Opinion: Anglican Church votes ...

By Alison Cotes
Courier-Mail
July 09, 2014

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-anglican-church-votes-to-let-priests-break-seal-of-the-confessional-to-prevent-child-abuse-but-up-to-dioceses-to-adopt-policy/story-fnihsr9v-1226982071060

Opinion: Anglican Church votes to let priests break seal of the confessional to prevent child abuse but up to dioceses to adopt policy

IT’S not often a movie audience breaks into spontaneous applause, but I saw it happen in a theatre that was showing the 1994 movie The Priest.

In it, among many other personal issues, the young priest Father Greg Pilkington has to solve an ethical dilemma – should he report to the police the behaviour of a man who has admitted in the confessional that he was sexually abusing his own daughter. He broke the so-called seal of the confessional and the audience wholeheartedly approved – but the Roman Catholic Church did not.

The film raised the issue that is still important today – is the Christian church out of step with modern ethical concerns? The Seal of the Confessional, which dates back to 1215, states categorically that a priest must never reveal what he has heard in the confessional, whether it not such a disclosure would save his own life, refute a false accusation, save the life of another, or avert a public calamity. The punishment for breaking the seal is instant excommunication and, in the 13th century, the priest was incarcerated in a closed monastery for perpetual penance.

But most people outside the church consider this to be an outdated rule, believing that it’s much better to report a repeating offender criminal to the secular law, rather than risk harm to a child or, indeed, to anyone.

What if, goes the ultimate objection to this arcane church law, a prospective terrorist confessed in the secrecy of the confessional that he was going to blow up a plane the next day? Surely the rights of the potential victims outweigh the rights of the penitent (and anyway, it can be argued, a person cannot receive absolution for a sin he is determined to commit in the future)?

Who could argue it’s better that innocent children be harmed than that the trust of an evildoer be betrayed? Even Jesus seemed to go along with that: “Whoever shall offend one of these little ones …, it were better for him that … he be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Matt 18:6, Mark 9:42)

So most people will be glad to hear last week, the annual meeting of the Anglican General Synod voted for a historic change to this rule, so that a priest may not necessarily be bound by the seal of the confessional. Archbishop Philip Freier, primate-elect of the Anglican Church in Australia, argues that letting its priests break the confidentiality of confessions will help ensure the church does not provide a cloak for child abusers.

This decision certainly is in harmony with the 17th century belief that Anglican religious authority is based on a “three-legged stool” of scripture, tradition and reason. But it will be up to individual dioceses, and the priests within them, to adopt the policy, which will be optional rather than another hard-and-fast rule.

So we will wait with interest to see which dioceses adopt the policy and whether, in the fullness of time, the Roman Catholic Church will also see that what was good theology in 1215 may not be so useful, or even moral, 800 years later.