In Australia, a proposed new law could require priests to turn over anyone who confesses child abuse to the police. And Australia’s not alone. In fact, it’s something of a trend.
The Irish Justice Minister introduced a bill earlier this year making it a criminal offense to fail to disclose information to police which would “assist in prosecuting a person who commits a serious offence against a child or vulnerable adult.” That includes priests being mandated to break the seal of the confessional.
According to LifeSiteNews.com, a number of priests and bishops have already spoken out against such laws.
“Ireland can pass whatever laws it wants,” said Archbishop Girotti, regent of the apostolic penitentiary, to Il Foglio, “but it must know that the Church will never submit to forcing confessors to inform civil officials.”
Cardinal Seán Brady, the primate of Ireland, condemned the government’s plans, calling them “challenge to the very basis of a free society.”
“The inviolability of the seal of confession is so fundamental to the very nature of the Sacrament that any proposal that undermines that inviolability is a challenge to the right of every Catholic to freedom of religion and conscience,” Cardinal Brady said to a group of pilgrims at the Shrine of Knock.
While some may think that anything in the name of protecting children is ok, this is not good. In fact, it would only assure that child abusers would never confess their sins and would have nobody to urge them to turn themselves in.
News.com.au reports:
Hundreds of years of Catholic tradition in the confessional could be overturned by Victoria’s inquiry into child sex abuse.
Priests would be ordered to reveal crimes told to them in private confessions under one proposal before the inquiry.
But priests say they will resist being forced to reveal secrets of the confessional.
Priest and law professor Father Frank Brennan said the move would be a restriction on religious freedom.
“If a parliamentary inquiry were to recommend a law by parliament saying that priests were forced to disclose anything revealed to them in the sacrament of confession I think that would be a serious interference with the right of religious freedom,” Father Brennan said today.
“Indeed it would be a very sad day if we moved to a police state mentality, it’s almost of Russian dimensions to suggest Catholic priests would have to reveal to state authorities what went on under the seal of the confessional.
“I am one of the priests who, if such a law were enacted, would disobey it and if need be I would go to jail.”
Father Brennan said disclosures to priests in the confessional were different to those made to doctors or counsellors, or even when a priest was acting in a counsellor role.
“If it were in the sacred realm of the sacrament of confession which in Catholic theology is akin to the penitent being in conversation with God, where the priest is simply an agent, then definitely the state has no role of interference in that.”
July 18, 2012 at 5:43 pm
An exxcellent movie about this very subject is an Alfred Hitchcock film called "I Confess". It shows how important the seal of confession is!
July 18, 2012 at 7:59 pm
"I swear to tell the TRUTH, the whole TRUTH and nothing but the TRUTH, so help me God"
The Rule of Law requires two witnesses to establish a judicial fact. Hearsay in a criminal case is not acceptable in a court of law. This refers back to every case of child sexual abuse. To what was the priest even as a person, witness? If the penitent chose the Fifth Amendment and decided to not incriminate himself, any and every person who overheard his confession has no legal ground, no legal obligation to report an unsubstantiated, un-witnessed, hearsay, rumor, gossip, possibly slanderous and rashly judgmental assumption of wrongdoing to any other person. To construct a court case on circumstantial, un-verifiable testimony is a waste of the taxpayers’ money. If the criminal does indeed present himself to authorities, his testimony will need the testimony of the victim, that, in fact, a crime has been committed. We do not know that a crime has been committed unless the victim gives testimony.
So, the priest is required to report a penitent because he sounds guilty. Boy, am I in trouble.
The priest in the confessional does not have the testimony of the victim, nor does he have any fact upon which to base a report, a report of what, some broken sinner exaggerating his circumstance? The law cannot try homicide without the victim’s body. So, how can the law try a penitent’s crime without a victim?
The law is absurd as the confessional box is anonymous. Suppose I go into the box and tell the priest that I committed murder and that I am someone else other than who I rightly am. Really stupid to lie in the confessional but it has happened.
One day a woman who was prominent called me up and asked me why I was threatening her life. I said: “WHAT???” She read to me and later sent to me the threatening letters. I have them still, although this happened to me forty years ago. Someone, no guesses, sent life-threatening letters to the woman and signed my name. The victim and I became close friends and almost business partners. I liked that she called me. That took guts. She could have easily gone to the Federal agents as mailing a threat is a Federal offense, forging my name and acting in persona Mary De Voe without my consent is usurping my prerogatives, my chance to serve God. Mostly, though, it is not freedom. It is enslavement.
Laws requiring the priest to disclose sacred information are laws that are invalid since there is no victim. The laws cause enslavement. If enslavement must occur, let it be to the child abuser for life. Let it be to the child pornography producer for aiding and abetting this crime. Let it be to a society that keeps God away from innocent children.
July 18, 2012 at 8:35 pm
Clearly a lack of understanding of the ultimate value of the human soul. Among other things.
July 18, 2012 at 8:54 pm
Many do not use their pastor for a confessor so what's the confessor to do? Hold the penitent at gun point until the cops arrive? Will he be using his iphone in the confessional to alert anyone who confesses this sin? The logistics don't make sense. Maybe there can be automatic locks on the confessional door when someone confesses a crime.
July 18, 2012 at 10:14 pm
Elm: I like you choices.
The court also has the power to subpoena a priest if it believes that the priest has some witness to a crime.
There is one other aspect that is chilling. It is incumbent upon a good citizen, that is: to be a citizen entails keeping the peace and reporting any obvious trouble in the making. Therefore, a law is not required. The priest does not dispose of his citizenship when he assumes Holy Orders. He is still a citizen and will do whatever is required by his citizenship. The priest guided by the Holy Spirit decides his course of action for the common good.
The law as written to force the priest to reveal the secret of confession says that the priest is not a good citizen and is therefore a criminal. Does the law incriminate or infer that the priests in the Sacraments are not good citizens? That is not a valid law. That is malicious operation against the Catholic Church. Unless the law can be proved to be of some good, as the good is already accomplished in the citizenship of the priest, it is malicious operation.
It is also necessary to be proved that without the law the priest would bring evil into the community.
July 19, 2012 at 12:04 am
Matthew: ". . . it would only assure that child abusers would never confess their sins and would have nobody to urge them to turn themselves in." Not only that, but they can provide counseling, recommend other councilors, etc. while providing spiritual healing.
I don't know if these countries have attorney-client or doctor-patient privilege laws, but if they do, does it remove those privileges, too?
July 19, 2012 at 5:32 pm
I just don't get the logistics of a priest turning a penitent in. How would this all come down? Especially if the penitent is a stranger to the priest.
July 19, 2012 at 7:34 pm
The citizen who is ordained to Holy Orders does not relinquish his citizenship. Yet, the law would disenfranchise the person of his unalienable rights, his sovereign personhood. When a man becomes a priest he becomes a sovereign of the Catholic Church. Bishops are called Princes of the Catholic Church. A law that would require a priest to break the seal of confession violates his sovereign immunity, personhood and his dignity.