MERGED: New law in Ireland: priests must break Confessional seal re. abuse

[GEddie]

Show me where in this thread I agreed with the OP regarding breaking the seal of the confessional? If you read the whole thread, you would see I was actually disagreeing with him.

However, it is not okay to imply that it is the child’s fault for being taken and hacked to pieces.

And that needs to be said.

OK, my bad. I was remiss in not checking back on the earlier messages by name.

 

[TrueLight]

OK, my bad. I was remiss in not checking back on the earlier messages by name.

No problem.

 

[Corki]

Isn’t actual contrition necessary for a confession to be vaild and recieve absolution? If a pedophile has a kid tied up in his house, he hasn’t really turned away from sin, now has he? How contrite can he be if he hasn’t let the child go? Real repentance bears fruit. If the confession isn’t vaild can the priest go to the police then; or does it not matter whether it’s vaild or not because it’s still a confession either way?

The Confession is still valid even if absoution is with held. It’s valid but incomplete. And yes, the seal stilll applies.

 

[LemonAndLime]

Sorry but this is not an attack on the Church. If this were any other religion (Muslim for example) that required their religiois heirarchy to essentially keep hidden the activities of confessed child abusers, we would be going berserk.

In fact, what if the Jews had a similar practice and that Orthodox Jewish pedophile who just kidnapped that Little boy in New York had gone to a rabbi and confessed that he had that little boy sleeping in his house? Should we be in favor of a legal system that would allow the rabbi to just sit on that information? If this had happened and the rabbi had gone to the cops, then maybe that little boy could have been saved instead of being found chopped into pieces in the guy’s kitchen.

The secular government has the right and obligation to protect these most innocent of victims, and the priests can choose to ignore the law in favor of Church teaching or to co-operate with authorities. The Irish government is doing nothing wrong here.

I have to say I agree with this post in principle, but then I disagree as well. The Seal of confession is nothing if it’s not confidential. Who then would confess serious crimes if they knew the Priest could report them?

Instead, the Priest should make every effort to encourage them to own up to any crime in order to be fully absolved. Is that normal practice?

 

[GwenL]

Isn’t actual contrition necessary for a confession to be vaild and recieve absolution? If a pedophile has a kid tied up in his house, he hasn’t really turned away from sin, now has he? How contrite can he be if he hasn’t let the child go? Real repentance bears fruit. If the confession isn’t vaild can the priest go to the police then; or does it not matter whether it’s vaild or not because it’s still a confession either way?

The seal of the confessional covers the deferral or denial of absolution, sacrilegeous confessions, the lack of disposition of a penitent (i.e. he’s not repentant), the penance imposed, and any advice requested or given. In other words, the priest may never break the seal and reveal any of these things.

Deferral or denial of absolution doesn’t make the confession “invalid.” It just means that the penitent doesn’t get absolution.

 

[Jennifer_J]

This inability to empathize is the same trait found in sociopaths.

This is uncharitable. What she said is too true. I go to great pains to teach my children that they aren’t to go with strangers and even to not follow directions of an adult that they know to be wrong. The fault, of course, lies with the person perpetrating the crime, but the boy also made a tragic mistake. To point this out is not pointing blame, but pointing out the obvious.

 

[karow]

Can we stop please conflafgrating the horrendous death of an 8-year-old child in New York and the fact that Ireland want to pass legislation requiring priests to report crimes they’ve heard in a confessional? That child’s death should not be used to make a point, support an argument, or attack another point of view. And vice-versa.

Also, we shouldn’t write anything on CAF about the child, his decision making, or the manner in which he died that we would not be willing to say to his parents’ faces. Dear Lord, people this is a Christian site. If I were a first-time visitor and I came here and read that a child “should have known better than to…” or he was even the teensiest bit responsible for the fact that he was raped, murderd, and chopped up, I would back away slowly and find a way to bleach my brain.

Please never, ever forget all of this is available for the whole world to see. Is this the face of Catholicism we want to show the world?

scowls, steps off soapbox

 

[kimmielittle]

Can we stop please conflafgrating the horrendous death of an 8-year-old child in New York and the fact that Ireland want to pass legislation requiring priests to report crimes they’ve heard in a confessional? That child’s death should not be used to make a point, support an argument, or attack another point of view. And vice-versa.

Also, we shouldn’t write anything on CAF about the child, his decision making, or the manner in which he died that we would not be willing to say to his parents’ faces. Dear Lord, people this is a Christian site. If I were a first-time visitor and I came here and read that a child “should have known better than to…” or he was even the teensiest bit responsible for the fact that he was raped, murderd, and chopped up, I would back away slowly and find a way to bleach my brain.

Please never, ever forget all of this is available for the whole world to see. Is this the face of Catholicism we want to show the world?

scowls, steps off soapbox

:clapping::clapping:

 

[LemonAndLime]

My point is that the case is being brought up a lot in order to defend this law. Eight-year-old’s should know that you don’t, under any circumstances, get into a strangers car.

