[nabla9]

Priests should be treated like any any other person.

Past crimes, generally no responsibility. Danger or repeating a crime, obviously. What is there to discuss?

[trollbridge]

A confessional isn’t a counselling office and a penitent wouldn’t go in there to discuss future acts they plan to do.

The general idea is that confessors shouldn’t be civil agents (particularly in the confessional) conducting investigations on each person who comes in.

And no, priests aren’t treated like any other person. You or I (assuming neither of us are in some profession like teacher, police officer etc) don’t have to go “report” to the police if we think someone is in danger of repeating a crime.

[nabla9]

The issue is that there is an organization that attempts to prevent it's members to voluntarily reports crimes and future crimes.

That organization seems evil to me.

[readthenotes1]

I'm confused whether your talking about the response to Washington State law or the decades long effort to coverup priests raping children.

[ndriscoll]

Any other (generic) person is not obligated to report suspicion of crimes. This seems to specifically be targeting religious leaders purely based on their status among their fellow practitioners.