Over at Pray Tell, there's always a stew about worship, but very little "wit and wisdom". A lot of intra church nastiness. A couple of the more predictable Irish Boomer priests are rushing to the defense of John Calvin and the Reformers, while showing nothing but embarrassment, irritation, condescension and hostility to Rome and the Latin Mass for which their ancestors suffered so much. Calvin? Mother of God.
Speaking of Ireland, the government there is considering a law requiring priests to break the seal of confession when pedophilia is in question. Unbelievable. The same hamfisted grim legal moralism which infected the religion of Ireland now shows up in the anti-religion of Ireland. Moral panic, anyone?
4 comments:
... What are the legal rules binding shrinks and psychologists in this situation?
As far as I know, civil law in Canada and the USA doesn't privilege clerics of "the" Church, but ministers, rabbis, mullahs-imams also aren't obligated to inform civil authorities of crimes reveal'd by those whom they spiritually advise etc.
... & isn't it usual (or required?) by RC rules that priests not absolve a civil-lawbreaker until he confesses his crime to the civil authorities?
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P.S. I can hardly believe that anyone would defend Jean Calvin today. Just too odious for the prevailing ethos. I still sometimes see favourable stuff said of Luther qua real-life person, flaw'd etc etc, but never of Calvin -- unless maybe technically in strictly church-history specialist journals, or maybe as a forerunner of Reform'd epistemology.
In CA, there are exceptions to client confidentiality and child abuse is one of them.
For sacramental confession of what is also a civil crime, penance cannot be grounded on condition of confession to secular authorities. Turning yourself in would be strongly counseled but not required.
Why would anyone prefer Calvin to Luther today? Calvin wasn't nearly as anti-Semitic as Luther. He also didn't say things like "Women were given wide behinds so that they would stay home and sit on them" or "Smite, crush, smote, and slay the hordes of rebellious, godless peasants!"
Maybe they don't like his involvement in Serveto's execution by fire; Luther was never involved in government as directly as Calvin was, so this allowed him to avoid blame for bad decisions.
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