Why? You would put the secular law directly at odds with Canon law. I understand the revulsion but practically speaking it just wouldn't work.

what about psychiatrists? dont they have doctor/patient confidentiality unless someones life is in danger, or something like that?

no religious law should have precedent over the law of the land.

Not here in California. The only exception on the long list of mandated reporters is for clergy hearing confession. The physician-patient privilege and the patient-psychotherapist privilege are expressly made inapplicable by the mandatory reporting laws.

If you are a pedophile and want to confess, it should only be to your spouse (as long as she isn't a mandated reporter), your priest in the context of a confession, or your lawyer. Probably just your priest or your lawyer.

Agreed.

I think it's Belgium that really pissed them off by grabbing church records, but it should have been done aggressively everywhere.

That isn't the problem. The problem is gaining compliance. No priest will violate the cannons. Even if it means incarceration.

It is the same for a lawyer. I could get disbarred for revealing client confidences. There is a safe harbor for disclosing information to prevent a future crime, but it has to be an explicit threat of an identifiable crime and I am under no obligation to report it even if I think a child will be raped and killed. If it is an admission of past conduct, I must maintain the confidence inviolate and at my peril, even if I know where the body is buried.

That sort of intellectual disassociation of knowledge+ideals vs acting against evil actions is wicked imo. Standing by and not acting when evil is done (or not attempting to prevent future evil actions) is itself evil imo.

Frankly I don't give a rat's ass whether priests won't do it or not, the fact is if they don't, they are complicit, and deserve whatever secular law sees fit to do to them. I've equally never understood lawyers who know their clients are guilty trying to get them off either. Getting them a sentence that matches their crime is what the target should be there for a lawyer imo.

You mean the canons? Because I think enough priests to make a difference are respectful of the power of cannons. Or the law if ever actually applied without favortism. It's just that the law is no threat at this point.

It certainly enables it.

I've had to deal with it. I've even quit a job over it. I can't go into detail for obvious reasons. I don't consider what I have or haven't done to be evil at all. It is the system within which we operate, and I play an essential role.

Would you rather pedophiles have nowhere to go, no one to confess to, and no way at all to seek help outside of the penal system? What incentives are you creating. The example of the Nevada breast fondling case posted a couple months ago comes to mind. Mandatory life sentences for child molesters. OK, now we have created an incentive to kill children - the punishment for murder is the same or even less than for the molestation, and the pedophile can get rid of the witness.

Frank is ready, if they want to try it!

Balancing personal ethics against the ethics of your employer or chosen vocation can be tough.

Obvious misspelling is obvious.

I sense an amputated thread brewing.

Can I call it "**** THE POPE"

(it's a fine old English saying, after all)

Yeah there is a nurse v. pedophile thread in OOT right now that illustrates the point.

The pope visit tempts to me made a poll on 'what's worse, being an ex-nazi, or being a protector of child-rapists?' but that's a little too Rambo...

Uhhhhh as in which is harder to balance against your personal ethics?!

I never look in OOT, but I'm really curious to wonder what perspective this contest is from...

Nurse doesn't want to care for pedophile, OOT mob tells her to STFU and do her damn job.

I came across a similar example in my Ethics class. Say you are running an emergency ward. In come two car accident victims. For the sake of the example, you know whoever receives treatment will survive, and whoever doesn't receive treatment will die. You only have the time and staff to help one.

Then you learn that one person was a safe driver and an innocent victim. The other person has had numerous car accidents, previously killed someone in one, often drives drunk, and indeed was driving drunk this time.

Does this influence your decision of who should receive treatment? Do you even think that saving one person should be a decision, or would you say **** it and do all you could to save them both?

Oh, I forgot to mention the first guy is one of those priests. Oh, and he's black, but I assume we're all willing to look past that.

is he gay?

Yes. Let them both die?

Does either one of them post in OOT?