Catholics believe that in order to receive God's forgiveness for serious sins we must, if possible, confess those sins to a priest so that the priest can exercise the power granted to him by God to forgive their sins--it's God who forgives not the priest. Whether one agrees with that or not the point is that Catholics do believe that and our Constitution guarantees people of all faiths not just the right to worship but the right to exercise their religion.
Because Catholics must disclose their most secret failings the Church has always said that a priest is required to maintain the secrecy of the Confession. Priests have died rather than betray their confidence. After all who would confess if they knew that the priest could share their sins with the government?
Yet now Democrats in California want the Church to bow to the state by requiring that a priest who hears about child molestation in Confession report it to the state.
While the motivation of this bill is understandable it by its very nature is an attack on the deeply held religious beliefs of all Catholics. We don't compel people whose faith demands pacifism to fight in wars thereby sending others to die in their place but now the Democrats in California are eager to demand that Catholics renounce their beliefs.
In any case it's highly unlikely that someone who is molesting kids would choose to go to Confession according to priests. And even if a molester does go to Confession the priest is under no obligation to forgive his sins unless he shows true signs of an intent to sin no more which could include requiring the penitent to turn himself into the police.
Given that 10% of public school students are molested by teachers before they graduate from high school one wonders why Democrats across the country are only attacking the Catholic Church--not that they should give the Church a pass but it's not by accident that they ignore all other molestation and concentrate only on the Church. Plenty of public school employees cover up sexual molestation of children as they pass around teachers who have been accused of molesting kids yet Democrats are ignoring that.
Given that the left often defends child molestation when it's done by a leftist--check out Woody Allen and Roman Polanski-- the real motivation of this assault on the Catholic Church is unlikely to be a concern about the children but rather a desire to make first the Catholic faith and then all faiths subservient to the Democrat run state.
The reality is forcing Catholics to abandon a key tenant of their faith would do little to reduce child molestation but it would do a lot to advance the idea that all religions, not just the Catholic faith, are subject to the power of government.
If Democrats can force Catholic priests to violate the seal of the confessional for child molestation why not any other sin that Democrats object to? Should priests be forced to report penitents who confess to being racists or who sell drugs?
If Democrats can tell Catholics how to handle their sacraments couldn't they tell the Church that it has to ordain women as priests or forbid the Church from denying the priesthood to active homosexuals?
If Democrats can tell Catholics how to run their Church why couldn't Democrats demand that evangelicals bake cakes for gay weddings or demand that openly gay men be allowed to be ministers?
If Democrats can tell Catholic to violate one of their most strongly held 2000 year old beliefs why couldn't Democrats force Jews to work on Saturdays or serve pork in their restaurants?
If Democrats can force Catholics to change their beliefs why couldn't Democrats demand that pacifists fight in the military?
America was founded on the belief that people were entitled to live out their faith no matter what that faith was because the Founders realized that people's most precious freedom was to be able to live as they believed they should live. But modern Democrats, being fascists at heart, tend to hate religion because religion competes with the all powerful government that Democrats lust after for the hearts and minds of we the people.
We see over and over how modern Democrats are working not to convince the people of the correctness of their arguments but to silence any voice that stands against them. We see it in Facebook, Twitter, Google, and YouTube, we see it in Democrats calling for prison sentences for people who call transgendered by their biological identity, we see it for Democrats calling for prison for people who deny Global Warming...er Climate Change.
Hence their trying to force the Catholic Church, and eventually any church which doesn't concur with the Democrat agenda, to bend its knee to the only source of power that Democrats recognize, the state, is perfectly in keeping with how Democrats treat any voice they disagree with.
If you doubt that note the muted condemnation of Antifa by Democrats even though Antifa uses violence to silence any speech that they don't agree with.
There is a famous poem from a Lutheran minister about the Holocaust:
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a communist.
Because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
No matter what you think about Catholic beliefs you need to realize that if the State can tell any faith what it must believe and how it must act then no faith, including yours, is safe.
If Democrats can declare that the people have no right to keep even their sins secret from the State then none of us can ever have any privacy again; not just about child molestation but about anything.
Democrats never stop. They told us that while they wanted gays to have civil unions they'd never push for redefining marriage but within a few years they, by judicial fiat, redefined marriage even though 51,000,000 Americans had voted against it. Now Democrats demand that Christians must provide services to gay weddings while gays need not provide services to Christians.
We were told we must pretend that men can become women and now we're being told that we must ignore science; that women can have a penis.
Democrats recognize no limit to the power of government over our lives which is why we must fight to allow the Catholic Church to maintain the seal of the Confessional if we wish to preserve our right to exercise whatever we believe to be God's will.
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