Melbourne archbishop says he'd rather go to jail than report child abuse heard in confession

[FiveLinden]

Correct. It’s seen, rightly, as a back door way to violate the seal.

Why is Can. 982 not a violation of the seal then? (See my post a couple back for details)

 

[Reuben_J]

Why would a secular government suddenly ascribe to the Catholic belief of a priest that the priest must consider what he hears in the confessional to be true enough to grant absolution? Double standard.

I agree. O, secular government, please leave the religious belief of the Catholic Church alone.

 

[Viki63]

If a child reveals abuse in confession, the priest will encourage him or her to talk to a teacher or policeman.
If an adult confesses that he’s committed this crime, I would think the priest can refuse to grant absolution until he has come clean to the authorities and removed himself from situations of temptation.

 

[dochawk]

Can you report a person planning a mass shooting? Why not people who abuse children?

I’m also a lawyer, although I have done little criminal law the last couple of decades.

While the ability to report varies across US jurisdictions, and is generally one of “shall not”, “may”, or “must”, past crimes that no longer leave anyone in danger are “shall not” pretty much everywhere, future crimes with severe bodily injury/death are “must” in most places (but there might be a couple of “may”, and other crimes very.

The confessed crime is past, and a lawyer couldn’t report it, either. The future crime generally would be reported by a lawyer.

hawk, esq.

 

[Pup7]

FiveLinden:

To make children safer. Your job is to make pedophiles safer.

Absolutely unfair to say! It is called “Client Privilage.” Which is the same as “Doctor-Patient.”

That actually depends on where you live.

In the US, there is no Federal Rule of Evidence over doctor-patient privilege - and the extent of the privilege extends only as far as state jurisdiction allows and whether the proceedings are criminal or civil in nature. And every state is different.

Plus, health care professionals in the US are all mandated reporters - including doctors. That too can affect the relationship.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

The USA is loathe to get rid of the established types of privilege. It’s likely seen as a slippery slope. If the priest-penitent privilege goes, then the attorney-client privilege could fall next, and many if not most lawyers and judges do not want to see that happen.

In general, the US tends to have more privilege-type restrictions, and discovery rules/ restrictions in general, than countries with European-based law systems. This is in keeping with the fact that the US tends to have more legal protections for the defendants generally.

 

[Roseeurekacross]

I believe what is decided here in Aus about this will have global ramifications.

Especially if Canon Law has to change.

 

[KindredSoul]

Why is Can. 982 not a violation of the seal then? (See my post a couple back for details)

That’s a matter of an ongoing sin, not a past sin. The very sin one is confessing in the past, that specific instance, is still ongoing: You are still actively marring the priest’s reputation at that very moment by not telling someone. It’s not just that you are at high risk of doing it again, you ARE still doing it. The equivalent would be if you were, at that very moment, right there in the confessional, abusing someone while you confessed it. Not as in sequentially, not as in you’ll statistically probably do it again, but you were committing the deed right then and there, and had never even stopped that specific incident of sin you are confessing. The priest cannot absolve you for a sin that you are doing, red handed, at that very moment. He can absolve you for sins in the past, even if they are addictive and habitual, but not if you are in the very middle of doing it right at that moment. Being actively in the middle of a sin at that very moment is proof positive of a lack of contrition. Due to the very nature of telling a lie to malign someone’s reputation, until you have corrected the malicious lie it is the equivalent of if you were abusing someone, in the very physical act of the abuse, the entire time, never stopping, not taking a break (nor ever planning to end that specific incident) even as you went into the confessional, somehow. Which, as I said, a priest could not absolve either until you stopped. Confession can only absolve sins in the past (though it can do so even if those sins are highly likely to be committed again, as long as while the penitent confesses he sincerely means to not do it again in the future), not specific instances of sins that will be committed in the future nor sins that are presently being actively committed at thaf very instant.

So while I do understand why it would look like Canon Law is saying there is an exception, where even a sincerely repentant penitent can be denied absolution if it’s serious enough, when more closely examined this is a case where the penitent doesn’t even have the ability to stop in the very act of this specific ongoing instance of sin.

