Here in the US, governmental antipathy toward religion and particular the Catholic Church is a growing threat. Catholic organizations are already being prevented from providing adoption services and you can bet your favorite pair of skinny jeans that gay marriage laws will eventually culminate in discrimination charges for any religious organization that refuses to go along.
All these things erode our religious liberty. But the governmental death blow aimed at the heart of the Church is to destroy the seal of confession. If you think this could never happen, think again. It may be happening right now in Ireland.
The Irish government, including the person no less than the Prime Minister, the Minister for Justice, and the Minister for Children are all backing legislation that would require priests to break the seal of confession to report pedophiles.
This is, of course, not only a monstrous attack the Church and religious liberty, it is also completely useless. Do these Irish …
July 15, 2011 at 5:29 am
You can bet your plumber-like fat baggy-to-the-buttcrack heterosexual trousers that this is much-a-do about nothing. Priests will not break the seal of confession. The bigger problem is finding enough Catholics who believe they have sins to confess and actually go to confession. We're wasting our time trying to take on evil in political circles while our own spiritual brethren are drowning outside Peter's boat.
July 15, 2011 at 9:28 am
As if a paedophile is going to confess if they know that the priest will report them to the police, presuming that he knows the person's name and the confession is face to face.
July 15, 2011 at 10:46 am
Brilliant. Kudos, Ireland.
The concept of being able to hide behind the seal of confession presumes that the Catholic church is a religious institution.
Recent events prove that the Catholic church has been raping children for decades, covering it up, lying about it, and ignoring the victims. They have done it on a coordinated, organized fashion.
That makes them an organized crime empire, not a religious institution.
They should start losing benefits, like "the loophole of confession", tax exempt status, and respect, which is long gone.
Pedophile priests proved that confession gave them the capability to rape children as long as they ran to confession afterwards. Some in the US in Philadelphia had sex with children in confessional. That's convenient. If you close that loophole, and the priest knows that he has to confess or go to hell after he rapes a child, he has a big dilemma.
Very smart, Ireland.
The relationship between a priest and confessor was based on the fact that the priest belonged to a religious institution, which the Catholic church can no longer prove that it is.
Enact the law, Ireland. Let's hope the US follows suit. The Catholic church concealed child rape for at least 60 years. Let's let the government shut down the pedophile protection practices. Next up – taxing the church.
July 15, 2011 at 12:20 pm
I highly recommend reading the comments at the NCR article linked.
July 15, 2011 at 2:52 pm
Such a law would be an absurdity, and impossible to enforce. Ask
yourself: how can a confession, given anonymously, be proved to
have been made or meet standards as evidence? This initiative in
Ireland is just political posing by that government. It's pitiful that
the PM and members of the cabinet stoop so low to score cheap
points at the expense of the Church. Ireland used to be Catholic…
July 15, 2011 at 3:48 pm
Ireland. Always dreamed of being California.
July 15, 2011 at 5:02 pm
PatO, if the Catholic Church is an organized crime empire, then what of the protestant churches, and public schools, where the abuse has gone on just as long, and with greater frequency?
for the Messers. Archbold, or anyone else in the know,a question: Can a confessor assign a penitent admitting to such a crime to admit it to authorities, as part of their penance?
July 15, 2011 at 5:51 pm
I'm with Archbold on this one, not O'Malley. Two Patricks against one: the confessional seal *must* be protected.
July 15, 2011 at 9:26 pm
AZLori,
No a priest cannot assign turning oneself in as penance nor can he require a penitent in any way to manifest his conscience outside the confessional. There are no exceptions.
July 15, 2011 at 10:56 pm
We haven't seen anything yet. The persecution of the Church is about to begin. It'll get worse before it gets better. Prediction: the Church will be handed over to be judged by the pagan nations. What happend to Israel in the Old Testament will happen to us! We brought this punishment on ourselves.
