Both of these come via Bettnet:
1. The New Hampshire legislature is discussing a bill that would require priests to report to the state if a penitent confesses child abuse during sacramental confession. Hmm, the lawyer-client privilege and the doctor-patient privilege wouldn’t be affected. Do you think the legislature just forgot?
2. The Colorado legislature is considering bills that would eliminate the statute of limitations in sexual abuse cases. On its own, this may or may not be wise; but the point here is that these bills are limited to private institutions. There’s no effect on the statute of limitations for abuse committed in public institutitions — such as public schools.
Do you think the legislature just forgot?
Quick quiz. If a public school teacher sexually abuses a little boy in Colorado, how much time does the little boy have to report the abuse, after which he and his family may no longer file a claim?
a. Seven years after the little boy turns eighteen
b. Seven years after the abuse
c. Five years after the abuse
d. 180 days after the abuse
The answer is (d). (Link is to a pdf)
SESAME is an organization that raises awareness of sexual abuse by educators. Here is their website. They quote a few numbers that are alarming, to say the least.
My point isn’t to minimize the problem of sexual abuse within private institutions, particularly the Church. It’s a serious problem, a rot that goes all the way to the top in many dioceses (including "rings" of abusers, apparently, according to this post at Mere Comments). Point number one is that the public, civil, legal response to institutional sexual abuse, if it is to succeed at protecting children and punishing perpetrators, can’t be allowed to get away with sheltering the perverts who happen to work in large, popular institutions with powerful lobbyists.
And point number two is that prosecution of even the most heinous crimes has to yield at some point to certain civil liberties. There’s room in this country to discuss exactly what that point should be (cf. wiretaps and terrorism), but somewhere it has to yield. In our churches, state reporting laws extend only as far as the confessional door, and that is as it should be.
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