The Christian Discussion thread IX: Pelagius Rising.

[Sahansahiye Iran]

I don't despise Christianity. I hate the Church, though. That part is true. As for your blasphemy charge, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Christianity is bound up in the Church.

Uh huh. Which Church is that?

That actually relies on a priest being a good person or have any sense of morality whatsoever. Which has been shown time and time again to not be the case in many cases.

99% of priests are good people and have a superb sense of morality. Their entire job is to live morally and instill morality in their flock. Being human, they are not perfect. Still, they are on average more moral than an overwhelming number of people.

Oh? So, you have a source for that 99% figure?

I don't despise Christianity. I hate the Church, though. That part is true. As for your blasphemy charge, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When you continuously berate the Church and mock the sacraments and advocate for their destruction, forgive me for not realizing that you, in fact, do not have Christiantity.

How does one "have Christianity", pls?

[Salus Maior]

The thing is, in confession, a Priest usually prescribes a penance for the confessor to do before their sins are absolved (as I understand it anyway). And typically in the case of severe crimes, the penance given can be turning oneself into the authorities.

I think that's the best solution to the issue. The seal of confession isn't broken and secular justice gets its pound of flesh.

But at any rate, the point of confession is not that someone is forgiven in a general sense, but by God in particular. And sincerity is the biggest part of that, fully realizing the wrongness of what you've done and resolving to make up for it. Repentance. And that's not something anyone should stand in the way of or attempt to interfere with.

A priest may not require someone to reveal their sin to others as penance, and doing so is a violation of the confessional seal. They may advise, but they cannot make it mandatory.

In that true of both our churches?

[Sahansahiye Iran]

99% of priests are good people and have a superb sense of morality. Their entire job is to live morally and instill morality in their flock. Being human, they are not perfect. Still, they are on average more moral than an overwhelming number of people.

Well, more like 97%. Statistics show that about 3% of the Catholic clergy worldwide were involved in clergy abuse over the past few decades.

Still a far cry from creating a stereotype.

19 men flew planes into the Twin Towers. Out of 1.5 billion or so Muslims. Do you know how often I get called "Mohamed Atta" as a Middle Eastern pilot? I'm not even Arab. Stereotypes are easy.

[United Muscovite Nations]

A priest may not require someone to reveal their sin to others as penance, and doing so is a violation of the confessional seal. They may advise, but they cannot make it mandatory.

In that true of both our churches?

Don't know, have only really read up on the doctrine in the Catholic Church.

[Salus Maior]

Well, more like 97%. Statistics show that about 3% of the Catholic clergy worldwide were involved in clergy abuse over the past few decades.

Still a far cry from creating a stereotype.

19 men flew planes into the Twin Towers. Out of 1.5 billion or so Muslims. Do you know how often I get called "Mohamed Atta" as a Middle Eastern pilot? I'm not even Arab. Stereotypes are easy.

And you're telling me that's right, then?

[Sahansahiye Iran]

19 men flew planes into the Twin Towers. Out of 1.5 billion or so Muslims. Do you know how often I get called "Mohamed Atta" as a Middle Eastern pilot? I'm not even Arab. Stereotypes are easy.

And you're telling me that's right, then?

Well, 19 is a lot less than 3% of Christian clergy, isn't it?

[Ieskarios]

Who is Pelagius and why is he rising?

Pelagius was an Irish monk who believed that humans were capable of living a sinless life without divine assistance in doing so. He was declared a Heretic by the Council of Carthage and Ecumenical Council of Ephesus.

Personally I thought it referred to King Pelagius of Asturias.

[Salus Maior]

And you're telling me that's right, then?

Well, 19 is a lot less than 3% of Christian clergy, isn't it?

True, but it is less than the percentage of boy scouts leadership who've committed abuse. And about equal to the amount of abuse committed in secular school settings.

[Sahansahiye Iran]

Well, 19 is a lot less than 3% of Christian clergy, isn't it?

True, but it is less than the percentage of boy scouts leadership who've committed abuse. And about equal to the amount of abuse committed in secular school settings.

Oh? Okay, I'm genuinely curious to see the studies for the last part.

[Salus Maior]

True, but it is less than the percentage of boy scouts leadership who've committed abuse. And about equal to the amount of abuse committed in secular school settings.