July 15, 2011 at 11:37 pm
@Victoria: Names are forbidden in confession and face to face is an option made in trust and therefore this trust must be respected and protected. Priests are practiced in not remembering any person or their sins for their own peace of mind and to exorcise the devil. I have seen priests leave the confessional box and go outside and dump the burden of their parishioners' sins where they belong, in hell with the devil. Legislation legalizing breaking the Seal of Confession will not serve any legal purpose except the lust to power of the state. And what will the state do with the power it extorts but become corrupt.
Mary De Voe
July 15, 2011 at 11:39 pm
@PatO. It is good you brought up hell. What makes you think that you are not going there?
July 16, 2011 at 2:35 am
A priest violated the Seal of Confession with my wife relative to our children.
Do not think anything happened to this priest or those who cooperate in such an act, on the part of the Church. It is an outright lie.
Nothing happened to the priest or my wife even though our children's confessions were discussed during the violation.
It was horrendous.
July 16, 2011 at 4:45 am
Yeah. Right.
July 16, 2011 at 4:45 am
and I saw a lesbian nazi hooker abducted by a ufo
July 17, 2011 at 9:19 am
In the public schools, the statue of limitations is 90 days. The suspected teacher is placed away from the students in what is rightly termed "the rubber room" where the suspect receives his pay and all benefits and may do whatever he pleases including reliving the crime. When 90 days are up, the victim can no longer pursue the crime in a court of law. This is why there are very few reported victims in the public schools. Then the suspected teacher is passed to another district. This is called "passing the trash".
There is no statute of limitations in the Catholic Church. The law was changed "ex post fact" after the fact of a crime which is unconstitutional 5th Amendment. The crime was tried in civil court and two winesses were not required to establish a judicial fact so that the victim's uncorrobated testimony was accepted as fact. The Rule of Law was ignored.
Each and every child abuser must pay for his own crime and Corruption of Blood not be worked against the Catholic Church, again unconstitutional. I hope and pray that every child abuser be put in prison for the rest of his life. Keeping the Rule of Law and the Seal of Confession is simply common sense for the general welfare and the common good which is the will of the people.
Mary De Voe
July 17, 2011 at 8:55 pm
Mrs. De Voe, I would also point out that at least here in the US, it is
not possible to sue a state agency for damages– so there is no
financial incentive for suits to be brought against school districts.
Civil suits brought against the Church can extract settlements from
the relatively deep pockets of an entire diocese. Protestant churches,
being more independently organized, present slimmer pickings in a
lawsuit. And when was the last time anyone read of a school district
having to pay a massive settlement? It's not because their conduct is
blameless, it's because they cannot be sued for their misconduct.
I suspect that the same is true in Ireland.
July 18, 2011 at 1:33 pm
In Ireland the schools are funded by the state but run by local school boards, normally under the patronage of church groups. There was a recent case where a woman was abused by a teacher. The teacher was convicted. The woman sued him and got damages. Then she sued the state as his employer for their child protection failure. The result? The supreme court held the state had no liability – the local school board is the legal employer (even thought the state foots the bill & sets all the terms and conditions). Costs were awarded against the woman & last I heard she was worried she'll lose her home. You can read the judgement here: http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ie/cases/IESC/2008/S72.html&query=Department+and+of+and+Education&method=boolean. apparantly the woman is going to challenge the ruling in the European Court of Human Rights. http://www.educationmatters.ie/2011/04/27/supreme-court-challenge-seen-as-test-case/
July 20, 2011 at 4:59 am
@Clinton: Thank you. The state may not be sued because the state is sovereign. So is the Catholic Church sovereign with immunity flowing from the Sovereign State of Vatican City. Because the separation of Church and State is violated and the Sovereignty of the Catholic Church is trod underfoot makes it no less a miscarriage of Justice absent the Rule of Law and the transgression of sovereignty and sovereign immunity. The Catholic Church in America is part of the Eternal City, the Vatican, and its priests are ambassadors to our country even with citizenship in our nation. The Catholic Church encompasses the whole world. Jesus Christ is a citizen of the whole world. This is why to proscribe the citizenship of Jesus Christ in the public square in the USA is absolute tyranny. Mary De Voe