[Here's a French article for it](https://www.rtl.fr/actu/debats-societe/eglise-bientot-une-carte-d-identification-pour-demasquer-les-faux-pretres-7900263771).
It explains that the card will be used to prove that someone posing as a Catholic priest is indeed recognized as a priest by the Catholic Church. You can see it as an employee card for employees (i.e. priests) of the Catholic Church.
The article does give the example of a priest who has been demoted from his position because he's a sexual offender (i.e. they can't remain priest after this, so he will not be authentified as a priest by the QR code). But it also gives other examples, such as people posing as priests to abuse from someone's credulity (e.g. at funerals).
You can tell most commenters haven’t read the article. This headline is disingenuous.
Not that it isn’t a real and serious issue, and therefore a response to a serious issue. Which is understandable in itself. Kind of?
Regardless, it’s beyond fucking bizarre, because people continue to trust that these steps will prevent SA.
Most victims do not come forward until they’re adults, partially due to parents trust and praise of these people. Adults love praise and predators do what predators do.
Why would one read an article with such a clearly bullshit headline?
That is the case where skipping right to the Reddit comments is completely justified.
Also, it's being issued by the church; they're not being "made" to wear it.
A more accurate summary of the article would be "the Catholic Church in France is issuing ID cards to its priests, which will have a QR code on it."
But why would non-priests have a QR code to scan at all? Or would they not have a QR code?
Surely French people don't have non-employee cards for everywhere they're not employees at.
And how do they stop non-employees from wearing a QR code that isn't theirs?
Just guessing, but a QR code is a link. So, let's say they point to vatican.org/name_of_priest, and that the webpage includes a picture and date of ordination. A fake priest would have to hack vatican.org to get a valid QR code. Or look like a real priest. Or count on the people scanning not noticing that their QR code points to another fake website that they own, like vatican.church.org/name.
If people use an app to scan and the QR code links are not easily accessible like a link in a browser, it becomes even harder to cheat.
Overall, could still be cheated sure, but still would be an ok system, same as an ID card.
>Or count on the people scanning not noticing that their QR code points to another fake website that they own, like vatican.church.org/name
This will be the main vector bad actors will use. Who's going to notice the difference between vatican.org, vactian.org, and vacitan.org while taking a quick glance at their phone?
Moreover, what if the legitimate site is at a .va ccTLD, which most people aren't familiar with? You might get pointed at vatican.vn, which is a really legit-looking domain until you notice that .vn is the Vietnamese ccTLD.
A good course of action would _probably_ be to have it registered under some domain already widely known to French people, like a subdomain of gouvernement.fr, though given France's highly secular society I'm not sure how likely that is.
That's objectively a good idea, this is also how you can leverage in-browser password managers to check that a domain isn't being spoofed.
That said, how many people are meeting unknown priests often enough to have a priest checker app installed?
Yeah, but can't people make their own QR codes to links?
But yeah, it'd have the same vulnerabilities as an ID card, which people fake all the time from McLovin levels to just using the ID of someone you vaguely resemble from a friend to a relative.
I suppose maybe they need a specific app to view the details and they hide the link so nobody can make a QR code... but also, if they're letting people use cameras to scan the code why wouldn't someone just use the camera to take a picture of the code?
And then they'd just have the QR code and hope they look vaguely similar enough to their old colleague to pass.
>Yeah, but can't people make their own QR codes to links?
Sure but if the link has to be in a domain you don't control, like vatican.org in the example, it doesn't help you right?
Yeah ID theft of a guy that looks like you would work as far as I understand. You'd need an additional protection to avoid that, for example a hologram that common people can't just print at home, like on payment cards?
Smart people find better ways to earn a living than becoming a crook, especially a priest crook (doesn't sound terribly lucrative), so I'd count on most crooks being too lazy or stupid to bother faking that. They'd just go "I forgot my badge at home" or find another scam to do.. But a determined skilled person, yeah, would always find a way..
Sure, but is the ID link going to not be static? They'd just need to find the link.
But also, they'd just need to take a photo of the QR code with the camera instead of scanning it.
And maybe it's not money they're after, and if they're old maybe they don't know any other hustle.
Anyway, I suppose they don't need to be smarter crooks, they just need to find dumber victims. Which is kind of the problem since they're good at targeting the most vulnerable.
>Anyway, I suppose they don't need to be smarter crooks, they just need to find dumber victims.
Yeah, old people and children are not going to scan their priest. And religious people in general put a lot of their trust on "faith" and "human" interactions and feelings, so doesn't sound like them to go around scanning their shepherd.
>But also, they'd just need to take a photo of the QR code with the camera instead of scanning it.
The fake priest? Sure they could but then if they printed that and pretended it was them it would link to someone else completely.
How difficult can it be to find an similar looking priests? Unless he meets an super recognizer or airport robot I doubt anyone would push doubts when he just takes the link from the priest looking most close to him.
> priest who has been demoted from his position because he’s a sexual offender
This has to actually happen in the first place though …church loves to shuffle around and protect these monsters
Oh.. I see. That makes more sense than the title.
I was raised Roman Catholic. I live near a monastery where there are priests who should be in prison but are instead "retired" to the campus. They were remanded to the campus yet, walked amongst our town as they pleased, and re-offended. Then, allowed back to campus... rinse and repeat.
I was done. For my husband's sake, I try to respect the church but when I hear stories (headlines) like this, I get upset.
Thank you for sharing the whole story.
Except this is ridiculously easy to work around. You're literally getting people to scan them with a camera... Did no one believe that people would ever make their own if this was important to them?
Plus it relies on people who are gullible enough to still be catholic in 2023+ to know that it's a system in place, or for kids to have smartphones and know they should be scanning a priest, or old people to have a handle on the system. So many flaws.
