Louisiana Judge Rules That Priests Don’t Have to Report Abuse if They Hear It During Confession

[whatthehey]

13. He actually has a point here

Yes it's stupid to say that religious liberty includes not having to pay for health insurance or bake cakes for gays, but confession actually is central to and an integral part of Catholicism in a way bigotry is not (it's just an incidental byproduct).

The beliefs, that confession is both necessary and effective when performed before the clergy, are ludicrous and unsupported obviously, but they are long established, of unquestioned provenance in the magisterium, and theologically centered, again unlike paying for contraception etc.

If you say priests must report crimes revealed in confession, you essentially prevent a religiously necessary sacrament for any Catholic with any meaningful sins who wishes to remain free. That really IS interfering with religious liberty. How to balance religious liberty with law enforcement is a question worth asking, but it's a very real conflict and I suspect unless we want to shred 1A completely for LEO convenience, we'll have to rely on the confessor's ability to balance future risk to others against the sacraments. There is after all a big difference between "Father I intend to rape little Johnny tonight after the service" and "Father I touched little Johnny's clothed behind last week and am afraid I felt a frisson of pleasure"

Oh and the above post is incorrect, thanks to Hollywood and TV. The dark curtained confessional booth is a rare relic outside the silver screen. Far more likely to be done face to face in a quiet room.