AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
Nick O’Malley
Father Michael McArdle was reportedly so distressed by his acts of child sexual abuse in Queensland that he would often seek the succour of the confessional. Over a 25-year period, before he was convicted in 2002, he confessed to sexually assaulting children an estimated 1500 times to 30 different priests. In keeping with Catholic tradition in Australia, the priests did not report to his crimes to authorities, but moved him on to different parishes, to greener pastures.
McArdle’s case resonates this week because on Monday the royal commission into child sex abuse released 85 recommendations on improvements to the criminal justice system. Among them was the proposal that the seal of the religious confessional be broken and that clergy who fail to report child abuse revealed in confession face criminal prosecution, just as anyone else in Australia would. Since the Catholic Church is the only major religion in Australia that still insists its canon law be held above secular law in this regard, this was rightly seen as a challenge, and the Catholic Church, defensive of its significant privileges, responded.
On Tuesday Melbourne’s archbishop, Denis Hart, told the ABC: “I believe that this is an absolutely sacrosanct communication of a higher order which priests by nature respect, they don’t ever want to do anything that would hurt children,” he said.
Writing for Fairfax Media this week, Father Frank Brennan said he would go to jail before abiding by such a law and sought to explain his reasoning. “Common sense tells me that a sex abuser would be even less likely to present for confession if he knew that the confessional seal did not apply,” he wrote. “If the seal of the confessional were maintained, there is a chance, just a chance, that a child sex abuser might be convinced by the priest to turn himself in. Take away the seal, and that ever so slim chance will be snuffed out.”
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