But after having heard the girl’s confession, the priest could have advised the girl to report the rape to the proper authorities without breaking his vow of silence.
After all, the priest is there to hear confessions but also to advice the penitent how to avoid a particular sin in the future.
“But after having heard the girl’s confession, the priest could have advised the girl to report the rape to the proper authorities without breaking his vow of silence.”
Yeah, if there was some sort of conference outside confession or something then the mandatory reporting law would supposedly kick in. But then I don’t understand why the lawsuit, unless he only told her after the first few confessions and then had some sort of conference. But if everything did happen in confession, how do we know that the priest didn’t advise her to do exactly that? I’m not saying he did, but wouldn’t it look exactly the same whether he did or not to us, depending on what the girl then decided to do?
Truly a mess, and I don’t understand why something like this is only happening now if the law has been this way since 1991.
Freegards