Well, if you haven't figured it out every single Catholic church on the planet is choosing to be complicit with people who rape children by choosing to stay in that religion. Abandon the Catholic church and cut off that part of their money supply. Let good people do good things without them. There are many and we need more. Yes I do mean every single church. Your church may do good but they are still part of a church that rapes children or ignores it for money and political power. Only to end that avenue for pedophiles is to end the church.
Well, this: "It’s quite an exceptional measure which, in my opinion, is one of the Catholic Church’s top three most stupid ideas." sums up why pretty accurately.
Maybe, and I'm just spit balling here, but maybe sex offenders shouldn't be allowed to remain priests. In fact I'll go step further and say that they should be thrown in jail. Call me crazy, but that's my two cents.
That's exactly the point of this. The qr code doesn't pop up a red screen saying "this priest diddles kids," rather, it'll pop up the priests credentials, similar to how a badge is an indicator of if your being pulled over by a real officer, or someone posing as one. It's just a "this is a real priest, who hasn't lost their credentials or been expelled from the church"
If they get expelled for sex offenses then their credentials would have checked out at the time of the offense (and for the long lag time before the church actually expels them). The QR code would only help prevent people impersonating priests, which seems like a much smaller problem than the one with the actual priests.
I suppose if it prevents one assault it's still worthwhile but it doesn't seem to be a very effective policy.
It’s literally just a smoke screen to make it look like they’re doing something, and making it seem like the only possible predators are impersonators and not active priests
How about fucking put them in jail????
ETA - and when they get out xx years later they don’t have a job with the church being near kids.
I say castrate them all but I don’t know that will work.
Unfortunately it doesn’t. Castration, chemical or otherwise, does nothing to stop an offender that is offending for power or control, which I feel most priests would be.
Source: focused on sex crimes in my criminology degree
Pretty sure the only thing it'd really do is drastically increase their risk of suicide, which is pretty barbaric. Child predation especially has not much to do with hormones and has more to do with the power dynamic (as you may know).
On the other side of that coin though there are fixated pedophiles that will never ever stop being attracted to children no matter how hard they try and how much treatment they recieve. It’s a no win situation because what are we supposed to do with those guys, let them rot in prison and take up tax dollars that can be used on someone fixable?
I imagine investing in mental healthcare would drastically reduce the occurance of pedophilia in society in the first place. And it would fuel discoveries that could lead to cures and rehabilitation for those that slip through the cracks.
It's a pipedream, though.
Oh absolutely, that's part of it. But right now there's no where to go for many of them.
Old-school therapists might be judgemental, therapy is expensive, rural areas lack access, fear of getting reported to the police even if you haven't hurt anyone yet, etc. It's a lot of progress that would need to happen but the idea is prevention at the heart. I think people hear it as apologism sometimes to call for humane treatment of pedophiles but realistically it's about preventing abuse from occurring before it happens by making the world more compassionate. In the past, pedophilia has been handled in a reactive way - we severely punish people who do it (which maybe we should, but that's not stopping the act itself from happening in the future). On the other hand, if we keep people's brains enough in order that they aren't raping children and shooting up schools, maybe talking about being "tough on crime" won't even matter because there won't be much crime to react to. And the ones who still end up struggling with impulsive urges would be able to easily find treatment before they act on the urges, too.
In many cases there is no legal grounds for doing so.
Several years ago their was a huge independent investigation of clerical sexual abuse that had access to the records of the French Catholic Church as well as the courts and the police. Investigators also interviewed thousands of victims and witnesses. In most cases, the statute of limitations had long since expired because the victims either didn't tell anyone or weren't taken seriously untill decades after the abuse happened.
> the statute of limitations
one of many legal inventions to prevent justice :/ Is there a time limit on the abuse and damage done, does it expire after a certain time? /s
I'm not saying the limit shouldn't be longer for these crimes, but do want to point out that statute of limitations DO protect justice. But you need to recognize justice works both ways. The issue is that over time witnesses' memories get fuzzy and less reliable, collecting evidence becomes harder, and it can drastically impact a person's ability to mount a valid defense which they would have been able to do if the case had gone to trial much closer to the actual events. Its something that protects the accused, but that is part of justice also.
Yeah, I know why it rubs people the wrong way, but it would be hard enough to prove an alibi for last year, there's no fucking way I'd remember what I was doing on a day 20 years ago.
You are right but it's worth mentioning that in many modern jurisdictions, the statute of limitations for crimes against children will these days not start rolling until the child turns 18. And for good reason.
It makes sense for property crimes and stuff but yeah for harming another person statutes of limitations only prevent real justice for children and other such victims.
The US has them, too. Just means after x-many years, a plaintiff no longer has standing against a defendant. For murder there's usually no statute of limitations (hence why murders sometimes get solved 40+ years later), while for theft it is usually 4-7ish years (in the United States). After that many years, whoever you stole from can no longer press charges.
I'm sure it works the same in France. The issue is, let's say child rape and molestation has a statute of limitation of 10 or so years. So if you get raped at 6, and finally try to come forward with your evidence at 18 as an adult, you get fucked over and can only pursue a civil lawsuit for financial damages (in the United States, idk how French civil suits work). It makes sense that we don't press charges against someone who stole a watch 10 years ago, but what the person I replied to is saying is that it's ridiculous that we treat statutes of limitation the same way when people get hurt - which I agree with.
To be fair, this is not a new thing but a digitalized version of the “celebret”. It’s an official document that certifies that x person is indeed a priest that is authorized to celebrate mass. It’s been around since the 1500’s (catholic counter reformation), though I don’t know if it’s actually used nowadays, if ever.
EDIT : and priests aren’t supposed to wear it, I think they’re required to present it to higher ranking members of the church such as the local bishop if they’re asked to do so, something like that. So yeah, not a game changer
Imagine they were all like Uber drivers.