Oh? Okay, I'm genuinely curious to see the studies for the last part.

I found the source for those numbers ages ago and I'm trying to find it again xP

The issue with the Boy Scouts in particular was that earlier in their existence they basically were held to no accountability and Scouts leaders covered up a lot of crap.

It may take forever for me to find it again, but I'm giving it a try.

[Lux Pulchrae]

What exactly is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Can it be committed easily?

[Sahansahiye Iran]

Oh? Okay, I'm genuinely curious to see the studies for the last part.

I found the source for those numbers ages ago and I'm trying to find it again xP

The issue with the Boy Scouts in particular was that earlier in their existence they basically were held to no accountability and Scouts leaders covered up a lot of crap.

It may take forever for me to find it again, but I'm giving it a try.

Lit. Thanks. If it's too much bother, don't worry about it. Otherwise, also please TG it to me so it doesn't get lost.

[Salus Maior]

What exactly is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Can it be committed easily?

Nope.

And nobody's quite sure. But I think the leading theory is attributing an act of the Holy Spirit to the Devil.

[United Muscovite Nations]

What exactly is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Can it be committed easily?

Most people think that it is attributing God's grace to evil, and the chances are, that if you're worried about whether you've done it, that you probably haven't done it, since it is impossible to repent of.

[New Visayan Islands]

What exactly is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Can it be committed easily?

Explanation from a Catholic perspective here.

TL;DR: It is ultimately telling God He can go frak Himself by refusing His Mercy and Forgiveness.

[Salus Maior]

I found the source for those numbers ages ago and I'm trying to find it again xP

The issue with the Boy Scouts in particular was that earlier in their existence they basically were held to no accountability and Scouts leaders covered up a lot of crap.

It may take forever for me to find it again, but I'm giving it a try.

Lit. Thanks. If it's too much bother, don't worry about it. Otherwise, also please TG it to me so it doesn't get lost.

Heeeeeyyyy I found it. And I was wrong, it was 4% not 3%.

[Salus Maior]

What exactly is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Can it be committed easily?

Explanation from a Catholic perspective here.

TL;DR: It is ultimately telling God He can go frak Himself by refusing His Mercy and Forgiveness.

Hmm, but that's surely something you can repent of.

[Lower Nubia]

Everyone’s being so amicable today arn’t they?

[Salus Maior]

Everyone’s being so amicable today arn’t they?

You know it

[Lower Nubia]

The thing about breaking the seal of confession is that if it's always broken, people are just not going to confess.

Which means that legally forcing priests to reveal confessions is pointless, because if it were the case they wouldn't hear them in the first place.

Good. Cut off that avenue of clearing their consciences. No more cases like Michael McArdle, who confessed to child abuse on more than 1500 occasions to 30 of his fellow priests and each time felt "it was like a magic wand had been waved over [him]." If the only thing that results from this is that men like McArdle are less able to have their colleagues absolve their guilt and walk out, free and clear to abuse more children, then it will have been worth it.

I do love that confession in the 21st century is merely: “say the crime to the priest and receive absolution.” When actually the sacrament of confession is made absolute in it’s completion, as a sacrament, in the form of completing the ascribed penance and in the repentance of the confessed sin. If neither of these things is done, it is non forgiven (pardon if there is something there that is wrong). If Michael Mcardle murdered after confessing of the sin of murder, he has not repented and is therefore not in a state to receive the grace of forgiveness from confession, meaning he has deceived God.

Romans 6:1-2; “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid.”

Anyone who abuses the system in an attempt to gain easy access to heaven while maintaining terrible sin is almost certainly destined to hell, not to mention that an 1,083 tonne weight around his neck (assuming a diameter of 53 inches and depth of 8 inches) is going to be...

Excruciating.

Edit: note to self: you’re bad at math.

[Erinkita III]

Good. Cut off that avenue of clearing their consciences. No more cases like Michael McArdle, who confessed to child abuse on more than 1500 occasions to 30 of his fellow priests and each time felt "it was like a magic wand had been waved over [him]." If the only thing that results from this is that men like McArdle are less able to have their colleagues absolve their guilt and walk out, free and clear to abuse more children, then it will have been worth it.

