New Australian Law Requires Priests to Break Seal of Confession to Report Admissions of Child Abuse

[YoungApologist3]

I still think any priest who turns an abuser in is making a very fine sacrifice.

This is called consequentialism. This is wrong.

Both the Catechism and Canon Law state that it is always gravely illicit to violate the seal of confession. In fact, the English translation of the Code doesn’t do it justice; the Latin word used means “it is completely unthinkable.” It can certainly be seen, then, that the act of violating the seal is immoral.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1753 A good intention (for example, that of helping one’s neighbor) does not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered, such as lying and calumny, good or just. The end does not justify the means. Thus the condemnation of an innocent person cannot be justified as a legitimate means of saving the nation. On the other hand, an added bad intention (such as vainglory) makes an act evil that, in and of itself, can be good (such as almsgiving).

Aquinas also condemns this line of thinking. You would be hard pressed to find any Catholic moral theologian who would affirm consequentialism, particularly because consequentialism is contrary to the Catholic faith.

So, let’s use a syllogism:

It is morally illicit to violate the seal.
Consequentialism is wrong.
Therefore, good ends (catching the most heinous criminal ever) can never justify violating the seal of confession.

 

[ascetic]

Ok so what about men and women who are married or in relationships who are not celibate and sexually abuse children. The percentage of Cleargy are among, and yes one is to many, far less than any other profession that has abused children. There was a study some, I forgot the name of the University in California, but children have a better chance of being sexually abused in the California school system than they do by any Cleargy in the Catholic Church or any other Christian faith community. I will see if I can find it when I get home from work tonight. This study also mentioned FBI statistical data.

The majority of the time you see or hear about Preist sexually abusing someone it is normally by the misinformed or worse yet, anti Catholic bigots.

People seem to (wilingly?) forget that.

I’ve seen lives torn apart because of overzealous professionals.

Yep. http://stopsamenow.blogspot.com/

 

[mVitus]

But I do also think a murderer who was truly repentant would confess even knowing they would be reported.

As others have mentioned, Confession about receiving God’ s grace and reconciling with God. He is who we are concerned with in Confession and to place barriers on that would be unjust.

To give a, alibi silly, hypothetical. Imagine if Canon Law required Catholics to all wear a purple top hat and pink blazer when receiving Communion. There would be people who received Eucharist devoutly. But many would probably stop because wearing a purple top hat and pink blazer is a bit ridiculous. An unnecessary burden was put upon a sacrament as a result many people would miss out on its graces.

Now tying that back to Confession, remeber that it deals with God’s justice. To require reporting would be to place a burden of civil law on the penitent. While you would still see people confessing, it’s be in lesser numbers. Fear of civil law would discourage penitent from the sacrament. And to put civil law above God’s justice would be an injustice. Imagine for example if you knew your next confession was going to land you with 20 years in prison. How eager would you be to go?

As a side question: You mentioned you have almost come to a decision on your religion. May I ask what you’re inclined to?

 

[camoderator]

Alex337,

There’s actually a larger issue here, and that’s to protect the Catholic Church in safeguarding the ordinary, God-given means to absolve the faithful’s sins, especially mortal sin (see John 20:21-23). When a priest breaks the seal of Confession, and even more so when governments attempt to coerce the Church to do so, e.g., with reporting confessed murderers (see, e.g., movie “I Confess”), it effectively undermines the Church’s God-given mission, failing to see–or simply disregarding–that matters pertaining to eternal life are definitely more important than those that pertain to the temporal realm, precisely because they have eternal/everlasting implications, instead of limited/timebound implications.

Indeed, because of such actions that break the seal of Confession or seek to break it, the faithful will be much less likely to take advantage of this ordinary, God-given means to have their sins absolved for fear–and understandably so–that their transgressions will be disclosed to others to one extent or another.

The confessor undoubtedly should and will exhort the penitent to seek help and avoid this sin. But the government’s intervention here is, in reality, a nefariously clever way to undermine the Church’s mission, choosing a “hard case” for which there will be much public sympathy to coerce the Church to change, though misguided sympathy at that.

The Church must and will resist to protect the Sacrament of Confession/Reconciliation. God have mercy.

