Caedarai

If lawyers had to report the worst types of crimes committed by their clients, or ones they suspect them of having committed, don’t you think that would break down the legal system? So too with confession. For it to work, there has to be absolute secrecy. Punishments can apply anywhere else, investigations, reporting, whatever. But there fundamentally must be at least that one avenue for an individual to get legal help that is there for them and only them, or to have a priest hear their sins on behalf of God and offer absolution. Without secrecy, both structures would break down and a fundamental part of the legal system is the right of everyone to defend themselves, and a fundamental part of Catholicism is the availability of God’s forgiveness of sins.

You act like excommunication is only a slight matter. For someone who is not religious, being kicked out of a religion might not sound like a big deal, but compare it with citizenship/nationality. Crimes have punishments, so something like murder might involve decades in prison. In the Catholic Church, a priest who murders (or rapes or whatever) might be defrocked, or alternatively sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prayer and solitude, but part of the essence of Christianity is the belief in forgiveness. Excommunication is more akin to stripping citizenship. The US (despite what some people currently im power might want) doesn’t allow stripping citizenship from people who commit regular crimes, even serious ones like murder or rape. Imagine if every murderer or rapist in the US got their citizenship revoked and not only permanently lost all rights (from voting to housing) but could then be deported. Well, I’m sure the uproar that would be caused by even suggesting that. Well excommunication is like that. It is only permissible in certain very tight circumstances where something that fundamentally goes against the entire Church takes place knowingly and intentionally. It would be akin to something like high treason or whatever if I had to draw a comparison, which many countries do have an exception for the absoluteness of citizenship/nationality. There are few instances of excommunication that I can think of in this day and age, but a few would be breaking the seal of confession, breaking the secrecy of papal conclaves, attempting ordination outside of what of permissible while disobeying local bishops, and heretical schisms attempts I guess and all of these mostly for priests and bishops since they have a higher standard and pastoral/leadership responsibilities.

It would be fine as long as it didn’t apply to confession where the seal of confession applies to all information. Any other time the priest can and should use any information available to him properly, and that could include that sort of reporting. But the seal is absolute. And honestly it’s protected by law, by the constitution and case law, so the Washington law is a hassle but completely toothless as it’ll be struck down the moment any challenges to it get brought to the right courts. The authors had to have known it was unconstitutional, so it was basically just them doing this for show, and to antagonize Catholics.

First off, adapting religion to secular laws is not how that works. There’s the separation of church an state and the state should have no say in any religion. The country was based on religious freedom and escaping what the English kings were trying to do to Christianity in their realms (controlling religion).

But second you shouldn’t take that way since you don’t seem to grasp the role reconciliation has for Catholics and Orthodox (and others). It’s a sacrament (or sacred mystery for Orthodox). That’s dogma and the practice/form is in large part a matter of unchangeable doctrine. That kind of doctrine never gets changed, ever, and never has. It’s an essential part of Catholics’ beliefs. Parts of format are just regular teaching which can get changed, but that’s not a matter of interpretation, it’s a matter of practice (in this case canon law) guided by the foundatinal dogma and unchanging doctrine. The seal of confessing is so fundamental, so sacred that there have been numerous martyrs whose status comes from having been willing to die rather than break it. It’s would be less grave to lie about believing in Christ to save your life than to break the seal (and most martyrs died for refusing to reject their faith when Christianity was prohibited).

Yeah, Mint is fine and has enough users to have decent guides out there, a broad support system and great comparability. Think of it like a phone: you can pick a Samsung phone of a specific model, or a Motorola, or a Google Pixel or whatever and they can all run the same apps. The brand and model are mostly a preference thing, and while they do have their differences, once you have an Android phone you can see what those differences are firsthand and change later down the road. The biggest shift would be going from an iPhone to any Android phone. Later on you can worry about which Android brand you like best, what you like about specific interfaces or whatever. Some are nicer to use than others for sure, but it’s not as big of a deal as some people make it out to be as long as you get something generally popular, modern and with enough support/backing/users. Whether for Android phones or Linux distros tho, it’s normal for people to have their own preferences and recommendations based on their personal experience and needs since there are so many possibilities out there.

