re: Louisiana supreme court claims priests do not have to report child abuse

Stolen comment from Reddit:

This will probably get me downvotes but I actually think the LA supreme court is in the right here. I don't want kids to be hurt and I'd love for the Pope to say "hey guys, ex cathedra: you're allowed to discuss confessed sin with the police if you have reason to believe that the sin will recur or justice needs to be served." But this particular avenue is not the right way to do it.

Being a *mandated reporter* is a relatively high standard that is usually set as part of your government-sponsored job: generally mandated reporters, if they see anything that seems remotely "off" about how a kid is being treated, must call a hotline or else risk losing their job. I've seen my girlfriend, who's a mandated reporter, call the hotline because a homeless woman was begging for change by a street and kept her kid nearby so she could watch him; even though she thought he was probably safe, she had a responsibility to call as part of her mandated reporting: because she had the thought of "well I hope he doesn't do something stupid like run out into traffic while his mom is accepting some money for some food to eat," and that thought is precisely the sort of thing that her colleagues have said "people have gotten fired for thinking that!" Or kids in air-conditioned cars that are left running-and-locked, she has reported that if someone sees her see that kid she might lose her job if she doesn't report it or try and find the parents and resolve the issue or anything.

I'm not going to defend, say, that the First Amendment's protection of religious freedom should allow the associated policy of "if it's said during confession then it's privileged and inadmissible in a court of law!" -- I'd prefer that confessions be classified as hearsay, unprivileged but not admissible directly as evidence. So that's crap. But trying to get *around* this policy by making priests automatically into mandated reporters sounds... *weird*. I understand why you'd take these social workers and teachers who you've trained to identify abuse, and compel them legally to report suspected danger even when they're not working... but the little bit of libertarian in me doesn't think that this should be extended to anyone who isn't in a particular relationship with the state where they're effectively employed and trained by the state. I wouldn't make everyone a mandated reporter and I feel really queasy about targeting religious professionals to be mandated reporters, as if it entangles religion and politics too much.