I do love that confession in the 21st century is merely: “say the crime to the priest and receive absolution.” When actually the sacrament of confession is made absolute in it’s completion, as a sacrament, in the form of completing the ascribed penance and in the repentance of the confessed sin. If neither of these things is done, it is non forgiven (pardon if there is something there that is wrong). If Michael Mcardle murdered after confessing of the sin of murder, he has not repented and is therefore not in a state to receive the grace of forgiveness from confession, meaning he has deceived God.

Romans 6:1-2; “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid.”

Anyone who abuses the system in an attempt to gain easy access to heaven while maintaining terrible sin is almost certainly destined to hell, not to mention that an 1,083 tonne weight around his neck (assuming a diameter of 53 inches and depth of 8 inches) is going to be...

Excruciating.

Edit: note to self: you’re bad at math.

All well and good if you believe in hell, but not much use for the purpose of actual justice.

I appreciate that this isn't how confession is intended to work, but it is very much how it is being used. (Although I suspect the ease with which those 30 priests declared him absolved had a lot to do with him being one of their own, but whatever). Whenever the the idea of requiring priests to report predators comes up, we always hear about how that doesn't respect the sacred spirit of the sacrament. But these priests don't respect it. They use it as a "get out of guilt free" card. They tell each other about what they do and reassure each other that it's all alright. And there should be consequences for that. People learning about this kind of crime and not only doing nothing about it, but encouraging it to continue, should not be able to hide behind some unjust loophole granted for a sacrament that they clearly only nominally believe in.

Edit: And more generally, it's just plain wrong to have one private institution able to place their own rules above the law. That's not how a society ought to be run. Laws should apply to everybody.

[Luminesa]

The thing about breaking the seal of confession is that if it's always broken, people are just not going to confess.

Which means that legally forcing priests to reveal confessions is pointless, because if it were the case they wouldn't hear them in the first place.

Good. Cut off that avenue of clearing their consciences. No more cases like Michael McArdle, who confessed to child abuse on more than 1500 occasions to 30 of his fellow priests and each time felt "it was like a magic wand had been waved over [him]." If the only thing that results from this is that men like McArdle are less able to have their colleagues absolve their guilt and walk out, free and clear to abuse more children, then it will have been worth it.

I was thinking about it early this morning and I wondered if perhaps it could be required by law for someone to report themselves to the police if they have committed sexual abuse. It sounds really...dumb?...I guess...until the catch. If the person is found to be abusing people and did not turn themselves in (they tried to get rid of their sin via using the confessional, or they tried to hide it in other ways), then they get arrested on the grounds of breaking this law.

How would this be enforced? Priests would be required by law to have a sign by the confessional, maybe? “If you (not indicating any particular person) have committed an act of sexual assault, child abuse, murder, or any felony, you must go to the police and turn yourself in before you can bring this sin to confession.” It doesn’t break the seal of confession, it forces the person to seek less secure avenues of hiding their wicked deeds (which will come to light one way or another), and if the person is GENUINELY sorry for their sins after turning themselves in, THEN they can receive the Sacrament.

The Sacrament of Confession, after all, is not supposed to be just dumping a list of sins on a priest and asking for their forgiveness. You are supposed to go to Confession hoping that God will give you the grace to pick yourself up off the ground and to try to live a holy life. Going to Confession with a spirit of presumption (“Oh I raped this kid, but he’ll forgive me,”) invalidates the Confession anyway, so it’s still on their soul.

There are probably loopholes I haven’t even considered, but I thought all this out at 5 AM, without coffee. It’s a consideration, and of course defrocking would follow the arrest of any priest who breaks this law.

Edit: One could still of course go to a confessional and confess other mortal sins like adultery, performing an abortion, etc. The cases I’m thinking of are more like things in which one WILL have to go to court and do time. Unless, of course, someone goes on Judge Judy and is like, “MY MAN CHEATED ON ME AND THE ONLY PERSON HE TOLD IS THE PRIEST.” In which case...well...how often are priests in Judge Judy?

[Lower Nubia]

I do love that confession in the 21st century is merely: “say the crime to the priest and receive absolution.” When actually the sacrament of confession is made absolute in it’s completion, as a sacrament, in the form of completing the ascribed penance and in the repentance of the confessed sin. If neither of these things is done, it is non forgiven (pardon if there is something there that is wrong). If Michael Mcardle murdered after confessing of the sin of murder, he has not repented and is therefore not in a state to receive the grace of forgiveness from confession, meaning he has deceived God.

