Caught up? Good, because the Priest appealed to the Supreme Court, and has recently been denied. This is massive, because it means that the US is now breaching Priest-Penitent confidentiality, which has major consequences.
First, this priest now has to chose between breaking his vow or going to jail. He'll probably go to jail due to how serious these vows are.
Second, this sets a standard for future court cases throughout the US. If priests are forced to chose between breaking their vows and jail, a very large proportion of them will chose jail. Until the Vatican updates their catechism or gives passes to these priests (Which is unlikely), the US will be putting Catholic Priests in jail.
Third, due to the break in Priest-penintent confidentiality, many will no longer feel safe confessing to their priests, which is the whole point in the confidentiality. It can be argued that breaking confidentiality won't be overly useful in future cases because criminals will simply stop confessing.
Fourth, Child Molestors and such are now more easily caught... if they make the decision to confess, which is questionable. Regardless, it can be argued that this is better than nothing.
So what do you think about the case? How much will it effect future rulings regarding this issue in the US? Will it have a major impact on prosecuting criminals?
I personally think it is pointlessly breaking the confidentiality for something which won't have much of an effect on crime-fighting, but one could argue that this ruling is right simply on principle of not letting child-molestors go free because of religious confidentiality.
