The Catholic bishops who responded to the Commission were unable to convince the commissioners that the seal of confession should continue to be respected, at least in some circumstances.

As a result of the recommendations of the Royal Commission, now in a majority of Australian states and territories when a priest in administering the sacrament becomes aware that a child has been sexually abused, he must bring such an incident to the attention of the police.

This has placed the Catholic clergy in a difficult situation. On the one hand, they will incur automatic ex-communication if they breach the inviolability of the seal of confession, even in cases of child sexual abuse.

On the other hand, they will face judicial penalties and even imprisonment if they do not notify the police of any incidents of child sexual abuse, even if such incidents have only been revealed under the seal of confession.

To escape the horns of this dilemma, I have heard of some priests who have stated that they will no longer 'hear confessions' — administer the Sacrament of Penance.

In other cases, some priests have stated that they will not grant absolution — an integral part of the Sacrament — to a penitent involved either as a perpetrator or a victim in child sexual abuse unless such a penitent agrees to repeat the information to the priest outside the confessional context.

By this strategy, the seal of confession will not be violated when the priest refers the incident to the police.

But, of course, the penitent may refuse to cooperate with this strategy and the priest will then remain caught on the horns of the dilemma.

A further casualty of all these developments has been the Sacrament of Penance itself. As a result of the pandemic, like other religious observances, its availability has been drastically curtailed, and it is unlikely that recourse to the sacrament will be as frequent as previously even when the restrictions are lifted.

Further, the confidence of the laity in the inviolability of the seal has, understandably, been undermined, a consequence of which may again be that recourse to the sacrament will be in decline.

These are matters, I suggest, that should be addressed by the upcoming Plenary Council. It is a recent situation specific to the Australian Church and one to which a remedy should be sought.

The Plenary Council would seem to be an appropriate forum in which to address these matters — the inviolability of the seal, the more limited availability of confessors and the decline in the practice of the sacrament.

For a short period in the late 1980s and 1990s the so-called 'Third Rite of Reconciliation' was made available at specific times in the liturgical year, usually in Lent and Advent, in preparation for Easter and Christmas.

It was popular with Australian Catholics. Penitential liturgies incorporating the Third Rite were instituted in most parishes.

Instead of individual face-to-face encounters with a priest in the privacy of the confessional, penitents as a congregation were invited to recall their sins mentally, express their contrition communally and receive a common absolution and penance.

Many Catholics who had not 'confessed' for many years took advantage of the Third Rite.

Appeals to reinstate the practice have, apparently, been summarily dismissed

This widespread use of the Third Rite was brought to the attention of the Roman authorities.

When the Australian bishops made their ad limina visit to Rome in November, 1998, they were admonished that this widespread use 'not infrequently occasioned an illegitimate use of general absolution'.

They were instructed in effect to eliminate the practice and adhere strictly to the relevant canons in the Code of Canon Law (1983).

As a result, the practice of the Third Rite disappeared virtually overnight. Subsequent appeals to reinstate the practice have, apparently, been summarily dismissed.

The relevant canons in the Code are canons 961 and 962 and read as follows:

Canon 961:

General absolution, without prior individual confession, cannot be given to a number of penitents together unless:

• danger of death threatens and there is not time for the priest or priests to hear the confessions of the individual penitents;
• there exists a grave necessity, that is, given the number of penitents, there are not enough confessors available properly to hear the individual confessions within an appropriate time, so that without fault of their own the penitents are deprived of the sacramental grace or of holy communion for a lengthy period of time. A sufficient necessity is not, however, considered to exist when confessors cannot be available merely because of a great gathering of penitents, such as can occur on some major feast day or pilgrimage.
• It is for the diocesan bishop to judge whether the conditions required in n 2 are present; mindful of the criteria agreed with the other members of the Episcopal Conference, he can determine the cases of such necessity.

Canon 962:

• For a member of Christ's faithful to benefit validly from a sacramental absolution given to a number of people simultaneously, it is required not only that he or she be properly disposed, but be also at the same time personally resolved to confess in due time each of the grave sins which cannot for the moment be thus confessed.
• Christ's faithful are to be instructed about the requirements set out in n1 as far as possible even on the occasion of general absolution being received. An exhortation that each person should make an act of contrition is to precede general absolution, even in the case of danger of death if there is time.
• This letter of the law is very restrictive, even more restrictive than its source: 'The Rite of Penance', authorized by the Sacred Congregation of Divine Worship in 1973 and the 'Normae Pastorales' of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1972.

