It’s not disregarding it entirely. There are a bunch of things that aren’t protected by freedom of religion, and protecting people who are an immediate threat to others shouldn’t be something that’s protected.
Great idea, let’s just disregard the first amendment entirely. And then once we’ve done that, the government would also be free to establish a state religion and force all of us to follow it.
I think we better put that monkeys paw back where we found it.
onslaught545@lemmy.zip 9 hours ago
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
The seal of confession is protected by the first amendment as it’s a core tenant of the Catholic religion, and the U.S. government doesn’t have the authority to change religious doctrine of a religion that predates the country by millennia. If you were to violate the constitutional rights of these priests, you wouldn’t catch any more child abusers, you’d just be jailing people for their faith.
Also, the seal of confession is not “protecting people”. The church isn’t going to defend a child abuser, nor protect them. There is nothing to stop clergy from reporting child abusers to the authorities. It only protects speech shared during the sacrament of confession. If a priest were to find out that somebody is an abuser in any way other than through confession, they would report it the same as anyone else.
onslaught545@lemmy.zip 6 hours ago
If a child rapist tells a priest in confession, “I’ve raped a child and I’m going to do it again,” and the priest tells no one, that’s protecting a child rapist.
I don’t think your religious beliefs are a valid excuse to put others in harms way. If a therapist is a mandatory reporter, then a priest should be too.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
A child rapist wouldn’t say that in confession. Confession is a sacrament where you confess your sins with regret, for the purpose of earning forgiveness. If somebody was not only not remorseful for what they’ve done, but are already determined to continue in the future… why would they be at confession? Your example makes no sense.
Putting aside the total lack of reason and sense in your hypothetical question, you’re asking what would happen if a criminal went into a confessional booth not to engage with the sacrament of confession, but to brag to a priest about a crime that they committed and boast that they’re planning to do it again? That would not be protected by the seal of confession since it isn’t one, and the priest could report that person.
And one of the founding principles of our nation can hardly be considered a “loophole” when it was placed there on purpose with cases exactly like this in mind.
ayyy@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
Would you say the same if Muslims were doing human sacrifices? (It must be noted that they do not actually do that, this question is for demonstration purposes only.)
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Is your demonstration an attempt to equate listening to somebody’s regrets about committing a crime, with perpetrating a crime?