 

[KindredSoul]

I also submit that if this could be changed (it can’t) it very likely wouldn’t save anyone. As I said in my original post yesterday, I don’t think many abusers go to confession, unless they really are sorry and torn on some meaningful level, because that can’t be an easy thing to confess just out of going through the motions. And out of a fear most of us would be hypocrites to mock (I couldn’t even confess a harmless white lie, for example, if I knew it meant I’d soon have the whole community hate me, and that I’d go to prison where much of the already hostile population would especially want to kill me, and I doubt most people here would be able to confess their own sins, either, if they knew that would be the outcome, no matter how sincerely they felt Contrition and wanted to stop), those few conflicted abusers would just stop going to confession, losing the one best anchor that would put them in touch with reality. Severing them even further from reality would be the very opposite of helpful for their victims. As a poster said earlier in the thread, expecting such a change to help more victims than it hurts is short-sighted and naive. It would hurt more than it helped. Far more, I suspect.

That’s obviously true if the seal itself was lifted, but to a lesser extent it’s true if, as a universal practice, priests withheld absolution for anyone who wouldn’t turn themselves in: If they can’t bring themselves to do so, for reasons I mentioned, I think they’ll probably just eventually give up on confession, since they’d know even before they went in that it was a dead end. So it might not be the same immediate dropout that lifting the seal would cause, but I strongly suspect the end result would be the same.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Please, @FiveLinden, would you correct the quote box above. It gives the appearance that I support a practice that is contrary to the law of the Church. Thank you.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Every one of us has the right, given by the Church, for anonymous confession. If the law requires public confession, then, I would expect several priests to end up in jail because they will honor the rights of the penitent.

 

[TheLittleLady]

For the priest to refuse absolution unless the penitent reveal his sin publicly would violate Can. 983 §1. The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason.

 

[PetraG]

For the priest to refuse absolution unless the penitent reveal his sin publicly would violate Can. 983 §1. The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason.

Exactly. He’s only saying that he’d rather be put into jail than to send himself out of the Church by violating a sacred trust.

 

[JimG]

This is the outcome of sexual abuse occurring in closed private confessionals Jim.

Okay. I am having trouble wrapping my mnd around it because I presume that abuse implies physical contact between priest and penitent. In the confessionals in my parish, the priest and penitent can hear but not see each other and there is no way for physical contact to occur.

 

[FiveLinden]

Please, @FiveLinden, would you correct the quote box above. It gives the appearance that I support a practice that is contrary to the law of the Church. Thank you.

Eager to do so but can’t identify exactly wha I need to do. I changed my original post but others have quoted it, Can you help?

 

[FiveLinden]

For the priest to refuse absolution unless the penitent reveal his sin publicly would violate Can. 983 §1. The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason.

Except that this is exactly what is required under Can. 982, which I think is entirely reasonable? Why not extent the same protection to children that is given to priests falsely accused?

 

[TheLittleLady]

To recant a statement is not the same thing as to reveal your sins.

 

[Viki63]

Nobody is saying it’s abuse between priest and penitent. We’re talking about a person who confesses abuse to a priest. I have heard of this in the case of murder; that a priest can refuse absolution until the penitent confesses to the police. The priest does not have to betray the trust of the penitent.
A priest once refused me absolution because he thought I was living in sin (there was some confusion/misunderstanding). So I had to straighten out the situation before absolution could be given.

 

[KindredSoul]

To recant a statement is not the same thing as to reveal your sins.

In addition to my own response, this is also quite true. You could technically find some way to make people believe you were sincerely mistaken, but that you didn’t lie, thus you can in theory recant a lie without admitting you lied (I.e. admitting the sin). There is no conceivable way, however, to confess to a crime without, well, admitting to the crime. To recant a lie is not necessarily to admit that you lied, but to turn oneself in to authorities for a sinful crime IS to tell your sins to someone outside of the sanctity of confession. So even aside from what I said, which I do think valid, an even simpler answer is that the Canon you offer is not compelling them to tell anyone else their sins, whereas what you propose would be such a compulsion. Since the very nature of turning oneself in is to reveal one’s sins.

 

[KindredSoul]

Yes, the priest could demand that you cease continually living in sin, but he could not (licitly) demand you reveal your sins to anyone who doesn’t already know. If you are shacked up with someone out of wedlock, for example the priest could demand that you cease the unrepentant/unapologetic sexual relationship, and indeed if it was imminently doable, reasonable, and not in itself injurious to some equal and reasonable good, he may even be able to ask you to move out entirely if he believed staying definitely meant that you definitely weren’t even sincerely trying to resist the sexual sin anymore (though even assuming it meant that, due to mitigating factors, should not be taken for granted), but he couldn’t demand that you tell anybody about the unwed sexual relationship, who didn’t already know.

I’ve heard of the whole “compelling criminals to turn themselves in on pain of withholding absolution” thing, but there is no official provision for that as I’ve ever seen. It’s just something some priests may have done, which doesn’t mean it was licit or allowable.