Confessional: A Violation of the Child
There is no right to hear sins if there is no God or if Jesus who supposedly
gave priests the power did not or was a fraud. To send your child to confession
is wrong for the priest has no right to hear the sins and the child will not be
telling them for her own good. Telling a priest a sin has no magical power to
help you refrain from the sin. Telling somebody a sin may help but only if you
are friends and it is over a cup of coffee. Telling every sin is pointless. Not
all sins need to be told. Going and telling a stranger in a dark box is useless.
The serial child rapist tells the priest what he has done in confession. The
priest absolves him. He tells him to say a few Our Fathers to atone for the sin.
If he is not really sorry and reoffends the Church reasons that the absolution
will not work - God will not forgive. But if the man has an addiction he will
reoffend even if he was really sorry. The feeling that the slate has been wiped
will help him to feel better about what he is doing.
There is no concern that a serial child rapist getting absolution feels absolved
and that is what is bigger to them than anything else. The Church says he is not
really forgiven for he has not turned away from sin. But not really being
forgiven by God means little for we think we sense God in others and that is
what matters to us. If they make us feel absolved and right with God we will.
And we don’t know if we are really forgiven anyway even if we do the right
things in confession for what if God does not empower priests to absolve or does
not care what we do? And the doctrine that a man can go to confession mainly
because he fears punishment by God and get forgiven for that reason is
disgraceful. You may as well use the confession as a licence for sin.
Going to priests to get sins forgiven indicates that if there was only one
priest left in the world it is better for millions to perish than for him to
perish which leads to an unhealthy respect for priests and orders one to believe
that people were made for faith and not faith for people.
The thought of dying without confessing to a priest scares every Catholic for
confessing makes salvation more likely. I saw the Church destroy the relatives
of suicides like she had destroyed me with her doctrine of auricular confession.
Yes, Rome does say that a suicide may not be in Hell but she still implies that
it is most likely that he or she is there. Since a person dying that lonesome
and terrible way cannot fulfil the conditions of repentance he lays down for his
or her salvation due to the agony, horror and emotion of the dying process it is
clear that her teaching is no consolation. She informs us that people must have
a clear mind to repent. If Rome preached rational truth she would not be so
destructive. Even to say the suicide may be in Hell is vile in the extreme.
The scandal of Catholicism is that there are many souls who find themselves
dying in the wreckage of a car and who perish in terror because there is no
priest to forgive their sins or anoint them. What about children whose parents
die without a priest?
Catholics are to confess their sins to priests. Priests are not allowed to tell
what was confessed as it was allegedly confessed in reality to God and not the
priest. But what if there is no God or if God has not authorised this system at
all? The evidence that he did is non-existent or at best insufficient.
The Catholic teaching that the seal of confession is so sacred that the priest
must say nothing even if it means stopping a man from raping a child to death is
clear proof that the Catholic faith puts rules and religion before people. The
word for that is fanaticism. Where do you draw the line if you find that
acceptable? It is a terrible principle to have. Do you want a child exposed to
that kind of attitude or system?
Child Protection Bodies need to put a ban on children confessing to priests. Who
knows what is being said to the child? It makes no sense to lay down strict
rules about child protection and then to put a child in a situation with a
priest where there is nobody taking care that nothing damaging to the child is
being said. I'm saying just as a youth worker cannot be alone with children so
the priest and child should not be conversing unsupervised. What makes it worse
is that sex may be a topic for the church sees all wilful sexual desire outside
of marriage as sinful.
A child can tell a counsellor private things because the reason is to help the
child work through problems. Confession is not about that but about religion.
Priests should not have the same rights as counsellors. A new faith that
insisted children tell it about masturbation habits would soon be crucified by
the law. For the sake of the principle, the Catholic Church should not be exempt
from penalties. And especially when it is worse than the hypothetical new faith
for it says that telling a lie or not telling the whole truth in confession is a
grave sin against the Holy Spirit. The Church points out that Ananias and
Sapphira were struck dead for lying to the Holy Spirit in the presence of Peter
the apostle and reasons that it must be a worse sin to tell a lie in confession.
This is scary doctrine and exposes children to the risk of blackmail from the
Church.
When people do something very bad or something that makes them feel terribly
guilty, they like to learn about the crimes of others and hear about them. It
makes them feel better. Hearing the confessions of men who molest or abuse
children makes the paedophile priest feel better and more satisfied in his sin.
It helps him to rationalise and excuse future attempts to get access to children
to abuse them. Hearing from a child penitent that he or she is experiencing
abuse may have the same effect.
It is not right that a child should be deprived of her or his right to safety
just because a man who could never convince anybody sane or knowledgeable that
he was God supposedly wanted confession to be between penitent and priest.
Parents and priests are equally to blame. It is disgraceful.