 

[TraditCatholic]

“New Australian Law Requires Priests to Break Seal of Confession to Report Admissions of Child Abuse”

That is just wrong. Priests are bound not to comply with that law.
Instead maybe there could be a law that tells the priest to command the penitent who confesses such crime, to turn himself into the police.

 

[phil19034]

To

phil19034:

Alex337:

I still think any priest who turns an abuser in is making a very fine sacrifice

You realize that the priest risks hell for that, don’t you?

To save a child. Good man.

And risk sending more people to hell because more sinners would be afraid to go to confession? No.

I’m sorry, this might sound HORRIBLE, but no single child is worth allowing several people to burn in hell.

Let’s look at abortion… which is an automatic excommunication. Before priests were given the ability to to forgive abortions, if a priest found out in the confessional that someone received an automatic excommunication, and sees them still receiving communion there is NOTHING he can do about it unless the person talks about the abortion outside the confessional.

You don’t get it. The elimination of the seal of confession could eventually lead to millions more people burning in Hell who would not have if the seal was in tact.

Justice for one child is NOT worth sending tons souls to Hell.

The Church’s job is to help sinners (including rapists, murders, etc) get to Heaven.

It’s not the Church’s job to help the govt seek temporal punishment for criminals.

BTW - I strongly believe that people who confess major crimes like rape, murder, etc are confessing behind the screen to a priest who doesn’t know them. The chances of a face to face Confession (outside the prison cell) for such crimes is not very good.

 

[camoderator]

Ditto with sexual abuse. The penitent who is a victim of sexual should be given guidance by the confessor to report the abuse to civil and ecclesiastical authorities. The offending penitent should be exhorted to turn themselves in. But you don’t break the seal for aforementioned reasons in which concern eternal/everlasting matters supersede temporal/ephemeral ones. Again, see the movie “I Confess” as a further illustration.

 

[TraditCatholic]

Ditto with sexual abuse. The penitent who is a victim of sexual should be given guidance by the confessor to report the abuse to civil and ecclesiastical authorities. The offending penitent should be exhorted to turn themselves in.

I agree. Under no circumstances is a priest allowed to break the seal of confession.

 

[commenter]

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In the US, state child welfare laws tend to be cookie-cutter, because they were put in place to maintain federal grants, around 1970. Lawyers are generally exempt from mandatory reporting laws, as long as they are in the position of defending this particular client. It can be argued the priest in confession is in a similar relationship, though many secularists would deny that. They would make the priest strictly a human service worker. All doctors are mandated reporters in the USA, and in most states a long list of other health related professionals.

But the reality is that almost nobody is successfully prosecuted for not reporting child abuse, at least in the USA. If you are accused of not reporting it, you can always say you did not feel there was a basis of suspicion, in your judgement. You can always say you thought it was already under investigation, or that you thought the person was speaking hypothetically, or there was confusion over what was said. Australian law may be different.

However, I suspect the media will be anxious go after priests. In my area any act of even suspected abuse by a priest, even if it happened 40 years ago, will get more media coverage than a criminal conviction of a public school teacher based on recent abuse.

 

[neophyte]

I’d feel far less comfortable with a priest who does nothing about child abuse.

If you think that being the vehicle by which the sactifying grace of Almighty God pours out onto the soul of a poor sinner is nothing, then you have a very strange (and non-Catholic) idea of what that is.

 

[mythbuster1]

The Seal of Confession exists for a reason. Because Confession is necessary for the salvation of sinners, the Seal exists so that sinners need not fear Confession under any circumstances. Compared to the danger of scaring sinners away from Confession, no good can come of breaking the Seal.

 

[Cruciferi]

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[TheLittleLady]

Making amends does not mean revealing your sins. BIG difference.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Can a Priest Ever Reveal What is Said in Confession? (Part I) - Canon Law Made EasyCanon Law Made Easy

 

[TheLittleLady]

What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?

 

[tafan2]

Did the priest actually say he would not absolve you unless you did? Or did he just tell you to do this between the time you stated you sins and absolution.

 

[AlbertDerGrosse]

Could you point to the relevant section, please?

 

[TheLittleLady]

The article is the relevant section, it links to the more lengthy code of Canon Law.

 

[margaret42]

Pray for the priests. That their vows to God will prevail over immorality.

 

[margaret42]

The priest really has been as honest as he can be with society by asking the penitent to “turn himself in”.