Paul KeenanThe Sacrament of Reconciliation is again under threat, writes Paul Keenan
The Seal of Confession was ‘back on the table’ over the last week.
Courtesy of events in three different nations, a synchronicity was created on the topic that so exercised Irish Catholics back in April as the ‘mandatory reporting’ element of the Children First Bill was debated.
Australia was first to make the news wires internationally as leaders of its Anglican community gathered for their annual synod. Engaging in a diverse range of topics up for discussion, perhaps inevitably it was the debate, and subsequent vote, July 2, on the seal of Confession which grabbed journalists’ attention.
Central to the debate was the Canon Concerning Confession 1989, which offered guidance to ordained ministers on the subject. Its Section 2 states: “If any person confess his or her secret and hidden sins to an ordained minister for the unburdening of conscience and to receive spiritual consolation and ease of mind, such minister shall not at any time reveal or make known any crime or offence or sin so confessed and committed to trust and secrecy by that person without consent of that person.”
Under the amendment successfully voted through at synod this month, that guidance will now be reworded to allow for any minister hearing Confession to report serious criminal offences heard in the course of that ministry to the authorities.
Breaches
Anticipating a measure of unintentional breaches that must inevitably occur with this new guidance, the amendment offered both a defence for a minister revealing confessional information if said minister “in good faith believed that the conduct did constitute a serious offence” and, as a measure of protection against this, the ability for the minister to “reveal the conduct so confessed to a professional advisor for the purpose of obtaining advice as to whether that conduct constitutes a serious offence”.
In short, a minister may breach the seal of Confession in order to inquire if a breach of the seal is warranted.
Such dizzying logic aside, it must be pointed out that perspectives on Confession vary across traditions and it is perhaps wrong to bring a Catholic prism to bear on in-house Anglican affairs.
Indeed, a spokesperson for the Church of Ireland, speaking to The Irish Catholic this week was at pains to stress that it, like other Anglican Churches, does not take a sacramental approach to Confession and does not have a specific procedure for private confession to a priest.
Current guidelines state that “the Church of Ireland child protection policy has no specific guidance for clergy regarding disclosure of relevant information about child abuse received in the context of confession. General guidance to all workers (including clergy) receiving disclosures is that certain information cannot remain confidential where it relates to the abuse of children. Those about to make such disclosures should be advised that the worker has a duty to pass such information on to the statutory agencies.”
No less cognisant than the Catholic Church of the current drive for child protection, the Anglican Church’s vote in Australia comes against the backdrop of that country’s Royal Commission of Inquiry into historic abuse cases, with the Catholic Church very much in the frame for probing and harsh criticism.
Religious freedom
It must be added at the same time, that when contacted by The Irish Catholic, Anglican General Secretary Martin Drevikovsky stressed that “issues relating to the practice of Confession have been a matter of discussion and deliberation by the Australian Anglican Bishops’ Meeting on a regular basis for a number of years preceding the announcement of the Royal Commission”.
Even at that, sadly it is the issue of child protection which is the common factor in all recent challenges to the seal of Confession.
News of events in Australia had barely passed when coverage turned to America, and to the Archdiocese of Baton Rouge in Louisiana, whose authorities felt compelled to issue a July 7 statement in stout defence of religious freedom based on the seal.
Baton Rouge moved to restate the “absolute and inviolable” nature of the confessional for Catholics after Louisiana’s Supreme Court ruled that a priest who had allegedly heard the confession of a young victim of abuse should be a witness at the civil case against both the priest and the diocese arising from that crime. (The Supreme Court decision was a reversal of an earlier Appeals Court decision which found in favour of the religious freedom of the Church with respect to the confessional.)
Central to the Louisiana argument is the ruling by the Supreme Court that the priest in question has no right to claim ‘confidentiality’ around his conversations with the young girl on the basis that she has now made a legal – and public – statement as to that conversation, thereby freeing him of the seal. (Baton Rouge has fired back that “Church law does not allow either the plaintiff (penitent) or anyone else to waive the seal of Confession.”)
Another pertinent factor is the content of that legal statement, which offers the priest’s own alleged words, bringing shades of cover-up in the quote: “He just said, this is your problem. Sweep it under the floor.”
The issue is the classic Catch 22 for the priest involved. His choice now involves breaching the seal of Confession to defend his good name – but not his priesthood and faith – against the claimed conversation or a rigid adherence to the seal and the risk of serious legal sanction.
In reality, of course, the choice is no choice at all. Baton Rouge has made clear: “Pursuant to his oath to the Church, a priest is compelled never to break that seal. Neither is a priest allowed to admit that someone went to confession to him. If necessary, the priest would have to suffer a finding of contempt in a civil court and suffer imprisonment rather than violate his sacred duty and violate the seal of confession and his duty to the penitent. This is not a grey area in the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church.”
Statements
Closer to home, it seems very likely now that such statements as released by Baton Rouge will be heard in Britain over the coming months. Amid continuing revelations sparked by the Jimmy Savile scandal, attention paid to allegations of pervert politicians and files lost at the highest levels in Westminster led, on July 8, to Home Secretary Theresa May’s establishment of an official inquiry.
But don’t be distracted by arguments swirling around Baroness Butler-Sloss, the person originally chosen to lead that inquiry.
Even as she removed herself from the inquiry due to her brother’s apparent interference with abuse allegations in the 1980s, the term ‘mandatory reporting’ has been mentioned already.
While Sections 11 and 12 of Britain’s Children Act 2004 place a statutory duty on agencies to co-operate to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children points out that “professionals who fail to report cases of abuse or neglect do not face criminal penalties for non-reporting”.
It is not much of a prediction that, as recommendations from the British inquiry seek to plug this gap in safeguarding, the Catholic Church and other faith traditions will be forced once again to exert themselves against blanket legislation threatening the seal of Confession.