Blackmail of a priest after confessing abuse?

[Gorgias]

Ok, I’ll try to spell it out.

You’re not gonna like the response…

Fr. Johnson (Head priest of his parish)… sets up an immediate confession with Fr. Smith (the other priest at the parish)

Stop right there. Fr Smith should not be hearing the confession of his superior to whom he reports. Unless Fr Johnson is “in danger of death” (which is a technical term in canon law), Fr Smith’s response should be “I’m sorry, Tom, but I can’t really hear your confession. Have you considered going to Joe at the parish down the road?”

But… since it’s fun to work our way through this thought experiment, let’s keep going…

Fr. Johnson now believes that if the kids talk to Fr. Smith, he can threaten Smith with the seal of confession if Smith wants to go to the authorities after hearing the kids testimony.

Fr Smith tells the kids “OK… since I didn’t see it happening, I can’t testify. But, I’ll go with you, or even set up a meeting with the authorities here, if you want.” End of dilemma.

Besides which, when the authorities talk to Fr Smith, all he says is, “I have no personal knowledge of the allegations to share with you. All I can tell you that I know is that the boys came to me with these allegations.”

 

[laylow]

Stop right there. Fr Smith should not be hearing the confession of his superior to whom he reports. Unless Fr Johnson is “in danger of death” (which is a technical term in canon law), Fr Smith’s response should be “I’m sorry, Tom, but I can’t really hear your confession. Have you considered going to Joe at the parish down the road?”

Interesting, I had no idea.

But… since it’s fun to work our way through this thought experiment, let’s keep going

Unfortunately the experiment loses its fun without its main premise.

 

[neophyte]

Since Fr. Johnson is in an authority position relative to Fr. Smith, Fr. Smith may be deceived in thinking that outside testimony would not be treated separately from the confessional testimony, even if it may be the same testimony.

Except that Fr. Smith would know better. If the boys confide in him, that’s information he received outside of the confessional and it’s fair game. And Smith’s response could rightly be “you’re going to get me in trouble by publicly confessing to the crime? Yeah, right - lemme know how that works out.”

 

[Elf01]

A Priest who knows you is likely to recognize your voice. If I was really concerned about not being recognized I’d go to a different parish.