Romans 6:1-2; “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid.”

Anyone who abuses the system in an attempt to gain easy access to heaven while maintaining terrible sin is almost certainly destined to hell, not to mention that an 1,083 tonne weight around his neck (assuming a diameter of 53 inches and depth of 8 inches) is going to be...

Excruciating.

Edit: note to self: you’re bad at math.

All well and good if you believe in hell, but not much use for the purpose of actual justice.

I appreciate that this isn't how confession is intended to work, but it is very much how it is being used. (Although I suspect the ease with which those 30 priests declared him absolved had a lot to do with him being one of their own, but whatever). Whenever the the idea of requiring priests to report predators comes up, we always hear about how that doesn't respect the sacred spirit of the sacrament. But these priests don't respect it. They use it as a "get out of guilt free" card. They tell each other about what they do and reassure each other that it's all alright. And there should be consequences for that. People learning about this kind of crime and not only doing nothing about it, but encouraging it to continue, should not be able to hide behind some unjust loophole granted for a sacrament that they clearly only nominally believe in.

Edit: And more generally, it's just plain wrong to have one private institution able to place their own rules above the law. That's not how a society ought to be run. Laws should apply to everybody.

The whole point of confession is to bring men closer to God, you can’t abuse it, it’s only purpose is to receive grace from a being who knows genuineness. If you arn’t genuine, it doesn’t matter how many times a priest says: “your sins are forgiven.” The Holy Spirit is a little wiser.

Murderers and abusers can find many methods to be guilt free, if they believe in God then their abuse yields eternal damnation. If they don’t believe in God, I fail to see why they would be guilt free? Nothing has happened by the Priests statement. Maybe he receives closure is what you’re on about? Why he needs a priest for that I don’t know, for there are plenty of ways to receive closure, you don’t need a confession booth. So this is a false dichotomy. Why would they care about guilt? Guilt only has value when evil is commited. What evil does someone who does not care about evil have as an affect on a complacent mans therefore nonexistent guilt?

Confession is the logical outpouring of Christian divinity, to the secular individual confession should not exist and therefore it’s existence to bring genuine guilt to those who believe in God, is actually just an outright benefit to you. You really ahouldn’t Complain about free guilty people, in a belief system where logic dictates that that guilt should not exist, because it’s very basis is false I.e. that confession can offer genuine forgiveness to genuine people who genuinely confess on the basis that God genuinely exists. Otherwise, if we followed the secular reasoning to its fullest conclusion, these people wouldn’t confess and just do what they did anyway. Now, they have no reason to be guilty (why would they? not like they get caught if they play the game properly)

We also have to look at the reality, people genuinely believe in God, the power of repentant and penitent confession, I can’t fathom the amount of murders, rapists, abusers who have repented and changed their evil ways and have become good men. Oh wait... I do, they’re called the saints of God, the Church even has a calendar for easy access.

You say it is beyond the law, but the Church is simply acting as an extension of our own mind desire to confess our sins. Which is to say, confessing our sins to the community is a sign of humility and desire to repent (hopefully). Yet that confession must have some validity: I can confess in my mind, to my dog, to my dementia suffering nan. Yet these actions arn’t against the law because their attempts at repentance on a personal level.

The Church acts as these things while also offering as a personal method of repentance and humility, and offering grace toward the genuinely penitent by the good grace of the Holy Spirit. If someone confessed to the Church it is not against the secular law for the Church not to reveal that information because: one, confessions by their very nature are confidential - there must be cohesion between individuals and the Church community in aid of repenting of sin, but there cannot be a lack of confidentiality or that cohesion begins to breakdown and a stalemate between people who need that aid but are afraid and now cannot receive it. Two, the Church’s role is to act as an aspect of forgiveness as an extension of God’s forgiveness, humans are stupid but the forgiveness of sins and the ability to do penance and repentance in confession is a necessity, people need grace, even murderers, to seek genuine aid in forgetting the past and seeking charity, mercy and kindness. Now, penance can always be in the form of giving yourself into the authorities, don’t forget that aspect. Three, confession works only under confidentiality ( point one), without confidentiality you don’t get confessions and therefore, and in the different aspect to the first point, without confidentiality this problem (for you lot) wouldn’t exist anyway. You wouldn’t gain the potential benefit without the confidentiality, but with confidentiality, you don’t get the benefit. It’s therefore better to use it as a spiritual second chance, rather as a failure in gaining confessions for crimes to be punished under secular law.