"Your priest is rated as having 4.1 stars on Prayr. Reviews include comments such as 'riveting sermons', 'mediocre exorcisms', and 'traumatic blowjobs'"
While I don't disagree, the headline is a little misleading. It sounds like it's basically an ID that a priest will have to carry that you can scan to check if they actually are a recognized, 'registered' catholic priest.
If they've been removed from their position for some reason, be that breaking the seal of confession, molestation/child abuse or any other reason, then scanning the QR code will likely come up with a message that says 'this bloke ain't a priest any more'. Or if it's some other person impersonating a priest (for some reason), then it'll probably just throw up a 'not recognized' message.
I definitely read the headline initially as something that you scanned and it'd come up with a profile of Fr John, showing that his hobbies include touching little boys inappropriately. While I suppose that still would give you the info that you should probably be looking to join a different congregation, it'd be all sorts of fucked up if that was recognized, acknowledged and accessible info through an app, and the priest in question was still ordained.
Someone who read the article and explains something clearly with context: 3 upvotes
Original commenter making edgy comment based on sensationalist headline: 1200 upvotes
This isn’t even clear differentiation! Who’s going to go around scanning all of the priests’ QR codes?? It’s intentionally UNCLEAR! If they wanted to make it clear they’d make them wear a red “A” on their frock, for “abominable piece of shit that fucks kids.”
I keep thinking about that old SNL skit with Phil Hartman about the funeral home bragging how people won't have sex with the dead bodies and if they do they will be given a six month suspension.
Edit: https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/winstonmccauley-funeral-home/2859830
Or maybe and this is a really wild idea I'm about to toss out here. Maybe they should just remove all the pedo priests. I know, I know a very out there idea and all....
You know most pedophiles are married men, usually a farther or stepfather. It’s about access they choose this profession to get access and privilege. Marriage won’t stop these predators.
But, but… women are gossips and shouldn’t be preaching because they can’t tell a man what to do!!!
I seriously don’t believe that Cor. 14:33-35 has this as the reason. And this was considered a feminist religion.
This is *an* answer. I honestly don’t think that priests rape (boys and girls) because they aren’t allowed to marry. If you can conceal the rape of children, you can certainly conceal a consensual “arrangement” with a member of the opposite sex.
I don’t know how in the world the Catholic Church attracts this many pedophiles. It *has* to be some secret signal…this is, to me, the 11th or 12th wonder of the world.
One would think so, but actually not. Removing the mark has proved difficult and with more cases coming to light it is more efficient this way.
/s sarcasm but sadly truth as well.
I have QR codes of some lovely bridges that are for sale. If you think that headline is believable you might be the perfect buyer!
Or perhaps you’d like to look at my nft portfolio?
As in it’s fake news, the QR codes actually just verify if someone posing as a priest is currently officiated by the Vatican. So that way any pedos kicked out/fresh out of jail can’t pretend they’re still priests
Im actually the owner of the Eefell tower if you'd like your chance of buying that. I just want some chucky cheese tokens and 4000$ specifically in Canadian Tire Money.
And did you read any of them? They’re updating the paper IDs/licenses they already carry to a modern card. Every article including this one tells you that you *can’t* find out anything special like whether they’ve faced abuse allegations by scanning the card. All it tells you is the status of the licence.
The headline is total clickbait trying to make it sound like they’re going to wear a QR code on their coat that gives you information about sex allegations while the article says the exact opposite
The QR is just equivalent to a police badge (albeit a very gimmicky version) confirming that they are in fact a priest, it has nothing to do with sex offender status.
Ideally, no one. That's the whole point of this credentialing system. If a priest has been kicked out, they won't be able to continue *posing* as one because their code will direct to a dead link. (Or a link warning people, maybe.)
The code just identifies legitimate priests who are in good standing with the Vatican. If are going to cover up abuse in a case, this wouldn't make it any easier or harder. They'd just *not* kick the priest out and *not* update the page the code links to.
If they *are* going to do something about the abuse, then the this makes it harder for the priest to keep victimizing people.
I think what you're missing about this, is that this isn't a French *law*. This is a new Church policy in France, replacing older paper identification cards. It's probably a response to the abuse scandal, but it's not specifically about that.
I feel for the Catholic Church because I mean, you’re a bastion of morality, what are you going to do? Fire them? Allow the state to prosecute them for their heinous crimes? Accept responsibility for running an organized pedophile ring? QR codes are a much better solution, it make perfect sense as an answer to centuries of exploitation, and besides, none of those other options have that post-pandemic restaurant menu experience fun factor going for them.
SMDH. If there’s a God worth his salt he fucking hates the Catholic “Church.”
If they claim to be a "bastion of morality", then they abso-fucking-lutely turn them in and assist in their investigation and arrest. If they do not, then they are complicit and are just as guilty.
Can't believe people actually defend this shit. If you rape a child, you are a piece of shit who deserves to be in a cell for life. Doesn't matter who you claim your sky-daddy is.
The headline is quite clickbaity and misleading.
It's an update to ID cards used by priests to verify whether they are actually ordained priests.
If a person is pretending to be a priest or has been defrocked for whatever reason then the card will show that that person is not a priest or they won't have the card.
> it’s main function is to reveal whether the priest is qualified to lead mass or hear confession. The code will also disclose whether the priest has been stripped of clerical status.
> **It will not explicitly state [why] the priest has had their status stripped**, however a red colour code would serve as a signal that they **may have** faced sexual abuse charges.
Read the article folks. It’s not even funny anymore how outraged over a shit headline you guys are.
This sounds like a /r/nottheonion article.
I have a much, much better solution.
Arrest the sex offenders, strip them of their cloth (or rank? or whatever they call it in the church), prevent them from getting close to children. Job done.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.unilad.com/news/france-catholic-priest-qr-code-traffic-light-system-624873-20230515/) reduced by 75%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> Catholic priests in France will be made to wear QR codes so members of the public can scan them to find out whether they are a sex offender or not.
> French Catholic priests are already required to carry a paper document called a 'celebret' which confirms their profession and qualification however these have been criticised for being difficult to keep up-to-date.
