It's Time to Break the Seal of Confession

News.com.au
November 14, 2012

http://www.news.com.au/news/its-time-to-break-the-seal-of-confession/story-fnepjsb4-1226516611759

New laws flagged in Ireland will make it mandatory for priests to report child sexual abuse.

I’ve only ever been to confession twice, both times when I was a young child. The first time I couldn’t think of anything to confess to so I made up some sins and was rewarded with penance of two Hail Marys.

In hindsight the Hail Marys were probably for lying to God. Our parish priest was a good man who would have known when an 8-year-old was talking it up.

But even then it felt very weird to me that children would be expected to enter a dark little box on their own and open up the conversation with: “Forgive me Father for I have sinned”.

Even stranger was that if you’d done something wrong that was the end of it, the priest wouldn’t even tell your Mum.

Of course it didn’t cross my mind then that people who had committed horrendous crimes would be offered the same confidentiality.

Cardinal George Pell, who was at pains to point out yesterday that he is not technically the leader of the Church in Australia, sees nothing wrong with that. Even in the face of the intense public pressure that brought about the announcement of a Royal Commission into institutional child sex abuse, Pell maintains “the Seal of Confession is inviolable”, even if someone admits to sexually abusing a child.

I guess no one would be surprised that the Church hierarchy would be so out of step with modern thinking, but prominent lay Catholics have, in the past day, challenged Pell’s position.

NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell told parliament yesterday afternoon that while confession was an “important sacrament”:

"I struggle to understand that if a priest confesses to another priest that he has been involved in pedophile activities, that that information should not be brought to police."

"If a priest hears in a confessional a crime, especially a crime against a minor, the priest has the responsibility in my view to report that to the appropriate authorities. In this case the police, because the church nor the priests should be above the law."

Quoting Canon 983.1 of the Code of Canon Law, the Catechism states, “...It is a crime for a confessor in any way to betray a penitent by word or in any other manner or for any reason” (No. 2490). A priest, therefore, cannot break the seal to save his own life, to protect his good name, to refute a false accusation, to save the life of another, to aid the course of justice (like reporting a crime), or to avert a public calamity. He cannot be compelled by law to disclose a person’s confession or be bound by any oath he takes, e.g. as a witness in a court trial. A priest cannot reveal the contents of a confession either directly, by repeating the substance of what has been said, or indirectly, by some sign, suggestion, or action. A Decree from the Holy Office (Nov. 18, 1682) mandated that confessors are forbidden, even where there would be no revelation direct or indirect, to make any use of the knowledge obtained in the confession that would “displease” the penitent or reveal his identity.