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Catholic priests in Ireland say they will not reveal peoples’ sins told to them in confession, despite the Irish government requiring priests to report alleged incidents of child abuse.
“More than any other issues, it is probably the one that will unite both the liberal and conservative winds of the Church,” Fr Tony Flannery said in an email to CNA.
“If even one exception was made to the seal of Confession, then the whole Sacrament would collapse.”
Flannery said the Association of Catholic Priests hasn’t taken the proposed new law that seriously because it was simply “unworkable.”
“When a person confesses in the confessional box, the priest would not normally know who they are, or indeed be able to see them,” he explained.
“So how is he to report them?”
It is also “unlikely” that a person involved in sexual abuse would go to confession, Fr. Flannery pointed out.
“In my forty years of priesthood, I don’t ever remember someone confessing that they were currently abusing someone,” he said.
Flannery suggested reporting this sin could be the ‘thin edge of the wedge,’ and asked why limit mandatory reporting to just sexual abuse. Why not extend it to the likes of marital infidelity, tax evasion and murder?
He labelled the Prime Minister’s response to the serious issues identified in the Cloyne Report as a a little strong and hoped that given time a more reasoned approach might be worked through.
Last week, Irish Prime Minister Edna Kennedy said “the law of the land should not be stopped by a collar or crozier,” and Minister of Justice, Alan Shatter warned that there would be “no grey legal areas” and that doctors’ privilege would also have to be abandoned.
Shatter made no reference to lawyer-client privilege.
Sources
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News category: World.
