There is no privilege for future crime – the crime hasn’t happened yet.
There is no breaking of privilege for revealing past crime, which would triggering “mandated reporters” to report the crime.
You mischaracterize the cases in the OP. And in the case where your characterization is correct, the bishop who broke the rules was asked for his resignation, which he gave.
One of the five is Fr. Fredy Montero. The police were notified, and he was questioned but not charged. He did not admit wrongdoing and no settlement was paid.
Why did you say otherwise?
How did confession get into this mix in the first place?
From the discussion of mandated reporting above.
I gather the analogy is dependent on the bishop learning of the molestation specifically and solely through confession and not, for example, through the complaints of parents whose children have been assaulted.
In which case I reiterate my earlier question about what should happen if the confession is given to one’s employer. Even if there is no obligation to report, is there some duty to not further enable? What’s the “spiritual good” angle involved?
There is no privilege outside of confession. Inside, the privilege is absolute: the priest can’t reveal, directly or indirectly, anything he learns in confession.
The spiritual good is allowing a person to unburden his soul and be guided to repentance and acceptance of responsibility.
Well he could. It’s not like God or Hell exists to punish him. He might lose his cushy job and awesome outfits.
Spiritual good isn’t a real thing. Making a serial rapist feel better about his crimes is hardly a laudable goal. The kids he violated still feel just as bad.
If anything, helping a rapist assuage his guilt is actually evil. I’m glad that his soul (which also doesn’t exist) is burdened.
If only that applied to the RCC itself.
Making the rapist repent and confess his misdeeds to the authorities is a temporal good.
Society has passed laws protecting spiritual good.
Why should anyone care about your contrary view?
Oh, I wasn’t asking about the spiritual good of confession, but about the spiritual good of molestation-enabling. I’ll accept that spiritual advisors can be included in the list of legal confidants, but in any case once the confidant is in possesion of the information and has the power to prevent a re-occurrence (and can do so without explicitly breaking confidence), I don’t have a problem with there being a moral duty attached, and I’m only a mere atheist, presumably not as plugged into the Great Moral Standard That Is God And His Son, Jesus The Christ.
Are you discussing temporal or canon law here?
I’m not certain this is accurate. American society has laws preventing or restricting government involvement in what an individual CALLS pursuit of “spiritual good” (i.e. the exercise of religion) but as far as I know, there’s no explicit legal recognition that “spiritual good” actually exists.
If if did exist in some independently definable measurable way, I’m sure you could tell me why the RCC has spiritual good in its rituals and worshipping at an altar to Zeus does not, as I earlier requested.
Perhaps you recognize that the sincere worship of Zeus offers as much spiritual good as attending Mass, or at least that you cannot demonstrate why it does not. As far as I know, the U.S. government views both practices as equally valid, or at least they SHOULD, to be in compliance with the Constitution.
When a boy comes up to a priest and says that another priest fucked him up the ass, which law(judicial, or canon) should the former priest be more concerned about, and which law’s representative should he be contacting(judicial, or canon)?
Canon law.
Yes. I argue that a reasonable description of those laws, laws that protect an individual’s pursuit of spiritual good, can be fairly described as a recognition of the existence of spiritual good.
I don’t claim that no spiritual good is possible from the Zeus altar. It is not a good for me, but I don’t claim my experience is generalized to the world.
Yup.
If the rapist goes to jail, or is forward unable to rape kids, yes.
So? Like you, most of American society is delusional about the existence of the spiritual. In a hundred years you’ll be clucked at, and your grandchildren will probably be as non-religious as I am.
I’m not sure they should. Being right doesn’t require a headcount.
I disagree.
You’re wrong about what matters: the real, verifiable existence of law that does what I said. If you want to console yourself that you’re actually correct, and society is wrong, go right on.
Of course you do. Choice in what to think was taken from you as a child. You’re a wind-up toy that marches in lock-step with what your attackers told you to think.
The law enshrined slavery. The law enshrined racism. The law enshrined prohibitions on same-sex marriage.
The law follows what the culture demands. And society improves one full graveyard at a time. When the GOP base starts dying off, the dynamics will change. You’re a dodo in a hungry sailor’s world.
No. I went through a period in which I identified as an agnostic. I believe what I believe with full advertance of my will.
The problem with this argument is that anyone can level it against anything.
Of course that’s what they’d want you to say. 
The self-delusion that catalyzed your relapse into the fold, certainly had nothing to do with the initial conditioning. :rolleyes: You’re a victim, Bricker. On some level I pity you. Then, I find it funny you’re wasting your life on this silly shit and I giggle.
As a species we are moving in the direction of the reduction of suffering. For all the world’s problems, this is the best time in history to be alive. The marginalization of religion has a lot to do with that. It’ll continue. Each generation is less pious than the last, and soon enough Jesus will be a silly myth in a history book to most people.