How far does confidentiality extend itself in the confession booth?

[Pauline]

Joseph and Julia and others,
How come no one is commenting on my post on page 5, showing that the seal of confession does not hide pedophile priests nor enable them to keep sinning? The article by the Archbishop shows the process of the problem in earlier years and of efforts to understand and correct it. And that many, if not all, of our bishops are doing something to make restitution and to prevent this from happening in the future.

One thing I did not mention is that the Vatican has stepped in and now all such accusations against priests have to be reported to the Vatican.

The man in my parish who is in training to become a married deacon had to be psychological testing along with all the other candidates to become married deacons. And like all in our archdiocese who may have contact with children at all through their apostolates in the Church, background checks have to be run.

Are Protestant churches doing anything similiar to all of this?

Pauline

 

[Pauline]

Joseph,
At the beginning of this thread, you wrote something about one priest not exposing the sins of another. That is an incorrect. I have known a priest to expose the sins of another priest.

We Catholics are not shy about speaking out against evil, whether it be abortion or the sin of a priest.

Vatican II says the laity have a responsibility to correct their priests -- but with the right attitude and means.

The seal of confession is because that confession is between our Lord Jesus Christ and the sinner.

But outside the confessional, Catholics are taught they have a duty to speak out and take a stand against sin. To approve or hide another sin is to be guilty of his sin whatever it is.

I think you are seeing stuff on the media and judging Catholicism from what you see and hear there without knowing the full story. I hope what is written on this thread is helping you to see there is more to the story. For example, I have not seem on the media that the Vatican has stepped in regarding pedophile priests. That seems to me a significant developement. Nor have I seen on the media that in past years pedophile priests were refered to experts in treatment centers and in many cases were reassigned to parishes because of what the experts said to do. Have you seen this reported? Have you seen anything reported that indicated that bishops were trying to deal with the problem even though their understanding and knowledge of the problem was faulty in those times.

Pauline

 

[Pauline]

BUMP!