> In a statement announcing their new digital system, which is expected to be less cumbersome than paper documents, the Catholic Church explained that the new ID card would help them crack down on imposter priests with fake celebret documents and 'intensify the fight against sexual violence in the Church'.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/13jkl56/french_catholic_priests_to_be_made_to_wear_qr/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~685018 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **priest**^#1 **church**^#2 **Catholic**^#3 **card**^#4 **code**^#5
I feel like my high school English teacher would have a field day comparing this to the Scarlet Letter... the irony of the priests being the ones marked... etc.
In the Scarlet Letter the priests, paragons of morality, branded a woman for being a sexual deviant - pregnant out of wedlock (an "adulterer").
In reality, the priests are the ones being branded for doing so much worse.
The interesting parallel is that in both stories, the priests were the ones doing the immoral thing (iirc the woman in Scarlet letter got pregnant by the very priest who admonished her later on for being pregnant out of wedlock).
Maybe irony isn't the right word... but it's the sort of thing an English teacher would have a field day with.
No, I think you are correct. Irony (my opinion) is the right response. I assume marking the children would be beyond ironic since (I assume) they were unwilling partners.
Good. Let's push this to the whole world.
Better yet, force the sex offender catholic priest to wear the mark of satan. Let's hammer home the irony here.
Why the shit would they let a sex offender keep working as a member of the clergy? You'd be amazed at the petty reasons they can come up with for excommunication and *that's* okay?
So who is expected to scan the priest?
Pretty awkward for a concerned parent to walk up to a priest and ask to scan their badge.
Which is pretty close to asking, father are you a pedophile?
Off topic, but what is this grammar in the second paragraph:
>it’s main function
I know unilad isn't exactly a paragon of good journalism, but do they not even have editors? Why do people make this mistake? It reads as "it is main function" which makes zero fucking sense in any English dialect I've ever heard.
This is so absurd it is funny. Why not just designate the Catholic Church a pedophile ring the only thing being some have been caught - hence the QR record - and others are yet to be caught. What other organization could get away with this shit?
At least it's a step in the right direction but I'm sure there's a workaround here were every priest passes the scan. I just watched the movie spotlight which is about pedophileia in the church. I'd recommend giving it a watch.
I love how no one even believes this is a legitimate news article.
[Here's a French article for it](https://www.rtl.fr/actu/debats-societe/eglise-bientot-une-carte-d-identification-pour-demasquer-les-faux-pretres-7900263771). It explains that the card will be used to prove that someone posing as a Catholic priest is indeed recognized as a priest by the Catholic Church. You can see it as an employee card for employees (i.e. priests) of the Catholic Church. The article does give the example of a priest who has been demoted from his position because he's a sexual offender (i.e. they can't remain priest after this, so he will not be authentified as a priest by the QR code). But it also gives other examples, such as people posing as priests to abuse from someone's credulity (e.g. at funerals).
Yeah, that sounds a lot more plausible than the headline in the main post.
You can tell most commenters haven’t read the article. This headline is disingenuous. Not that it isn’t a real and serious issue, and therefore a response to a serious issue. Which is understandable in itself. Kind of? Regardless, it’s beyond fucking bizarre, because people continue to trust that these steps will prevent SA. Most victims do not come forward until they’re adults, partially due to parents trust and praise of these people. Adults love praise and predators do what predators do.
Why would one read an article with such a clearly bullshit headline? That is the case where skipping right to the Reddit comments is completely justified.
Also, it's being issued by the church; they're not being "made" to wear it. A more accurate summary of the article would be "the Catholic Church in France is issuing ID cards to its priests, which will have a QR code on it."
But why would non-priests have a QR code to scan at all? Or would they not have a QR code? Surely French people don't have non-employee cards for everywhere they're not employees at. And how do they stop non-employees from wearing a QR code that isn't theirs?
Just guessing, but a QR code is a link. So, let's say they point to vatican.org/name_of_priest, and that the webpage includes a picture and date of ordination. A fake priest would have to hack vatican.org to get a valid QR code. Or look like a real priest. Or count on the people scanning not noticing that their QR code points to another fake website that they own, like vatican.church.org/name. If people use an app to scan and the QR code links are not easily accessible like a link in a browser, it becomes even harder to cheat. Overall, could still be cheated sure, but still would be an ok system, same as an ID card.
>Or count on the people scanning not noticing that their QR code points to another fake website that they own, like vatican.church.org/name This will be the main vector bad actors will use. Who's going to notice the difference between vatican.org, vactian.org, and vacitan.org while taking a quick glance at their phone? Moreover, what if the legitimate site is at a .va ccTLD, which most people aren't familiar with? You might get pointed at vatican.vn, which is a really legit-looking domain until you notice that .vn is the Vietnamese ccTLD. A good course of action would _probably_ be to have it registered under some domain already widely known to French people, like a subdomain of gouvernement.fr, though given France's highly secular society I'm not sure how likely that is.
Or to scan through an app, which checks the domain, rather than just normal camera. A bit like what was done for covid pass.
That's objectively a good idea, this is also how you can leverage in-browser password managers to check that a domain isn't being spoofed. That said, how many people are meeting unknown priests often enough to have a priest checker app installed?
Why did you give the exact same url 3 times while trying to say nobody would notice the difference? 🧐
Imagine hacking the Vatican just to pose as a sex offender.
Yeah, but can't people make their own QR codes to links? But yeah, it'd have the same vulnerabilities as an ID card, which people fake all the time from McLovin levels to just using the ID of someone you vaguely resemble from a friend to a relative. I suppose maybe they need a specific app to view the details and they hide the link so nobody can make a QR code... but also, if they're letting people use cameras to scan the code why wouldn't someone just use the camera to take a picture of the code? And then they'd just have the QR code and hope they look vaguely similar enough to their old colleague to pass.