In both of these instructions the Third Rite, while extraordinary, is at least acknowledged as an alternative in certain circumstances. The Code subsequently defined these circumstances very strictly.

The principle behind the canons turns on the availability of priests to minister to the number of penitents within a circumscribed time.

The current situation in Australia where the seal of confession is under threat is not obviously a candidate for the standard exercise of the Third Rite.

Priests who in the current climate have decided not to make themselves available for face-to-face confession may create a temporary situation of non-availability, particularly in remote areas, but in virtually all instances another priest could be contacted in a short time to substitute and fill the vacancy.

It would be interesting to speculate, however, if all the priests in a particular diocese or region declared themselves 'non-available', whether this would constitute a legitimate instance in terms of the canons for the exercise of the Third Rite.

Take, for instance, an inner-city, or even some outer-suburban, parishes, where there are still a significant number of penitents and where, presumably, the probability of an incident of paedophilia being confessed is more likely — anonymity is a central consideration here.

Let us suppose for a moment that because of the threat to the seal of confession all the priests who minister the sacrament of Penance at one or other of these parishes declare themselves unavailable and no substitutes from the Melbourne archdiocese were willing for the same reason to step into the breach.

Would this justify the Archbishop in instituting the Third Rite?

A desire for forgiveness and reconciliation

It is an unlikely scenario, and, granted the intransigence of the Roman authorities in this matter, I doubt whether they would countenance such an exception as canonically legitimate.

Perhaps a more viable approach would be to seek an interpretation or an extension of, or an addition to, the notion of availability such that it encompasses situations where face-to-face confession is liable to expose the confessor to the dilemma of either ecclesial or secular penalties.

Although the threat to the seal of confession is confined to the Australian states currently, I suspect that it is only a matter of time before increasingly secularized jurisdictions are going to see the exemption as an anomaly and revoke it, at least in respect of certain abhorrent crimes like child sexual abuse.

So, there may be new reasons to revisit the relevant canons, and the Roman authorities may be more sympathetic to such revisions than heretofore.

Further, a relaxation of the canonical strictures to make the Third Rite more available might arrest the decline in recourse to the Sacrament of Penance.

When in the 1990s the Third Rite was instituted more widely, even though it was confined to Lent and Easter, it was remarkable how many penitents emerged 'out of the woodwork'. It was, I believe, evidence of a consciousness of sin and a desire for forgiveness and reconciliation.

I suspect/hope those sentiments are still alive in the Catholic community.

The prospect of face-to-face confession, however, is daunting, especially if there has been a long interval since the previous confession, and if the seal is suspected to be compromised by the recent legislation.

And there is some evidence that some women, in particular, find face-to-face confession to a male priest in the confines of a confessional especially daunting.

So, while it is understandable that proponents of face-to-face confession — the First Rite — should continue to insist that it should remain the preferred option, it cannot be denied that as a result of a number of circumstances — closure of churches during the pandemic, the threat to the seal of confession, the more limited availability of priests — the practice of the First Rite, 'auricular confession', is in virtually terminal decline.

Granted this situation, would not a more relaxed set of canonical conditions for the exercise of the Third Rite be a way in which the centrality of the Sacrament of Penance be restored to the Catholic consciousness?

Perhaps this is a recommendation which, in view of the specific current situation in Australia, the Plenary Council could bring to the attention of the Roman authorities and hope for a sympathetic response.

• Bill Uren SJ AO is a Jesuit Priest, Scholar in Residence at Newman College at the University of Melbourne and Former Rector of the College, Jesuit Theological College and former Provincial of the Australian Jesuits. He is a graduate of the Universities of Melbourne, Sydney, Oxford and the Melbourne College of Divinity. He has lectured in moral philosophy and bioethics at the Universities of Melbourne, Murdoch and Queensland, and has served on over a dozen clinical and research ethics committees in universities, hospitals and research institutes.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

In its report on the Children and Community Services Amendment Bill 2019, the Council's legislation committee says:

"Ministers of religion be excused from criminal responsibility [of mandatory reporting] only when the grounds of their belief is based solely on information disclosed during religious confession."

