If I was a criminal organization, I would definitely cloak myself with the veneer of religion. Regardless of your egregious actions, if you’re associated with a recognized faith, there is no crime serious you won’t get away with.

Take a recent example in Arizona, where a judge has dismissed a lawsuit against the Mormon Church on the grounds that spiritual confessions are a sacred right, regardless of what crimes are being confessed. This means that any church official who fails to report serious and ongoing abuses are immune from any responsibility. How outrageous is the crime in question? How about a father who perpetually raped his daughter, confessed to it, and the church did nothing to stop it.

When a young girl was being habitually raped by her father, his confession to his pastor did not warrant the church to communicate with authorities to put a stop to it. He was able to continue to abuse his poor daughter for another 6 years, and had even begun to turn his attention to her 6 week old baby sister.

The church decided to excommunicate the man instead of calling the police, and washed their hands it. Since the man (if he can be considered one) had confessed to his monstrous actions in the presence of a another man trained in the art of make-believe, when the girl finally grew up and tried to sue the church for doing nothing to stop her sexual torture, an Arizona judge made sure that the one being protected was the mega powerful Mormon Church:

In a ruling on Friday, Cochise County Superior Court Judge Timothy Dickerson said the state’s clergy-penitent privilege excused two bishops and several other officials with the church… from the state’s child sex abuse mandatory reporting law, because Paul Adams initially disclosed during a confession that he was sexually abusing his daughter.

“Church defendants were not required under the Mandatory Reporting Statute to report the abuse of Jane Doe 1 by her father because their knowledge of the abuse came from confidential communications which fall within the clergy-penitent exception,” Dickerson wrote in his decision.

Let me remind you that this type of immunity is unique to religion alone. The closest analog we have to this privilege would be that of a lawyer, who is allowed to know about your crimes, without having to reveal details to the authorities. It is not without limitation, however. If there is a possibility of the furtherance of a crime, then your lawyers have a legal (not to mention moral) obligation to notify the police of your future plans. No such limitation exists when it comes to religious “confession”.

The major problem with this kind of immunity isn’t only that it allows criminals to continue to act with impunity. It’s far more sinister than that. Confession is also a way for these monsters to be absolved of their crimes morally. Faiths like Mormonism may claim that believers are bound by an objective morality, but in practical terms, churches have always found ways to involve themselves in the absolving of immorality, if not primarily because it has such good financial returns. It was indulgences that paid for the St. Peter’s Basilica, and the monetary benefits of offering salvation that has the the full power of secular law on its side, with legal protections of such magnitude, continues to fill coffers and puts asses in pews.

There is no end to my discuss when it comes to the privileges afforded to religions, especially when we know for a fact that they are so underserving of it of them. There are few world organizations that should have LESS protection than the major religions, who have fought for years to protect the rapists that live among their ranks. Remove their fancy vestments, or shave their overgrown beards and you would see them for what they are: a bunch of gangsters, rapists and embezzlers that would be right at home in a place that has bars on the windows.