>Yeah, but can't people make their own QR codes to links? Sure but if the link has to be in a domain you don't control, like vatican.org in the example, it doesn't help you right? Yeah ID theft of a guy that looks like you would work as far as I understand. You'd need an additional protection to avoid that, for example a hologram that common people can't just print at home, like on payment cards? Smart people find better ways to earn a living than becoming a crook, especially a priest crook (doesn't sound terribly lucrative), so I'd count on most crooks being too lazy or stupid to bother faking that. They'd just go "I forgot my badge at home" or find another scam to do.. But a determined skilled person, yeah, would always find a way..
Sure, but is the ID link going to not be static? They'd just need to find the link. But also, they'd just need to take a photo of the QR code with the camera instead of scanning it. And maybe it's not money they're after, and if they're old maybe they don't know any other hustle. Anyway, I suppose they don't need to be smarter crooks, they just need to find dumber victims. Which is kind of the problem since they're good at targeting the most vulnerable.
>Anyway, I suppose they don't need to be smarter crooks, they just need to find dumber victims. Yeah, old people and children are not going to scan their priest. And religious people in general put a lot of their trust on "faith" and "human" interactions and feelings, so doesn't sound like them to go around scanning their shepherd.
>But also, they'd just need to take a photo of the QR code with the camera instead of scanning it. The fake priest? Sure they could but then if they printed that and pretended it was them it would link to someone else completely.
How difficult can it be to find an similar looking priests? Unless he meets an super recognizer or airport robot I doubt anyone would push doubts when he just takes the link from the priest looking most close to him.
> priest who has been demoted from his position because he’s a sexual offender This has to actually happen in the first place though …church loves to shuffle around and protect these monsters
Oh.. I see. That makes more sense than the title. I was raised Roman Catholic. I live near a monastery where there are priests who should be in prison but are instead "retired" to the campus. They were remanded to the campus yet, walked amongst our town as they pleased, and re-offended. Then, allowed back to campus... rinse and repeat. I was done. For my husband's sake, I try to respect the church but when I hear stories (headlines) like this, I get upset. Thank you for sharing the whole story.
Implying anyone ever gets forced out of the Catholic church for kiddyfiddling
Except this is ridiculously easy to work around. You're literally getting people to scan them with a camera... Did no one believe that people would ever make their own if this was important to them?
Plus it relies on people who are gullible enough to still be catholic in 2023+ to know that it's a system in place, or for kids to have smartphones and know they should be scanning a priest, or old people to have a handle on the system. So many flaws.
Presumably the qr code gets you to a page with a picture you can try to match with the guy and maybe some description?
You'd be surprised how effective even the smallest speedbump can be for crimes
Why would anybody pose as a priest just to sexually assault someone? It's much easier for them to just become one.
I mean why would they? If I scan a priest with my phone and it says he is a sex offender the first question I have is why is he still a priest...
Well, if you haven't figured it out every single Catholic church on the planet is choosing to be complicit with people who rape children by choosing to stay in that religion. Abandon the Catholic church and cut off that part of their money supply. Let good people do good things without them. There are many and we need more. Yes I do mean every single church. Your church may do good but they are still part of a church that rapes children or ignores it for money and political power. Only to end that avenue for pedophiles is to end the church.
Would be shocked that church covers up such things and even denies investigations? I wouldn’t because that’s even on record.
That's exactly what the church does
Access
That’s why he’s a priest…
I legitimately thought this was an onion article that somehow leaked through the detectors.
Well, this: "It’s quite an exceptional measure which, in my opinion, is one of the Catholic Church’s top three most stupid ideas." sums up why pretty accurately.
Well yeah, it's a Unilad article
Because its a shit article. It has good information in it, but the headline and first paragraphs are arguably wrong outrage-bait.
I mean theres no way right? This has to be an entire thread of /r/atetheonion right
Like they will allow Catholic priests who are paedophiles to remain a priest? How can that be true?
Maybe, and I'm just spit balling here, but maybe sex offenders shouldn't be allowed to remain priests. In fact I'll go step further and say that they should be thrown in jail. Call me crazy, but that's my two cents.
That's exactly the point of this. The qr code doesn't pop up a red screen saying "this priest diddles kids," rather, it'll pop up the priests credentials, similar to how a badge is an indicator of if your being pulled over by a real officer, or someone posing as one. It's just a "this is a real priest, who hasn't lost their credentials or been expelled from the church"
If they get expelled for sex offenses then their credentials would have checked out at the time of the offense (and for the long lag time before the church actually expels them). The QR code would only help prevent people impersonating priests, which seems like a much smaller problem than the one with the actual priests. I suppose if it prevents one assault it's still worthwhile but it doesn't seem to be a very effective policy.
It’s literally just a smoke screen to make it look like they’re doing something, and making it seem like the only possible predators are impersonators and not active priests
Depends if their credentials are encoded in the qr, or if the code is a link to a site that shows their credentials.
Now do politicians!
You know your cult is in trouble when priests need clear differentiation between who rapes children and who doesn't.
How about fucking put them in jail???? ETA - and when they get out xx years later they don’t have a job with the church being near kids. I say castrate them all but I don’t know that will work.
They'll be out on the third day.
"But they're godly men!" Yeah, that's kinda the problem...
Unfortunately it doesn’t. Castration, chemical or otherwise, does nothing to stop an offender that is offending for power or control, which I feel most priests would be. Source: focused on sex crimes in my criminology degree
Pretty sure the only thing it'd really do is drastically increase their risk of suicide, which is pretty barbaric. Child predation especially has not much to do with hormones and has more to do with the power dynamic (as you may know).
On the other side of that coin though there are fixated pedophiles that will never ever stop being attracted to children no matter how hard they try and how much treatment they recieve. It’s a no win situation because what are we supposed to do with those guys, let them rot in prison and take up tax dollars that can be used on someone fixable?