So you are saying that the 8 year old put themselves in a dangerous situation and therefore is in some way to blame for what happened to them?

 

[ProVobis]

The priest needs to determine if the penitent is contrite. Not intending to give the money back *could *be an indicator of lack of contrition but not necessarily. Someone could be contrite but fear the consequences of being exposed, wish to avoid distress to his family or any number of other reasons. The priest alone can determine if the person has contrition. In any case, the priest can’t give you a penance that requires you to expose your sin to others.

I know what you’re saying but there are certain sins (like lifting of certain excommunications) which are usually referred to the bishop, as he is the ultimate authority of what gets absolved by a priest or whether the priest has the faculties to even hear the confessions. There’s a certain amount of seal that is exposed there as well. And don’t forget people waiting in confessional lines who perhaps overhear someone’s abuse confession. It’s not only the priest who is on the spot here.

 

[garysibio]

I was just reading an article about a new law in Ireland which requires a priest to notify authorities in cases of child molestation even if under the seal of confession. A 5-year sentence will be given to those who fail to notify.

Can a priest give a penance in confession that requires the person to turn himself in to authorities?

 

[nodito]

I was just reading an article about a new law in Ireland which requires a priest to notify authorities in cases of child molestation even if under the seal of confession. A 5-year sentence will be given to those who fail to notify.

Can a priest give a penance in confession that requires the person to turn himself in to authorities?

No. He may advise it, but a priest can not require a penitent to reveal their sin to anyone else.

It would of course be difficult to prove that a child molester had confessed to a priest, but even at the risk of breaking the law, a priest cannot break the seal of confession, under any circumstance.

 

[jay29]

The law is a “do gooder, emotional based law” that will do nothing. The priest cannot compel you to break the Seal of Confession and cannot hold your absolution hostage because of it or anything else.

If I was a bishop of a diocese, I would implement behind the screen confessions as the normative way and avoid this attack on the Sacrament.

 

[garysibio]

No. He may advise it, but a priest can not require a penitent to reveal their sin to anyone else.

It would of course be difficult to prove that a child molester had confessed to a priest, but even at the risk of breaking the law, a priest cannot break the seal of confession, under any circumstance.

I know the priest can’t say anything himself but I wasn’t sure if he could make it a part of the penance or not.

I’m not sure it would be that hard to put a priest on the spot. I would think that, unless Ireland has a provision for not incriminating himself, a direct question is all that is needed.

 

[nodito]

I’m not sure it would be that hard to put a priest on the spot. I would think that, unless Ireland has a provision for not incriminating himself, a direct question is all that is needed.

I’m not clear what you mean by this… could you explain?

If a priest is asked a direct question about something that was revealed in the confessional, he can not answer it, or at least, not in a way that reveals what was said.

 

[Chatter163]

Already being discussed here.

 

[garysibio]

I’m not clear what you mean by this… could you explain?

If a priest is asked a direct question about something that was revealed in the confessional, he can not answer it, or at least, not in a way that reveals what was said.

In the US we have a constitutional protection from self-incrimination in the 5th amendment to the constitution. If a priest were to be asked in court if a child molester had confessed to him, the priest could invoke this right. He wouldn’t have to lie to avoid prosecution.

I don’t know if Ireland has this same protection. If they don’t and the priest were to be asked in court, he either lies or tells the truth and goes to jail.

 

[nodito]

I don’t know if Ireland has this same protection. If they don’t and the priest were to be asked in court, he either lies or tells the truth and goes to jail.

Or he does neither and is held in contempt. The priest cannot lie so if he cannot answer truthfully he must remain silent, regardless of whether he has this legal right.

It’s an interesting hypothetical that I remember was also depicted in Alfred Hitchcock’s I Confess.

 

[feargalmac]

Already being discussed here.

That thread is closed now.
The situation here in Ireland is that a report was published into abuse of children in the Cloyne Diocese. What got people mad was that it covered a period that we thought the problem had been dealt with, but found that the local Bishop ignored the guidelines laid down by our own Bishops Conference.

What is not being reported is the fact that it was the Churches own Commission on Safeguarding Children that reported the matter to the authorities, so the Church is actively trying to protect children.

The proposed law is purely an attack on the Church

 

[kimmielittle]

That thread is closed now.
The situation here in Ireland is that a report was published into abuse of children in the Cloyne Diocese. What got people mad was that it covered a period that we thought the problem had been dealt with, but found that the local Bishop ignored the guidelines laid down by our own Bishops Conference.

What is not being reported is the fact that it was the Churches own Commission on Safeguarding Children that reported the matter to the authorities, so the Church is actively trying to protect children.

The proposed law is purely an attack on the Church

Thank you for this information.