It's even easier to be a blogger, idn't it?

Pays about as well, too:

A year before convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein died of suicide, a writer for the New York Times met him at his cavernous Manhattan mansion to discuss a possible news story involving the car company Tesla.

Reporter James B. Stewart recalls one interesting anecdote that may or may not be true, but sheds some light into both Epstein’s mindset and a serious loophole with religious exemptions in the law.

At one point, after he became “radioactive,” he says a lot of his contacts didn’t want to be publicly associated with him, though they still asked for money and came to his private dinner parties. But Epstein wondered if there was a way to earn their trust once again:


… Mr. Epstein told me without any trace of irony, he was considering becoming a minister so that his acquaintances would be confident that their conversations would be kept confidential.
As we’ve talked about on this site before, priests who are told secrets under the veil of religion (like in a confession booth) are not required to report any wrongdoing to law enforcement. Epstein, a man with many secrets, figured that loophole could theoretically allow him to regain trust from colleagues who worried he might one day share what they told him.

 If it ever occurred, it would have been a cruelly smart move on Epstein’s part. Clergy members have a great deal of power and assumed trust. Epstein’s religious title could have lent him unearned trust, led to more people sharing their secrets with him, and even access to more underage girls. As we’ve seen from the recent revelations into his life, many of the people who surrounded him kept their silence in exchange for money or access. You have to wonder how much more serious his crimes could have been if he could use religion as another shield.

He never became a minister. But it says a lot that Epstein, a man who ruined a number of victims’ lives, felt like it was a role he could’ve adopted with ease if he wanted to. It’s not like you have to be a decent person to earn the title.

I'm getting this from Thought Criminal, who assures it is complete and whole.  I'm too lazy to go to Friendly Atheist, and I'm not that interested (or repelled, for that matter).  It's the last line that gets me, one that has zero support in what is reported, or in reality.  But the rest is a farrago of nonsense and ignorance, as well.

Is a minister (note Epstein didn't reportedly say "priest," which would involve either the Catholics or the Episcopalians, if not the Orthodox branches; we'll come back to that) all that respectful a figure?  Well, what do you think of?  A slick haired shyster who smiles as he tells you God wants you to give him your money so it will come back to you ten-fold?  Or buy his latest book because God is to be found there, or God's plan, or God's word to you and you alone?  Do you think of people who aren't ministers at all, like Jerry Falwell, Jr. or James Dobson?  Do you think of graduates of Bible colleges, or ministers who went through seminary training and a process of discernment by a denomination?

I'm guessing the latter is why Epstein didn't consider the priesthood, even those that don't require celibacy (the Catholics are unique in that; the exception, not the rule).  He wanted to be a Minister of the Church of What's Happenin' Now!, I suspect.  Something he could get off the internet with a certificate for his $35 contribution.  A sham, a disguise, camouflage of a sort.  Something else to fool the rubes, the way Marjoe did (Epstein would remember).  He didn't want to sit with committees and attend churches and make himself part of a community and subject himself to examination and oversight and questions and investigations.  He's clearly had enough of that.  He wanted the sham title and the shame respectability he imagined would go along with it.  My reality:  I've never been treated with less regard and less like a human being than when I was very publicly a minister.  And I was a minister of a mainline denomination, not some goof with a piece of paper he'd printed off the internet.  Epstein wasn't seeking anything except a cloak to hide his activities behind.

"Clergy members have a great deal of power"?  In what universe?  With the backing of a congregation that approves of what you said last, yeah, you can appear to be powerful.  It's ephemeral and chimerical, however.  Consider all the famed pastors of the last decades who fell from glory the moment their congregations, or just a few in those congregations, turned on them, became disillusioned, or actually found out what unethical characters they were.  Clergy have only the power they are given, and that power is mostly to tell certain people what they want to hear.  The power to preach the gospel is the power to annoy people; and that's no power at all.  Clergy who don't preach the gospel appear powerful; but they are riding a tiger, anxious every moment that the tiger won't eat them rather than let them stay on.  One rides a horse and guides it; one stays on a tiger and hopes you don't end the ride as a meal.

"Religion as another shield"?  Do you imagine for a moment the confidentiality of the pastor's office (not the confessional booth, that's RC alone) bars me from telling the police about suspected child abuse?  Or any crime at all?  Even lawyers can't hide behind attorney-client privilege to hide those things, and they have a stronger privilege (and a clearer one) than pastors/ministers do.  The attorney-client privilege attaches to an economic transaction; the clergy privilege is a moral/ethical one.  In the end, law respects money far more than it does ethics.  Honestly, do a little homework before you run off at the mouth about something you learned from watching a movie.

I'm sure Epstein thought he could "adopt the role with ease if he wanted to."  Actors in movies do it all the time.  But they don't "adopt the role" at all; they adopt the appearance of the role, and while some may still think Bing Crosby was a kindly old RC priest who always knew what to say, reality paints a very different picture of his personal life.  Nobody who knew him was fooled by the costume he wore for a few movies, however popular that character was.  Epstein may have imagined he could adopt the coloration of a minister the better to carry out his depravities and predations.  Donald Trump imagines he's a great president, too.

Imagination is not nearly the same thing as reality.  You'd think more people would understand that; but in reality, it's far fewer than you think.