I lean it was the first pope of long ago who put the laws into place since the Catholic Church was extremely powerful and made rules to suppress their people from the get go. My mother and aunt both said the priests discouraged the congregation from reading the Bible and said you would not understand it so this kept them in the dark and having to attend weekly mass and to hear false doctrine about works and praying to Mary. Some priests might honor their vow oath of not to reveal the crimes that people confess to. However, I don’t believe they all did ... some were shady and would use blackmail on the person confessing to a crime to get extra money on the side. My aunt would go to confessions and would reveal all the junk her husband’s family were doing and was basically crying out for help. She accidentally married into a mafia family. It was a very short courtship (a month or less) and she married him for his looks. She got to meet his side of the family at the wedding celebration. :wacko: After the honeymoon she wanted a divorce but her mom said “no, what would the neighbor’s say!” So she was miserable and almost every Sunday afternoon she was required to attend her in-law dinner meals and hear them plot their evil agenda. So she would confess the plots to the priest ... she has good ears and as she was walking away ... she heard the confessional door open up and she looked back and caught the priest looking at her. :mdrmdr: When I was 17 I worked for the local police dept and, unfortunately, there was more underhanded corruption there than honest cops so they didn’t take their vows seriously. Some were anti God and refused to swear on the Bible in court. They were proud to tell me this when I tried to witness to them one on one. They didn’t think anything of lying and always stole the drug evidence that was under lock and key. High rank and salary was their dream goal ... so if it meant to crack a murder case, etc and if the priest had verbal confession ... nothing would stop them at all to visit that priest to get the scoop. They would force it out. Now a days most Catholics don’t attend church on a weekly basis - just twice a year (Easter and Christmas) so my guess is the priests might not be hearing that many confessions on Saturday nights. :unsure: If you make an oath to another person, then you are making it before God in reality. It would be better to avoid casual promises and to simply say that you will do your best to honor an agreement. Otherwise, your word will come to be seen as worthless. Indeed the political clout of the Catholic Church was one of my first guesses as well. Being an ex Catholic, I have learned for a number of reasons not to trust them. One of their latest campaign ads on television pleads with Catholics, to "come home"! Indeed many have long since rejected in part if not in full their teachings, doctrines. Not to mention their evolving theology, their sordid past and their seeming satanic ways. That said I fully expect to see many Catholic brother and sisters in glory. As many of the more renown Catholic saints of history could more readily distinguish between relationship with Christ and religion! There are indeed many fine religions out there and many people avail themselves of them. Sadly, many cannot distinguish between personal relationship with their Creator God and religious insanity. Understanding of course that religion is a much easier avenue and can better be controlled, than God can. TR it doesn't seem right that God would want us to cover crime up, with an excuse that the one who committed the crime told us to keep it secret wickedness thrives in darkness At one time, much of population was unable to read. Also, before the printing press, it was difficult to have access to the written Word of God. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church was opposed to the distribution of scripture in the language common people spoke and no doubt saw it as a threat to their ability to define the meaning of what was in the Bible.
https://newbbcstlouis.org/2013/07/16/what-about-foolish-promises-made-to-god/