The amendment bill currently says priests must break the confessional seal to report known or suspected child sex abuse.

The committee says whether preserving the confessional seal is appropriate needs further consultation.

It suggests the Council "consult with ministers of religion on non-statutory provisions that would facilitate the effective use of information received during religious confession."

The bill aims to implement some of the recommendations the Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse made in 2017.

Of the over 600 public submissions about the bill, 90 percent were opposed to breaking the confessional seal. Many were from Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

Numerous priests noted the law would be unenforceable, as confessions are usually anonymous.

Archbishop Timothy of Costelloe and Fr. Abram Abdelmalek, an Oriental Orthodox priest, told the committee "they support the introduction of mandatory reporting for ministers of religion, with the exception of the confession."

"The proposed law would render priests who remain faithful to the obligations that they assumed at the time of their ordination… liable to prosecution and conviction as criminals for being faithful to their commitments.

"To make the free practice of an essential part of the Catholic faith illegal seems to me to be something that modern secular societies have always understood to be beyond the limits of their authority."

If a priest heard a confession of child sex abuse they would be responsible to do their best to convince the perpetrator to stop it, Costelloe says.

This may involve persuading the perpetrator to give themselves in to the authorities - and accompanying them to help them do so.

"It is very clear that the priest has a fundamental responsibility to do everything he can without breaking the seal of the confession..."

Asked if Catholic priests would comply with a law requiring the violation of the sacramental seal, Costelloe told the committee:

"Every priest knows what his obligations are, and he knows what the penalties are of not being faithful to those obligations, and he also knows the basis of those obligations, and the basis of the obligations are divine law."

He won't be asking priests to break divine law.

The "well-intentioned" law could make matters worse for victims, Costelloe said.

This is because there is "no chance" a perpetrator could be convinced to do something about it. Nor will victims disclose abuse in the confessional as it wouldn't be confidential.

Several Australian states and territories have adopted laws forcing priests to violate the confessional seal. New South Wales has upheld the seal.

The Vatican has reiterated the seal is inviolable and absolution cannot be conditioned on future actions in the external forum.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Virtue Online

It's been a precept of the church for centuries.

Penitents enter the booth to confess their sins and transgressions to a priest to receive spiritual comfort, advice and absolution.

A forgiving of the sin in the eyes of God's representative on Earth.

But not in Victoria Australia where legislation has been introduced to the state parliament which would effectively force priests to report suspected child abuse revealed to them in the confessional.

There are people in New Zealand who want to do this too.

Priests are obviously aghast at the idea.

Because under their laws any priest that does break the seal stands to be excommunicated. Thrown out of the church.

That's pretty heavy and so no wonder the Archbishop of Victoria has said that he would rather go to jail than break the confessional seal.

Under the legislation penalties of up to three years behind bars could apply for priests who are found to have knowingly concealed child abuse information.

Now I can see why someone in the legislature might see this as a good idea.

After all the safety of children in particular should be paramount and the Catholic Church has not covered itself with glory in field of sexual abuse, particularly of minors.

So if they're hearing about crimes then why shouldn't they be compelled to report that to the authorities.

But step back a second and think of the consequences.

Firstly if you, as a civilian, heard about a crime are you compelled to report it?

Of course not.

It's your personal decision to inform the authorities. But you don't face sentences if you choose to keep your silence. It's the flipside of freedom of speech which is the right to silence.

While a pedo or sexual offender may admit guilt to a priest, to get a conviction is going to take a lot more than that.

Evidence for a start.

The co-operation and bravery and testimony of the victim is needed. So confessional testimony will not be a silver bullet.

Meanwhile to confirm his testimony a priest would be required to appear in court to convey what he has heard in the confessional, which at it's basis is hearsay, a very weak form of evidence.

The priest is not an eyewitness nor has he heard an objective account of the alleged crimes. So it's not a strong addition towards the fight against abuse.

There's also the legal privilege that has traditionally been afforded to the confessional.

Similar to the privilege afforded to parliament.

