So Much For Protecting Children

I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I feel like, if somebody admits to molesting a child to a priest, then the priest should report that to the correct legal people to deal with that.

But on the other hand, as a person who has religious practices ingrained into my behavior, I can understand, it's like I don't imagine that the people that are evil pedophiles are the kind of people to go and brag about it with their pastor.

What the ideal scenario in this case would be is that the pedophile confesses to the priest and then turns themselves in.

The next best scenario would be that the pedophile confesses to the priest, and then at least does not ever commit pedophilia again.

I'm not expecting clemency for pedophiles. Don't get me wrong.

But making it so that pedophiles can't even confess their sins without immediately being hauled off to The nearest jail cell is not going to actually decrease the amount of pedophilia in the world. Instead, it's going to convince pedophiles with religious leanings to accept that their souls are condemned to hell and some of them are gonna choose to go out with a bang.