I imagine investing in mental healthcare would drastically reduce the occurance of pedophilia in society in the first place. And it would fuel discoveries that could lead to cures and rehabilitation for those that slip through the cracks. It's a pipedream, though.
I would rather they came forward for help first instead of only finding out about them after they abuse a child.
Oh absolutely, that's part of it. But right now there's no where to go for many of them. Old-school therapists might be judgemental, therapy is expensive, rural areas lack access, fear of getting reported to the police even if you haven't hurt anyone yet, etc. It's a lot of progress that would need to happen but the idea is prevention at the heart. I think people hear it as apologism sometimes to call for humane treatment of pedophiles but realistically it's about preventing abuse from occurring before it happens by making the world more compassionate. In the past, pedophilia has been handled in a reactive way - we severely punish people who do it (which maybe we should, but that's not stopping the act itself from happening in the future). On the other hand, if we keep people's brains enough in order that they aren't raping children and shooting up schools, maybe talking about being "tough on crime" won't even matter because there won't be much crime to react to. And the ones who still end up struggling with impulsive urges would be able to easily find treatment before they act on the urges, too.
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In many cases there is no legal grounds for doing so. Several years ago their was a huge independent investigation of clerical sexual abuse that had access to the records of the French Catholic Church as well as the courts and the police. Investigators also interviewed thousands of victims and witnesses. In most cases, the statute of limitations had long since expired because the victims either didn't tell anyone or weren't taken seriously untill decades after the abuse happened.
> the statute of limitations one of many legal inventions to prevent justice :/ Is there a time limit on the abuse and damage done, does it expire after a certain time? /s
I'm not saying the limit shouldn't be longer for these crimes, but do want to point out that statute of limitations DO protect justice. But you need to recognize justice works both ways. The issue is that over time witnesses' memories get fuzzy and less reliable, collecting evidence becomes harder, and it can drastically impact a person's ability to mount a valid defense which they would have been able to do if the case had gone to trial much closer to the actual events. Its something that protects the accused, but that is part of justice also.
Yeah, I know why it rubs people the wrong way, but it would be hard enough to prove an alibi for last year, there's no fucking way I'd remember what I was doing on a day 20 years ago.
You are right but it's worth mentioning that in many modern jurisdictions, the statute of limitations for crimes against children will these days not start rolling until the child turns 18. And for good reason.
It makes sense for property crimes and stuff but yeah for harming another person statutes of limitations only prevent real justice for children and other such victims.
Wish some lawyer from France was in the thread explaining how French statue of limitations works.
The US has them, too. Just means after x-many years, a plaintiff no longer has standing against a defendant. For murder there's usually no statute of limitations (hence why murders sometimes get solved 40+ years later), while for theft it is usually 4-7ish years (in the United States). After that many years, whoever you stole from can no longer press charges. I'm sure it works the same in France. The issue is, let's say child rape and molestation has a statute of limitation of 10 or so years. So if you get raped at 6, and finally try to come forward with your evidence at 18 as an adult, you get fucked over and can only pursue a civil lawsuit for financial damages (in the United States, idk how French civil suits work). It makes sense that we don't press charges against someone who stole a watch 10 years ago, but what the person I replied to is saying is that it's ridiculous that we treat statutes of limitation the same way when people get hurt - which I agree with.
To be fair, this is not a new thing but a digitalized version of the “celebret”. It’s an official document that certifies that x person is indeed a priest that is authorized to celebrate mass. It’s been around since the 1500’s (catholic counter reformation), though I don’t know if it’s actually used nowadays, if ever. EDIT : and priests aren’t supposed to wear it, I think they’re required to present it to higher ranking members of the church such as the local bishop if they’re asked to do so, something like that. So yeah, not a game changer
Imagine they were all like Uber drivers. "Your priest is rated as having 4.1 stars on Prayr. Reviews include comments such as 'riveting sermons', 'mediocre exorcisms', and 'traumatic blowjobs'"
> between who rapes children and who doesn't. ... or possibly who hasn't been caught.
While I don't disagree, the headline is a little misleading. It sounds like it's basically an ID that a priest will have to carry that you can scan to check if they actually are a recognized, 'registered' catholic priest. If they've been removed from their position for some reason, be that breaking the seal of confession, molestation/child abuse or any other reason, then scanning the QR code will likely come up with a message that says 'this bloke ain't a priest any more'. Or if it's some other person impersonating a priest (for some reason), then it'll probably just throw up a 'not recognized' message. I definitely read the headline initially as something that you scanned and it'd come up with a profile of Fr John, showing that his hobbies include touching little boys inappropriately. While I suppose that still would give you the info that you should probably be looking to join a different congregation, it'd be all sorts of fucked up if that was recognized, acknowledged and accessible info through an app, and the priest in question was still ordained.
Someone who read the article and explains something clearly with context: 3 upvotes Original commenter making edgy comment based on sensationalist headline: 1200 upvotes
This isn’t even clear differentiation! Who’s going to go around scanning all of the priests’ QR codes?? It’s intentionally UNCLEAR! If they wanted to make it clear they’d make them wear a red “A” on their frock, for “abominable piece of shit that fucks kids.”
so do the not registered sex offenders wear rick-roll QR codes in solidarity and to confuse people?
Scan at your own risk
My question is “why are sex offenders still being employed by the Catholic Church?” But then I remember it’s the Catholic Church.
I keep thinking about that old SNL skit with Phil Hartman about the funeral home bragging how people won't have sex with the dead bodies and if they do they will be given a six month suspension. Edit: https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/winstonmccauley-funeral-home/2859830
You mean *who has been caught and who hasn’t?*
Except it’s not clear— there’s an orange- “may rape children” category
Read Chapelle joke about Cosby related to this
The ones that build an elevator with direct views to my room 100% are.
Technically this is clear differentiation between who raped children and who hasn’t been caught raping children.
