While Trump’s MAGA crowd splits about the call for making public the Epstein Files, which are about dead and once convicted child abuser Jeffrey Epstein, a close friend of Donald Trump from 1989 to 2004, Washington State, where I was born and raised, just became the seventh state to pass legislation requiring the clergy to report to police any knowledge they have about child sex abuse within 48 hours. (The other states that already had such a law are New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Texas, and West Virginia.)
Catholic Church Should Abolish Confessional
This raises the issue about the Roman Catholic Church’s practice of having a confessional. Its clergy members hear confessions from parishioners, and the Church requires that all confessional content be kept secret no matter what is. The Church has always argued that if the clergy is required to report to police confessed crimes, parishioners would not feel free to confess. Indeed, and that’s why the Roman Catholic Church confessional, where the Church’s Sacrament of Confession is administered, has always been an abomination in my viewpoint!
The Church Should Not Override State Laws Protecting Children
This Church confessional has always been a horrible practice of the RCC, and I have believed this all my life since I was a teenager. Thus, I highly support such state laws of mandatory child abuse reporting as Washington just passed. This issue has nothing to do with our Constitution’s guarantee of the freedom of religion. Our laws protecting free speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion DO NOT PROVIDE FOR COMMITTING SUCH HEINOUS CRIMES AS CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE OR MURDER!
Any clergy person or church that says otherwise about such child protection laws just adds fuel to the fire in supporting those people who say you can’t trust religion, to which I sometimes agree. Religion is indeed sometimes used as a cloak to cover up crimes. That is certainly what has been going on in much of the world for decades regarding pedophile priests in the Catholic Church.
Mystery Babylon, Mother of Whores and Abominations Has Occurred Throughout History
This control that religion has had on the state throughout history is an example of a biblical prophecy about “mystery Babylon the great, mother of whores and of earth’s abominations” that is scrawled on the forehead of a woman (Revelation 17.5 NRSV). This divine prophecy presents an image of her as a “woman sitting on a scarlet colored beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls” (vv. 3-4). She symbolizes man-made religion controlling the state, which itself is symbolized as the beast. Thus, her riding the beast means this man-made religion controls secular government.
Catholic Church Shamefully Opposes these Laws
Bible readers have always been keenly aware that certain features of this woman in the prophecy are reminiscent of the Catholic Church, such as “being clothed in purple and scarlet” and being adorned with gold,” etc., as a depiction of the RCC’s wealthy trappings. Now, I do not think this prophecy indicates that the entire Catholic Church is evil. Not at all! It merely indicates that certain features of even Christianity can be wicked and thus indicated in this prophetic image. It behooves the church that when this becomes evident, there should be moral reformation and renewal about it within the church. Sometimes that happens in history, but oftentimes it does not. An example is Catholic Church pedophile priests.
This new Washington State legislation about the religious clergy being required to report child sexual abuse was opposed on June 23rd by President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, which I believe he has been corrupting. And three main Catholic dioceses in Washington State—Seattle, Yakima, and Spokane—got a judge to issue a preliminary injunction against this law two days ago, on Friday.
Jesus’s Teaching Against Abusing Children
Jesus once said concerning children in his midst, “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone was fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18.6).
Anyone tempted to defile children sexually, including clergy, should fear God and not do such things. If they succumb, they do not fear God and will greatly suffer for their misbehavior.When will they suffer? Jesus also said of them that they will “be thrown into the hell of fire” (v. 9), which probably refers to the yet future Judgment Day. Six times in the Gospel Matthew, it records that Jesus said of those at that time, “there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8.12; 13.42, 50; 22.13; 24.51; 25.30).
The Epstein Files
Will these state laws protecting against child sexual abuse add fuel to fire about the increasing call to make public the Epstein Files about sexual abuse of young girls?