In New Zealand the confessional privilege is enshrined in the Evidence Act. Continue reading

• Andrew Dickens is a broadcaster at NewstalkZB. He has worked around the world across multiple radio genres.
• Image: Stuff.co.nz

The decision has not played well with alleged victims of the group and their families.

"They are playing with our lives," said the mother of one of the victims to Crux April 4.

The mother, who wishes to remain anonymous to protect her underage daughter's identity, claims to have gone to confession with Father Orazio Caputo in the fall of 2017 where she spoke of her concerns for her daughter within the lay-led "Catholic Culture and Environment Association" (ACCA) in the southern Italian town of Acireale. Continue reading

The seal of Confession

In a statement, the NZCBC says Confession is often not understood.

"In many cases, the one making a confession remains unidentified," they say.

"In any case, as has been said by members of the Church in Australia, we note that there is no evidence to suggest that abolition of the seal of confession would genuinely make environments safer for children."

The NZCBC says the integrity of the Church's sacraments can sit easily alongside the robust, professionally supervised safeguarding policies the Church puts in place to protect children.

In New Zealand, the Catholic Church has also adopted Guidelines for the Prevention of and Response to Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The guidelines set out the New Zealand Catholic Church's commitment to safeguarding children and vulnerable adults.

They apply to all dioceses, religious orders and Catholic agencies.

The guidelines look at such things as safe recruitment and safe practice of those working with children or vulnerable adults.

The bishops say their understanding is that any legal move by a government to impose mandatory reporting by health professionals of clients who have abused children becomes a hotly-debated and contested issue.

"Many health professionals argue that client confidentiality is a crucial factor in helping reduce child abuse, as it enables those at risk of abusing to seek the necessary professional help.

"That professional position warrants very careful consideration."

Priestly celibacy

The New Zealand bishops question the claim made by the royal commission that optional celibacy might have a positive impact on reducing potential child abuse has not been proven.

"No scientific research we are aware of suggests that those abusing adults happen to be celibates."

The New Zealand bishops point out that priestly celibacy is an ancient tradition in the Catholic Church and in other faith and spiritual communities too.

But they acknowledge that in other contexts in the Church, celibacy is being discussed and this is happening with Pope Francis' knowledge.

Source

• Supplied: Amanda Gregan Communications Advisor - NZ Catholic Bishops Te Huinga o nga Pihopa Katorika o Aotearoa
• radionz.co.nz
• Image: catholicnewsagency.com L'Osservatore Romano.

   

Mighty priests and saints were burned at the stake in the past for refusing to break that seal, so this is a heavy moment indeed for all of us.

Maybe ye should stop reading here at this point to not become even laterally complicit in MacConnell's. Those of you who are devoutly Catholic should take this suggestion seriously.

Anyway, for those of you still here, the context is that I also was devoutly Catholic and a regular Mass-goer until about 25 years ago when the frightening tide of scandals attached to my church began to surface in turgid waves.

It was a shock here in holy Ireland, for example, when it was revealed that both Bishop Eamon Casey and Father Michael Cleary, the hierarchy's brightest stars of the time, were biological fathers as well as priests sworn to celibacy.

They were both good and charming men and that was a minor enough matter on the scale of things.

Far worse was the pedophile epidemic amongst our clergy and the sinful attitude of our church leaders here in trying to hide that from the laity by moving offending priests from parish to parish, where they still had access to minors, instead of reporting their misdeeds to the police and having them all sent to jail pronto.

It was during that time I dropped away from the church in silent protest like so many more.

In the intervening years I frequently drop into chapels to quietly talk directly to my God about matters that concern me.

And to light a little candle for the welfare of those I love. Continue reading

• Cormac MacConnell is a veteran Irish writer and journalist.

In line with society's greater recognition of the devastation wrought by child sexual abuse, a recent Synod has sought to remove any impediment to good professional practice and individual conscience by allowing individual priests to report on serious crimes they may have learnt about through confession.

It has not taken long for commentators to wonder if the much slower moving Catholic Church will eventually follow suit.

Thus, while Alison Cotes congratulates the Anglican Church in Australia for giving short shrift to the inviolability of confession, she also wonders if "in the fullness of time, the Roman Catholic Church will also see that what was good theology in 1215 may not be so useful, or even moral, 800 years later."

