Can the seal of the confessional be defended on pragmatic grounds?

[Elf01]

Note that I also mentioned victims. There have definitely been victims who have used the confessional to talk about having been abused, and the priest has used the seal of the confessional as an excuse for not doing anything about it.

A victim can, and should be, encouraged to go to the police. The priest may offer to accompany them, or, if the victim wants the priest to report it, the victim can be asked to speak to the priest outside of Confession.

 

[Gorgias]

I can see that that may be the view of somebody who is a very committed Catholic. Outside the Catholic Church, I think most people would consider that safeguarding children and vulnerable adults here and now is more important than reconciling people with God

Fair enough. We disagree.

Hence why in my original question I asked for pragmatic reasons, rather than theological ones.

Yeah, but you also asked about competing priorities. And, you heard from many Catholics about how those priorities are discerned. On pragmatic grounds.

You also heard from folks who reminded you that, if folks know that they do not have absolute assurance of confidentiality, then they will be disincented from revealing sins that they otherwise might disclose… which is as ‘pragmatic’ a consideration as you can get.

So… which outcome are you looking to achieve?

• Folks confess, receive forgiveness for their sins, and maintain confidentiality
• Folks do not confess, do not receive forgiveness for their sins, and “confidentiality” (or the lack thereof) is moot

 

[stpurl]

I am curious how you know that there are “DEFINITELY victims who have used the confessional to talk about having been abused, and the priest has used the seal of the confessional as an excuse for not doing anything about it.”

That is one heck of an assumption. Unless you were a victim and the priest explicitly told you, “oh based on the seal of the confession, I have an excuse not to do anything about this”, you cannot ‘definitely know’ either that there were victims who used the confessional to talk about having been abused (this may have happened but you cannot definitely know it) And you most assuredly cannot ‘definitely know That any priest, anywhere, ‘used the seal of the confessional as an excuse —an EXCUSE! How judgmental can you get=-for ‘not doing anything about it.’

With that type of attitude it seems that you have already ‘definitely known’ what you think of the seal of confession and of priests.

It is fine to stand up for victims and to express anger at abusers. But it is not fine to use a good cause and tweak it subtly to cast aspersions on priests and imply that they use ‘the seal of the confessional’ as an excuse to let abuse keep happening and not ‘doing anything about it.