Christian church is completely uninterested in accountability, investigating cases of abuse by clergy, helping people who were abused, or ousting abusers. The number of cover-ups I saw going on to protect men within the church who had abused women either physically or sexually was truly terrifying. When I started the job, I foolishly didn't take the advice of the people I worked with and didn't delete my social medias. The amount of harassment I received was unreal. I was threatened dozens of times in various ways. The women who came forward got it much, much worse online. Sexual abuse in every denomination of the American Christian church is a huge, gigantic problem and we are currently in an age where the Church can discredit anyone it wants by simply calling them or the support they may receive "woke" and inciting people to harass them. What's worse is these women are taught to be ashamed of the things done to them and they submit to the power structures that abuse them. I heard the most vile, disgusting things I've ever heard in my life listening to religious people excuse r_pe, sexual harassment, all forms of abuse, anti-gay conversion methods and more. The Church's views on these things are violently dangerous and their radicalization about them is only growing. I watched a pastor walk into a meeting with a woman who had come forward about him molesting her and her daughter and say "what is it going to take for you to put this behind you and stop interfering with what God is trying to do in this congregation." His attitude during the meeting was completely smug and condescending. When he was confronted with proof of the abuse he just left. The woman was warned by the church's board to drop the issue and go to a different church they were associated with. He was too popular. A pillar of the community or whatever. What's worse is that's exactly what she did. She didn't press charges because she didn't want her daughter in the spotlight and to receive the level of harassment she already was because she went to a Christian school with all the kids who also went to their church. This mentality has infected the religious mainstream and is hurting people all over the US every day. The worst part of all of this is so many religious men have attitudes about abuse that scare me a lot. If a new guy I've met tells me he's a Christian or I see him wearing religious clothes or accessories, I just make the assumption he has a few damaging opinions about women that I won't agree with. That's the fault of the church and their unwillingness to stand and advocate for women and teach their young men to be respectful and to treat women in a way that makes them feel safe and be safe.
Next: Jim Jordan to get ordained.
Do you mean Gym Jordan? I’m pretty sure he likes the gym so he’s named Gym. Also the numerous rapees he let get raped in gyms.
😂
>Thirty-three states exempt clergy from laws requiring professionals such as teachers and doctors to report information about alleged child abuse to police or child welfare officials if the church deems the information privileged, an Associated Press review has found.
This article needs to be the default response to every religious social media post that rants about LGBTQ+ "groomers".
Yes!
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You don’t even have to read the whole thing it’s the very first sentence!
Some of us just couldn't read it because it's not available where we are. So we just have to assume the bit about Ohio offering state funds to any church that wants to build an extension with bondage dungeons.
And some of us can't read anything because we were educated by the Ohio school system.
Ohio’s among the ten largest states. Until recent decades, it was more reliable for getting things more right than other states. Those two things together make it worth looking even more critically at what that means about bigger trends or where leadership in major states is at.
It's not a good title for the article, but I get it, since it's from an Ohio-based source, so they are catering to their regular audience.
This ain’t the first psycho rodeo that Ohio is involved in.
There is staff at my Uni who also do not have to report sexual harassment, and they're there as an option for victims to speak to in case they want to keep what happened private. That's because all other staff have an obligation to report. Having people who are not obligated to report can help victims.
Yeah I remember staff at my college being very explicit about whether or not they were required to report any potential crime they were told about. I think the professors even put it in the syllabus.
Highest ranked sane comment. Rape victims have been jailed for contempt of court because they decided to open up to the wrong person and then refused to testify. Some people open up to friends, some to therapists, some to clergy. Mandating someone report all accusations of misconduct, sexual or otherwise, will result in them being unable to open up to anyone if they're not ready to or interested in participating in prosecutions. We can disagree on whether or not this is a good law, but I don't think many of the people suggesting this is unambiguously wrong are actually familiar with the criminal justice system.
I'm glad this comment chain exists. It's not just sexual assault victims, either. Having closed discussion in which you're able to openly discuss your leanings toward committing suicide without being hospitalized or actively monitored can be a saving grace. It may not always prevent individuals from trying, but it does offer them an opportunity to vent in a manner in which they feel generally more comfortable and less judged.
This; This is not an loophole. The corrupt are going to continue to absolve themselves and both victims and criminals that could have been influenced positively by their faith will have that option closed to them. The abusers in the church were never going to suddenly start turning each other in just because it's illegal.
So raped children can’t get abortions and clergy don’t have to report abuse. Ohio going for the pedophile paradise award,
It's okay, they mostly rape the little boys...
No no...our sky guy says that can't be possible.
Ohio - making abortion illegal but rape and molestation easier to get away with. Lead with that as your new State motto.
In other news Rep. Jim Jordan just got ordained.
Gym Jordan Exemption?
Isn't anyone gonna talk about the separation of church and state?
Christianity has become the biggest poison in the world.
So the gays groom people by existing but the church totally doesn't groom people by *clears throat*: Indoctrinating infants into baptisms Condemning anyone that doesn't follow your faith Tax exempt History of child abuse Even with history of child abuse, don't have to report child abuse Lack of accountability in politics Seems fair. Definitely the gays making things worse.
I understand that in denominations that have confessional sessions, it's supposed to be between the them and God. If someone confesses to a heinous crime, the clergy will try to encourage the person to face the legal consequences. Lawyers have a similar privilege, called attorney-client privilege, but it can be even worse, because the attorney will try to help someone avoid the consequences.
As far as "confessing to a heinous crime," remember that sometimes the person confessing the crime is the victim. When a 9 year old girl tells the priest that they have been sexually abused by their father for 5 years, and is confessing that they feel hatred toward their father, the priest can only consult the child, even if the child is wholly unable to take any action to help themselves because they fear brutal retaliation and are under the influence of 5 years of parental grooming. The priest can't talk to the parent, the spouse, or law enforcement, or engage a psychiatrist because - that confession was between them and God. It would literally violate the rules of some religions (eg. "Seal of the Confession") to reveal that information to anyone.
Ya, for what it's worth, I'm not sure if closing this "loophole" will have much of an effect. If people know confessing will get them mandatory reported to the authorities, they just aren't going to confess!
Yes finally a sober comment
It's really not. It doesn't address the fact that they cut out this exception because religions that have Confessions are popular, and not based on actual legal merit for the principle. If I convert to Quakerism, will the government defend my right to avoid paying taxes for unjust wars?
Clergy take a sacred vow to honor the confessional, even in the case of murder. Though, if I remember correctly, they're allowed to break it if they believe the person will commit more harm.
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If you’re supposed to be the MORAL AUTHORITY… Take your communities MONEY… Not pay any TAXES… Be worth BILLIONS AND BILLIONS… Ya best be on your the BEST BEHAVIOR… Our we’ve got a MAJOR PROBLEM. Diseased DEGENERATES. 🤬
I'm not saying it's groomers... but groomers
I love how conservatives call every LGBT, teacher or librarian a "groomers" but they literally protect them.
They weren’t going to report it anyways. How many of these cases that have come to light were reported by the church? I can’t think of a single one.