In an atmosphere of disgust and disappointment at the shocking betrayal of so many vulnerable parishioners on the part of abusers in the clergy, some tangible show of genuine reform on the part of the institutional Church is sorely needed.

Bishops and priests need to be seen to be walking with Pope Francis in living out the Gospel, creating an environment of blessing for little children.

As Cotes reminded us, Jesus even taught that millstones should be placed round the necks of those who would scandalise the little ones, not that they should remain in office or be shifted around and hence be given new opportunities to prey.

The Pope has assured sex abuse survivors that bishops will be held accountable, but whether his personal commitment to child safety can reach into the wider institutional culture remains to be seen.

As an old Anglo-Catholic boarding school girl, Cotes knows enough to realise that change is easier to come by among Reformed Anglicans than it is among Roman Prelates. Continue reading

Sources

• ABC Religion and Ethics
• Image: Catholic Education Daily

Representatives of the Anglican Church of Australia approved this on July 2 at the church's General Synod in Adelaide.

The ruling covers serious offences that would attract a jail term of five years or more, including domestic violence, child pornography and child sexual abuse.

Sydney barrister Garth Blake, who proposed the amendment, said it would ensure the church did not "act as a cloak" for offenders.

"I've been involved in dealing with child abuse in churches since 1997 and it seemed to me that protecting children and the vulnerable takes precedence over the confidentiality of confessions," Mr Blake said.

But the legislation will only become active once adopted by individual dioceses.

The current church law for Australian Anglicans is that the confession of a crime is to be kept confidential, unless the person confessing consents to disclosure.

But the new law would allow priests to report crime if the person confessing has not told police and the church's director of professional standards about it.

Adelaide Archbishop Jeffrey Driver said he understands the importance of the confessional, but he believes the new church law is a healthy step.

The Broken Rites advocacy group welcomed the Anglican move, but called for mandatory civil reporting laws.

Several years ago, then-Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard slammed what she called the use of the confessional to avoid reporting abuse.

She said it was a "sin of omission" and all adults have a duty to protect children.

Cardinal George Pell, who was then-Archbishop of Sydney, said at the time that if information is received outside the confessional by Catholic priests, it could be passed on.

But the seal of the confessional is absolutely inviolable, Cardinal Pell emphasised.

He said priests should avoid hearing confessions of colleagues suspected of being paedophiles.

Writing on the issue in 2013, Rome canon lawyer Cathy Caridi noted that priests who repeat what they hear in confession in such a way as to identify the penitent are automatically excommunicated.

But confessors can encourage penitents to turn themselves in to authorities, or even make sacramental absolution contingent on it, she added.

Sources

• Herald Sun
• Anglican News
• Canon Law Made Easy
• Image: National Catholic Reporter

Independent Senator Nick Xenophon labeled the seal of confession an anachronism and told reporters: "This is a medieval law that needs to change in the 21st century. Church law, canon law, should not be above the law of the land."

Prime Minister Julia Gillard, when asked whether the royal commission she has announced should examine confession, said: "It's not good enough for people to engage in sin of omission and not act when a child is at risk."

Federal Attorney-General Nicola Roxon, who is charged with setting up the commission, said the community found the idea of a priest not reporting child abuse if told about it in a confession to be "really abhorrent", but she cautioned against too much focus on the issue.

Ms Roxon said there were "much more blatant and open failures" to stop abuse that needed to be examined and not just in the Church, but other institutions as well. These included turning a blind eye to abuse, not acting on complaints by victims and not acting on "open secrets" that a certain individuals within organisations were child abusers.

Even retired Bishop Geoffrey Robinson of Sydney, a former president of the Canon Law Society of Australia and New Zealand, said he would break the seal of confession for the "greatest good" of reporting an abuser.

On the other hand, Cardinal George Pell of Sydney declared that the seal of confession is "inviolable".

"The law of the land is also clear," he said. "Federal and state laws protect a member of the clergy from being forced to divulge details of a religious confession, just as it protects clients from being forced to disclose what they discuss with their lawyers.

"Religious freedom is protected by the Australian constitution; an essential part of the separation of church and state, which protects believers and faith communities from government dictating religious belief and practice."

Sources:

Australian Times

Sydney Morning Herald

ABC

Brisbane Times

Image: The Australian