UNITED STATES
The Atlantic
Alex Hannaford
A parishioner, wracked with guilt, goes to his minister to confess the unthinkable: that he has been sexually abusing a child. But that minister, instead of going to police, decides to pray with the abuser instead.
On the face of it, this seems a legitimate ethical dilemma for any minister — keep the confession confidential or turn that person in. But is it? This scenario actually happened in 2003 at Homestead Heritage, a religious community in Waco, Texas. The confessor ultimately gave himself up to police a year later, but the specter of his confession reappeared in 2009 when another man from the same community was also prosecuted for child sex abuse and was sentenced to 35 years earlier this month.
Secular society would say there is no choice: pedophiles should be stopped and children protected at all costs. But it’s a dilemma that has dogged some religious denominations for a while. Where penitent-clergy privilege is not protected by law, is a minister’s loyalty still to his confessor? The question is complicated by the fact that there is no legal uniformity across the U.S.; in some states, the law is gray at best. In Virginia, for example, the confession box is sacrosanct and a priest is not compelled to report a child abuser. In Texas, meanwhile, the clergy is offered no such privilege .
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