Additionally we have to look at what confession is as what the Church is: it is not the secular law (which changes, therefore, are we ever just in our punishments?), but it does work with her, because although a priest might not reveal the sin, he can advise that as penance the sinner turns himself into the authorities. Of course that is dependant on the willingness of the individual, but that’s interesting because it conflicts with the point you made about the type of people who go to confession, if they’re genuinely penitent they’ll follow the priests penance and turn themselves in, but if they don’t care then confession is just a place where their inner thoughts are opened, that’s it.

Too much is made against confession because to utilise it as you desire it would quickly become an ineffective method to actually catch criminals. Now it’s also lost the deterant factor which it offers towards those who should go to confession. We act as if it’s all about us, but if we applied the idea to reveal confessions to authorities, then confession would of died 1850 years ago. It would now be totally useless. However, due to the Churches temporal wisdom, the passive effects which confession has on the population by producing actual conviction and repentance are what we now enjoy, and over the last 1900 years. Much better than squeezing it of all usefulness in the first 50 years when we can enjoy her more passive aspects Over 2,000 years.

This is just temporal aspects but the Church is to benefit those in the hereafter, and that is why you see it as a difficult concept, because you’re only looking at 0.1% of her aspect. When really confession is built for the temporal to reach the divine. Not the temporal to catch the temporal.

Edit: tweaked some ideas.

[Maineiacs]

What exactly is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Can it be committed easily?

Explanation from a Catholic perspective here.

TL;DR: It is ultimately telling God He can go frak Himself by refusing His Mercy and Forgiveness.

If despair is part of the unforgiveable sin, I'm in big trouble, as despair has been the main theme of my life. My life has not exactly fostered a lot of hope in me, but I didn't realize that fact was worse than I thought

[United Muscovite Nations]

Good. Cut off that avenue of clearing their consciences. No more cases like Michael McArdle, who confessed to child abuse on more than 1500 occasions to 30 of his fellow priests and each time felt "it was like a magic wand had been waved over [him]." If the only thing that results from this is that men like McArdle are less able to have their colleagues absolve their guilt and walk out, free and clear to abuse more children, then it will have been worth it.

I was thinking about it early this morning and I wondered if perhaps it could be required by law for someone to report themselves to the police if they have committed sexual abuse. It sounds really...dumb?...I guess...until the catch. If the person is found to be abusing people and did not turn themselves in (they tried to get rid of their sin via using the confessional, or they tried to hide it in other ways), then they get arrested on the grounds of breaking this law.

How would this be enforced? Priests would be required by law to have a sign by the confessional, maybe? “If you (not indicating any particular person) have committed an act of sexual assault, child abuse, murder, or any felony, you must go to the police and turn yourself in before you can bring this sin to confession.” It doesn’t break the seal of confession, it forces the person to seek less secure avenues of hiding their wicked deeds (which will come to light one way or another), and if the person is GENUINELY sorry for their sins after turning themselves in, THEN they can receive the Sacrament.

The Sacrament of Confession, after all, is not supposed to be just dumping a list of sins on a priest and asking for their forgiveness. You are supposed to go to Confession hoping that God will give you the grace to pick yourself up off the ground and to try to live a holy life. Going to Confession with a spirit of presumption (“Oh I raped this kid, but he’ll forgive me,”) invalidates the Confession anyway, so it’s still on their soul.

There are probably loopholes I haven’t even considered, but I thought all this out at 5 AM, without coffee. It’s a consideration, and of course defrocking would follow the arrest of any priest who breaks this law.

Edit: One could still of course go to a confessional and confess other mortal sins like adultery, performing an abortion, etc. The cases I’m thinking of are more like things in which one WILL have to go to court and do time. Unless, of course, someone goes on Judge Judy and is like, “MY MAN CHEATED ON ME AND THE ONLY PERSON HE TOLD IS THE PRIEST.” In which case...well...how often are priests in Judge Judy?

The obvious work around would be that if they just went into the confessional and confessed it, there wouldn't really be anything anyone could do about it.