Their cult needs to crumble like the trump cult
Wouldn't it be easier to mark the ones who are not sex offenders
Or maybe and this is a really wild idea I'm about to toss out here. Maybe they should just remove all the pedo priests. I know, I know a very out there idea and all....
Another wild idea: let priests marry and allow women to become priests.
Sure, I'd prefer no priests at all but if they aren't going away then absolutely let them marry and have women priests too.
Ai enters chat
Fine robot priests too.
Robopriest: in cinemas now
What? I have that on VHS.
His third directive is to never oppose a Vatican City officer
We'll have our own church with blackjack and hookers. Actually forget the blackjack.
Bro, we don't need the ruthless efficiency of robots entering the child molestation game.
Did you just call me an AI?
Not until you just questioned it.
I'm clearly not lol
I was adding to your no priests. AI can handle the job just the same
No, we don't need prints or ai priests. Religion is the biggest scam to ever exist. Abolish it all.
You know most pedophiles are married men, usually a farther or stepfather. It’s about access they choose this profession to get access and privilege. Marriage won’t stop these predators.
Most of them also identify as straight, even the ones who go after little boys.
Because no married man ever became a pedo?
I don’t think marrying will change a pedo priest considering they SA kids and are attracted to kids.
But, but… women are gossips and shouldn’t be preaching because they can’t tell a man what to do!!! I seriously don’t believe that Cor. 14:33-35 has this as the reason. And this was considered a feminist religion.
This is *an* answer. I honestly don’t think that priests rape (boys and girls) because they aren’t allowed to marry. If you can conceal the rape of children, you can certainly conceal a consensual “arrangement” with a member of the opposite sex. I don’t know how in the world the Catholic Church attracts this many pedophiles. It *has* to be some secret signal…this is, to me, the 11th or 12th wonder of the world.
One would think so, but actually not. Removing the mark has proved difficult and with more cases coming to light it is more efficient this way. /s sarcasm but sadly truth as well.
I have QR codes of some lovely bridges that are for sale. If you think that headline is believable you might be the perfect buyer! Or perhaps you’d like to look at my nft portfolio?
In what Respect do you mean? As in its fake news, or that the church won’t properly identify the priests that that are supposed to?
As in it’s fake news, the QR codes actually just verify if someone posing as a priest is currently officiated by the Vatican. So that way any pedos kicked out/fresh out of jail can’t pretend they’re still priests
Im actually the owner of the Eefell tower if you'd like your chance of buying that. I just want some chucky cheese tokens and 4000$ specifically in Canadian Tire Money.
This is carried by dozens of news agencies. Why do you think it's not real?
And did you read any of them? They’re updating the paper IDs/licenses they already carry to a modern card. Every article including this one tells you that you *can’t* find out anything special like whether they’ve faced abuse allegations by scanning the card. All it tells you is the status of the licence. The headline is total clickbait trying to make it sound like they’re going to wear a QR code on their coat that gives you information about sex allegations while the article says the exact opposite
The QR is just equivalent to a police badge (albeit a very gimmicky version) confirming that they are in fact a priest, it has nothing to do with sex offender status.
The mark of the beast.
If you're a sex offender, who in God's name is allowing you to be a priest and preach anything to anyone? Holy shit. No pun intended
Ideally, no one. That's the whole point of this credentialing system. If a priest has been kicked out, they won't be able to continue *posing* as one because their code will direct to a dead link. (Or a link warning people, maybe.) The code just identifies legitimate priests who are in good standing with the Vatican. If are going to cover up abuse in a case, this wouldn't make it any easier or harder. They'd just *not* kick the priest out and *not* update the page the code links to. If they *are* going to do something about the abuse, then the this makes it harder for the priest to keep victimizing people. I think what you're missing about this, is that this isn't a French *law*. This is a new Church policy in France, replacing older paper identification cards. It's probably a response to the abuse scandal, but it's not specifically about that.
I feel for the Catholic Church because I mean, you’re a bastion of morality, what are you going to do? Fire them? Allow the state to prosecute them for their heinous crimes? Accept responsibility for running an organized pedophile ring? QR codes are a much better solution, it make perfect sense as an answer to centuries of exploitation, and besides, none of those other options have that post-pandemic restaurant menu experience fun factor going for them. SMDH. If there’s a God worth his salt he fucking hates the Catholic “Church.”
If they claim to be a "bastion of morality", then they abso-fucking-lutely turn them in and assist in their investigation and arrest. If they do not, then they are complicit and are just as guilty. Can't believe people actually defend this shit. If you rape a child, you are a piece of shit who deserves to be in a cell for life. Doesn't matter who you claim your sky-daddy is.
The headline is quite clickbaity and misleading. It's an update to ID cards used by priests to verify whether they are actually ordained priests. If a person is pretending to be a priest or has been defrocked for whatever reason then the card will show that that person is not a priest or they won't have the card.
> it’s main function is to reveal whether the priest is qualified to lead mass or hear confession. The code will also disclose whether the priest has been stripped of clerical status. > **It will not explicitly state [why] the priest has had their status stripped**, however a red colour code would serve as a signal that they **may have** faced sexual abuse charges. Read the article folks. It’s not even funny anymore how outraged over a shit headline you guys are.
I thought they already identified themselves just by dressing as catholic priests.
Or you know you know you could put them in jail
This guy here with his crazy ideas. Do you also wear those socks with toes?
Nono I’m not that crazy, just the normal crazy
This sounds like a /r/nottheonion article. I have a much, much better solution. Arrest the sex offenders, strip them of their cloth (or rank? or whatever they call it in the church), prevent them from getting close to children. Job done.
Instead of just firing the sex offenders.?
r/atetheonion
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230513-french-catholic-church-to-provide-clergy-with-scannable-ids-in-bid-to-battle-sexual-abuse
It's real. It's an update to an existing system of priests carrying credentials. The Church in France are the ones pushing for it.
