AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
Mary-Rose MacColl
Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart has said he’ll risk going to jail rather than report what’s said to him in the sacrament of confession, even if what’s confessed relates to child sexual abuse.
His latest comments, made on ABC radio, were responding to a recommendation from the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse to make reporting child sexual abuse allegations mandatory in institutions including when an allegation is made in religious confession. Failure to report would be a criminal offence.
The recommendation is one of a suite of proposed reforms to improve transparency and reporting of sexual abuse and improve the law’s effectiveness to apprehend sexual abusers and protect children.
Archbishop Hart wouldn’t report something said in confession by a child who’s been abused or by an abuser. Non-Catholics don’t understand confession, he said. Confession is sacrosanct, above the law, which is what makes it different from other forms of telling. It’s communication with God of a higher order.
Like many Catholics, I spent my childhood in fortnightly confession and frankly I don’t understand confession either. I recall the queasy light and the slightly creepy whispering of the priest in that little tardis of shame that sat on one side of the church. I got the same penance every fortnight by making up the same sins. I’d say I lied, I stole, because I couldn’t think of any actual sins. My penance was always a couple of Hail Marys.
The seal of confession, its secrecy, was important, we were told in religion class at school. A priest was hanged for a murder he didn’t commit because he wouldn’t reveal the murderer’s true identity, which he’d learned through confession. That’s how tight the seal was. It amazed us.
When I was 16, I went to confession for real. I’d been sexually abused by a Catholic high school teacher and her husband. I went to see a priest on the suggestion of one of my abusers, because I was so upset.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.