As stated here, there’s to be a Royal Commission into the way institutions in Australia respond to instances of child sexual abuse. It’s not clear yet which institutions will be included but it’s largely a response to the failures of the Catholic Church in this regard.
This has raised the issue of whether priests should be legally required to report admissions of serious crimes that they hear about in the confessional, eg if a priest confesses to abusing children. The majority of public figures in Australia, including staunch Catholics in the conservative opposition, are saying that they should. Unsurprisingly, the cardinal George Pell, disagrees.
Although I suspect the opinion here will be that the seal of the confessional should not be exempt from legal requirements, is there anywhere in the world where this is the case? How does it compare to attorney-client confidentiality or journalists protecting their sources?
I guess this could be construed as a question of authority (the state vs God thing… again). That is, who has dominance over who? Both would argue they do, and incorrectly so considering the absolute void of evidence for either position.
But I can’t realistically see ordained priests violating their imperative. But having said that I know squat about priesthood, I guess the rationale is something like ‘if they repent they have less chance of going to hell’, the higher moral authority and all that.
There are too many, currently unanswerable, auxiliary hypothesis in play to work this shtick out.
What I don’t understand is how this law could possibly be enforced. How is the government ever going to know what did or did not take place in a given confession?
I think the reason it’s come up is the possibility that the Royal Commission uncovers evidence that priests have known about the criminal activities of other priests and done nothing. In that case, the seal of the confessional might provide a partial defence.
I think it should be the same as laws between therapists and patients, as functionally they are quite similar. On a larger scale, I think that in many cases, having someone to talk to can help the offender find a better path. Without anyone to confide in, an offender may decide he or she is doomed, and use that as license to commit more crimes.
Absolutely not. Priest-penitent privilege should not be eliminated. The State has no more business in the confessional than it does in my law office. Let them find their evidence through their own resources.
It should also be mentioned that a priest can withhold absolution from someone they don’t believe to be truly penitent, and one of the ways the penitent can show penance is by confessing to the civil authorities and casting themselves on civil justice.
If priests were required to report the serious crimes they get told about in the confessional, do you reckon people might think twice about 'fessing up in the first place?
My feeling is that no one should be forced to turn in someone just because that someone told them about a crime. Now, if the person takes active measures to help conceal the crime, that’s another matter. But if George tells me something, I should have no legal obligation to rat him out.
There is an amazing amount of press in Australia about this at the moment.
I do not think that the amount of instances of catholic people confessing child abuse and not being caught is so frequent that it justifies this amazing amount of press.
Here is what wikipedia says - Penance
The Sacrament of Penance (also called Reconciliation, Forgiveness, Confession, and Conversion[109]) exists for the conversion of those who, after baptism, separate themselves from Christ by sin.[110] Essential to this sacrament are acts both by the sinner (examination of conscience, contrition with a determination not to sin again, confession to a priest, and performance of some act to repair the damage caused by sin) and by the priest (determination of the act of reparation to be performed and absolution).[111] Serious sins (mortal sins) must be confessed within at most a year and always before receiving Holy Communion, while confession of venial sins also is recommended.[112] The priest is bound under the severest penalties to maintain the “seal of confession”, absolute secrecy about any sins revealed to him in confession.[113]
The sinner must be truly penitant and the priest belives that the sinner is penitant to give absolution.
That is why I do not think this is as widespread as the press suggests.
Note: I do not think you are, in fact, David Cash. I just don’t see that much difference between your stance and his action/lack of action. Perhaps you could show the difference.
The thing is, for the majority of the abuse that has been covered up it’s not the general members of the church but catholic priests, brothers or other representatives of the church that have been raping & molesting kids. It’s the active cover-up by the church hierarchy that has landed them in this mess.
I’m torn on this issue. On one hand, priests are not mental health or legal professionals (though they may have been one or both of these in previous or concurrent life). OTOH, I don’t like the idea of setting a legal precedent that basically enforces a private citizen to report a crime or be held culpable either. This is a problem of application though, and perhaps Australia is mature enough to handle it.
A middle option might be to create a “clergy referral” program to a “get help” type of service affiliated with the state. Something that acknowledges both that the clergy did their job of alerting the state of a potential problem while maintaining confidentiality and passing the person to a service where they can get officially recognized help. Though this just passes the buck along.
Uhm…that’s a bit strong, don’t you think? Opining that it shouldn’t be a crime to not report someone for telling you something is not quite the same thing as just standing there while someone molests and murders a little girl.
I don’t agree with John Mace, but I don’t think it quite merits the comparison, sheesh…
As to the OP:
Though I loathe any preferential treatment towards religion, I think it could be useful to have confession as a similar thing to doctor-patient privilege. I think it would be far better for someone to have the opportunity to speak to someone about these problems, after all, it is probably the only way for the problem to be resolved at all.
I do think there should be rules/guidelines/laws about the course of action the priest (or doctor) then takes. They should be partially responsible for preventing further harm. For example, they could set an ultimatum: if the molester doesn’t leave his job working with children and seek therapy, the priest will have to report him to the police. That way, he is making it clear that there are limits to the privilege. Wouldn’t that be possible?
Thanks for explaining who David Cash is and also answering the question about what the different is.
Let me add… There is a moral and a legal issue here. I can see the moral issue of not reporting a known criminal, but I still don’t think it should be legally required. Sorry, but society doesn’t get a legal claim on me for refraining to cooperate with the police. They can drag my ass to court if they need me to testify, or they can question me and I can be required not to lie, but I don’t see why I have a legal responsibility to rat someone out.
The issue becomes somewhat different however, when someone tells you that they are a kindergarten teacher and they molest children in their charge everyday. You know that they will continue to do that unless you act.
I think that is also a little closer to the problem with the Catholic church: that often it was well known that people in charge of children molested them and they were not removed from their position. If they were, they were often moved to another position where they would work with children again. This while the Catholic church has pretty obvious way of keeping people out of harm’s way. They had the means to act, they often had the knowledge, and they did nothing. I see why people want them to take responsibility. I’m not entirely sure, however, that changing the law so that priests have to report confessions of crimes will have the intended effect.