It’s just personal preference though. You could pick any of the popular modern ones and run everything just fine. It’s like buying an Android phone. Plenty of brands to choose from, but they can all get the job done, run whatever apps you want, etc.

The Democratic party doesn’t need to espouse any of that, it just needs to be less belligerent about opposing the issues since they’re issues where the party’s stance isn’t quite shared by the majority of the population. If you remove the stumbling blocks for voters, and instead focus attention on where the party shares its views with the majority of the US population, then wouldn’t it be natural that more of the center would shift your way?

Plenty of people I know have gotten the little echo dots or the bigger alternative with larger speakers for Christmas or birthdays. Technically they didn’t spend money, but their friends and family did.

I think part if the motivation here would be to allow the doctor present at a school to determine whether a child is participating in the correct sex-appropriate placement. Like using the correct locker rooms or bathrooms in case teachers or other students bring up an issue (for example if a boy were to go into a girl’s locker room and claim to really be a girl). Since appearance doesn’t line up with sex in many cases nowadays, the inspection would be to determine the real sex of the individual. Some school activities will involve nudity (changing before entering a swimming pool, communal showering after a sports match or gym class, etc.) so the authors of this were initially pushing for any teacher (such as the supervisor in a locker room or the teacher of the associated class) to be able to inspect/determine the sex of the individual.

You could disagree, but I think it’s out of touch to suggest most of the US (or at least most of the voting center in swing states) would prefer her over a moderate. And that would be the biggest factor in determining who would win an election.

Licking a wound isn’t grooming or maintenance though.

It’s to do with where people stand. Most people in the US, despite their rhetoric, would be more centrist than many people realize (and between both major parties). That means most aren’t in agreement with much of what Trump is doing internationally or with respect to Musk/DOGE in application, though most might support broad ideas of ‘putting the US first’, ‘reducing the size/cost of the US government’, ‘stopping illegal immigration/deporting illegal immigrants’ etc. But crucially, this also means that most eligible voters are also right of the vocal elements of the left that play up political correctness, identity politics, and social economic policy (economic policy further left-wing than what we see at the moment). So in an election, if neither side really aligns with the majority of voters, it’s easy to see how voters can be swayed by voting against the current party in power, voting due to marketing/propaganda, or voting against the party that seems most radical in ways that differ from voters’ ideas/interests. Trump didn’t campaign on annexing Canada, or invading Greenland, but he did campaign on deporting illegal immigrants and reducing the size of government. And many people saw Harris as a continuation of Biden but with a more socially liberal (or further left on this) attitude and a stronger association with identity politics. So if Trump in his first term didn’t do much that most people would consider lasting harm (despite his antics and buffoonery) and campaigned on ideas that the majority agree with, whereas Harris was a continuation of an unpopular presidency/government (at least at the end) but with a flair of things that most people don’t align with, well, the result speaks for itself: a landslide in the electoral college. The only way forward for democrats is to capitalise on the mistakes Trump is making (unpopular decisions and attitudes), to seem reasonable and grounded to the majority, and to not veer off and start pushing for social issues most of the voting center doesn’t really buy (so for example focus on creating a better immigration system and treating immigrants fairly, but not legalising illegal immigrants. Or pushing for general social protections, workers’ rights, consumer rights, better and broader healthcare coverage and business regulation without straying into a focus on minority rights, trans terminology battles, antireligious discourse or attacking tradionalists/older folks’ viewpoints.) If you can win the center you can win the election. And you do that by appealing to the traditional center (and definitely not by antagonising it).

I really doubt moving to a place like Albania, with far, far lower salaries, a massive language barrier, and a plethora of internal problems would be considered an improvement by most of the US citizens here.

At this rate, maybe AOC or similar will become the democratic candidate in 2028, and basically lead to another Republican landslide. Democrats, at least the politically active ones that would sway these things (not leadership), keep putting a large emphasis on identity politics, political correctness, and a certain ‘victim’ ideology which is out of touch with many of the centrists who ultimately decide the election. Kamela Harris, despite her shifts in policy, is a gauge of this, and yet in these areas she and AOC are nowhere even close, but the AOC-type group is where I see the biggest push among younger democrats. From the point of view of winning a general election, this could be concerning for democrats.

Well that’s rather concerning about the future rule of law, and the ability of the FBI to conduct investigations without political interference…