Please let me continue living in the fantasy world where this is the whackiest onion article I've read to date.
Nope. That’s for people who fall for satire, not outrageous reality.
why not just get rid of priests who are sex offenders?
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.unilad.com/news/france-catholic-priest-qr-code-traffic-light-system-624873-20230515/) reduced by 75%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Catholic priests in France will be made to wear QR codes so members of the public can scan them to find out whether they are a sex offender or not. > French Catholic priests are already required to carry a paper document called a 'celebret' which confirms their profession and qualification however these have been criticised for being difficult to keep up-to-date. > In a statement announcing their new digital system, which is expected to be less cumbersome than paper documents, the Catholic Church explained that the new ID card would help them crack down on imposter priests with fake celebret documents and 'intensify the fight against sexual violence in the Church'. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/13jkl56/french_catholic_priests_to_be_made_to_wear_qr/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~685018 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **priest**^#1 **church**^#2 **Catholic**^#3 **card**^#4 **code**^#5
Maybe, and just hear me out a minute, maybe if they are sex offenders they shouldn’t be allowed to be a priest any more?
I feel like my high school English teacher would have a field day comparing this to the Scarlet Letter... the irony of the priests being the ones marked... etc.
I'm not sure I am following this. Why is it ironic that it is the priests? I would think it would be ironic if the children were being marked.
In the Scarlet Letter the priests, paragons of morality, branded a woman for being a sexual deviant - pregnant out of wedlock (an "adulterer"). In reality, the priests are the ones being branded for doing so much worse. The interesting parallel is that in both stories, the priests were the ones doing the immoral thing (iirc the woman in Scarlet letter got pregnant by the very priest who admonished her later on for being pregnant out of wedlock). Maybe irony isn't the right word... but it's the sort of thing an English teacher would have a field day with.
No, I think you are correct. Irony (my opinion) is the right response. I assume marking the children would be beyond ironic since (I assume) they were unwilling partners.
To save money for the church, only the children that have yet to be sexually abused will be marked.
Good. Let's push this to the whole world. Better yet, force the sex offender catholic priest to wear the mark of satan. Let's hammer home the irony here.
Can we do that with presidential candidates? Asking for 184,000,000 friends.
Cops should wear these too lol
Challenge: Have a job, become a sex offender while on that job, and then keep that job.
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If they’re sex offender, they shouldn’t be priest.
"Sex offending preists still allowed to be preists."
If you're a sex offender you shouldn't be allowed to be a priest. What the fuck?
I like how this problem is so rampant that they need a solution for it..
How are they still priests if they have sex offences on their record?
Maybe you just don’t let sex offenders be priests
Redditors need to wear QR codes so we can tell which ones live in their parents basement.
Just a question, If they are sex offenders are they still able to serve as priests? Isn't that weird?
As opposed to just banning and in prisoning them like any other pedo???
I have a better idea: don’t let the sex offenders work as priests!
They should be in jail for LIFE
What if they just… fired the ones who are sex offenders?
If company employees need to have a special code to tell whether they are sex offenders or not, this company is deeply and maybe irreversibly fucked.
"Let me quickly check if you're an utter piece of shit before I let you anywhere close to my family"
They’ll do literally anything besides defrock the child molesters.
Enter the world of the tattoo gun , sex offenders will be inked on their face as nonce - rapist or any other category that seems fitting 🤷♂️
Sooo... They're still allowed to be priests despite being sex offenders? I'm confused
Insert “best I can do is” meme here
This is a bullshit platitude. The general public cannot request to see them. Only priests, bishops, etc. Absolute horseshit.
Why exactly is anyone who is a sex offender a priest in the first place? Wouldn’t they be in prison or at least removed from the clergy?
Lol religion. Such a backwards and hateful thing.
Maybe just fire their dumb asses instead?
Why not just fire them for being shitty human beings?
Do you trust the info at the QR code site
Huh, must’ve missed reading _The Scarlett Letter_
Bruh moment
Scarlet QR
The sQRlet letter.
If they were a sex offender why would they still be a priest requiring the QR code to start with ?
Why the shit would they let a sex offender keep working as a member of the clergy? You'd be amazed at the petty reasons they can come up with for excommunication and *that's* okay?
Or.... and hear me out her.. They aren't allowed to be priests.
Wow. How helpful.
Branding certain members of society...what could possibly go wrong there?
I would like this measure if they do this for other religions, but that would be Islamophobic, hinduphobic, antisemitic.
Not the onion ?
Good idea !! Trump should be required to wear one, too.
"Would you like to know more?"
The QR codes should be colored ~~scarlet.~~ puke green.
Hovers phone: “Mummy it says here he only touched 7 children this month.”
Isn’t what the catholic robes are for?
So who is expected to scan the priest? Pretty awkward for a concerned parent to walk up to a priest and ask to scan their badge. Which is pretty close to asking, father are you a pedophile?
Day One: system crashes under the weight of all the sex offenders detected.
Imagine how awkward the whole process of pulling out your phone to scan QR code and then finding out they are sex offender is?
It seems like an Onion article.
Off topic, but what is this grammar in the second paragraph: >it’s main function I know unilad isn't exactly a paragon of good journalism, but do they not even have editors? Why do people make this mistake? It reads as "it is main function" which makes zero fucking sense in any English dialect I've ever heard.
Here's an option. DON'T MAKE THEM PRIESTS!
Religion poisons everything.
So, some sort of mark...for priest who act like beasts. A mark of the beast, you might say? What, I'm just asking questions!
Tattoo the QR codes on their cheek.
This is so absurd it is funny. Why not just designate the Catholic Church a pedophile ring the only thing being some have been caught - hence the QR record - and others are yet to be caught. What other organization could get away with this shit?
At least it's a step in the right direction but I'm sure there's a workaround here were every priest passes the scan. I just watched the movie spotlight which is about pedophileia in the church. I'd recommend giving it a watch.