CNA Staff, Sep 8, 2020 / 08:01 pm (CNA).- The legislature of the Australian state of Queensland on Tuesday passed a law requiring priests to violate the seal of confession to report known or suspected child sex abuse.
Failure to do so will be punished with three years in prison.
The law passed the Legislative Assembly of Queensland Sept. 8, with the support of the opposition Liberal National Party of Queensland.
Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane has said such a reporting requirement would “not make a difference to the safety of young people,” and that the bill was based on a “poor knowledge of how the sacrament actually works in practice”.
Last week the Australian bishops provided the federal government with the Holy See’s observations on 12 recommendations of a 2017 report on child sex abuse in the country’s institutions. In response to a recommendation regarding the seal of confession and absolution, the Holy See reiterated the inviolability of the seal and that absolution cannot be conditioned on future actions in the external forum.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse had recommended that it be clarified whether “information received from a child during the sacrament of reconciliation that they have been sexually abused is covered by the seal of confession,” and “if a person confesses during the sacrament of reconciliation to perpetrating child sexual abuse, absolution can and should be withheld until they report themselves to civil authorities.”
The royal commission, a five-year Australian government inquiry, concluded in 2017 with more than 100 recommendations.
Mark Ryan, the Queensland police minister and a member of the Australian Labor Party, said that “the requirement and quite frankly the moral obligation to report concerning behaviours towards children applies to everyone everyone in this community” and that “no one group or occupation is being singled out.”
Stephen Andrew, the sole Queensland MP of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, said that “the bill poses a real danger for public trust and cohesion in our community,” and asked: “How confident can the people of Queensland be that they live in a free and open democracy governed by the rule of law, where the state jails its bishops?”
Archbishop Coleridge has also said the law would make priests “less a servant of God than an agent of the state” and raise “major questions about religious freedom.”
Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and the Australian Capital Territory have also adopted laws forcing priests to violate the confessional seal, while New South Wales and Western Australia have upheld it.
Attorneys-general in Australia’s federal and state governments agreed in November 2019 on reporting standards that would require priests to break the sacramental seal or violate Australia’s mandatory abuse reporting rules. Further, priests would not be able to use the defense of privileged communications in the confessional seal to avoid giving evidence against a third party in criminal or civil proceedings.
Archbishop Coleridge of Brisbane commented Sept. 4 that Australia’s bishops “are keen to support the ongoing public conversation about policies, practices and protocols which will ensure that children and other people at risk are safe in our communities.”
The Holy See told Australia’s bishops earlier this year that the seal of confession is inviolable, and that it includes all the sins known from the confession, both of the penitent and others.
The Holy See added that this is the “long-standing and constant teaching of the Church on the inviolability of the sacramental seal, as something demanded by the nature of the sacrament itself and thus as deriving from Divine Law.”
It added that the confessor “certainly may, and indeed in certain cases should, encourage a victim to seek help outside the confessional or, when appropriate, to report an instance of abuse to the authorities.”
The Holy See also said that “the confessional provides an opportunity- perhaps the only one – for those who have committed sexual abuse to admit to the fact. In that moment the possibility is created for the confessor to counsel and indeed to admonish the penitent, urging him to contrition, amendment of life and the restoration of justice. Were it to become the practice, however, for confessors to denounce those who confessed to child sexual abuse, no such penitent would ever approach the sacrament and a precious opportunity for repentance and reform would be lost.”
It added that “it is of paramount importance that formation programmes for confessors include a detailed analysis of Church law, including the ‘Note’ of the Apostolic Penitentiary, together with practical examples to instruct priests concerning difficult questions and situations that may arise. These may include, for example, principles for the kind of dialogue a confessor should have with a young person who has been abused or appears vulnerable to abuse, as well as with anyone who confesses to having abused a minor.”
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I would suggest that: Priests not look at the penitents in line; Priests only hear Confessions in wall-separated, enclosed Confessional booths behind screens that cannot be circumvented; Priests admonish all penitents to not use names, their own or others; Priests not keep track of the time of day and, instead, use timers or alarms to note the end of Confession time, etc. With all of the above put into practice, exactly what would the priest report? Another example of anti-Catholic, low information, bigoted politicians. I guess we could say “Forgive them, Father; They know not what they do”; but, the problem is, there is no reason to think that they don’t know exactly what they are doing.
Beyond the political posturing, it’s a perfect way to set up priests for arrest.
One looks forward to what mode of entrapment the Australian police state will employ to take down good faithful priests. On the other hand one cannot but anticipate the Australian episcopate eventually collapsing under the pressure which will be brought upon them. The global episcopate has shaken hands with the left-wind thinly veiled Marxist devil during the Bergoglian epoch — it will be fascinating to see how this is resolved.
In case it wasn’t made clear enough, this is an example of one of those unjust “laws” which SHALL NOT be obeyed. Parishioners (and/or others) should be prepared to violently assist confessors who are criminally “arrested” for violating this unjust “law.”
Its odd to use the word” require” in this headline. The Australian govt can declare pigs will fly too. That doesnt make it so. Our priests cannot be “required” to betray the confessional or do any such thing. Not unless our priests are going to break their most sacred vows and cave to the anti-catholic govt there. Its not impossible one might go to jail for refusing to cooperate with this new pogrom, but our Priests need to wrap their head around the fact that this is where our secular Western societies have taken us. That this should happen in a supposedly “Christian” nation like Australia is especially disgusting. The people there should be ashamed.
You can read a lot of books in 3 years in prison. Start with “He Leadeth Me” and “With God in Russia” both by Fr. Walter Ciszek, (1904-1984).
Sanctimonious ignorance (and ignorant sanctimony) in Australia is but a fig leaf for real hatred of truth.
In Australia, appetite is king, and his courtesans and councillors are the crowd.
We are living in a time where General Absolution may have to become the norm for a time. Penitents gather and the priest according to Church law grants them General Absolution. The priest will have no knowledge of any faithful Catholics sins. Nothing to report! This type of confession has been used during wars and plagues. Thank God the Church has such provisions. The Church continues to be the perfect Bride of Christ.