Michael McGuire: Catholic Church must break confessional seal
IF the Church wants to regain the community’s faith, they must pay penance, especially for the sins of child abuse. That means the confessional’s sanctity has to go, writes Michael McGuire.
THERE is no doubt the Catholic Church has lost the faith and trust of great swathes of the community.
Catholic and non-Catholic alike.
For an institution that places great store in the concept of redemption it is not taking enough steps to be forgiven for many of its more obvious sins. It’s history of aiding and abetting child sexual abuse being its most grievous.
Indeed, given the initial refusal of former archbishop Philip Wilson to resign after his conviction for covering up child sexual abuse, it’s easy enough to argue elements of the Church are taking steps to deliberately antagonise as many people as possible.
As someone who grew up around the Catholic Church and Catholic schools, I’ve often seen it be a force for good and a voice for the dispossessed.
But all that is at risk because of a few who refuse to understand the long-term damage they are doing to their faith may be irreversible unless they change their ways. It’s not a question of bowing to outside forces, who will always hate the church in any case, or succumbing to modernity.
In terms those in the church understand, some penance is due for sins committed.
Which brings us to the sanctity of the confessional. It needs to go.
It’s the price the Church has to pay to start on a path to some form of wider public redemption.
It could consider it an offering, an acknowledgment of just how serious it views the pain and suffering it has needlessly inflicted on tens of thousands of children all around the world.
The idea that the confessional is inviolate is an old one. But not one you will find in any bible, although the book has much talk of confession and forgiveness. Instead it’s contained in what the Church refers to as its Canon Law, which are the rules and regulations which guide the Catholic Church.
Canon 983.1 says: “The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason.’’
In one form or another that rule has been in place since about 1151, written by an Italian Benedictine monk called Gratian who was the first to codify the laws of the Church.
In 1215, it was decreed confession should happen once a year.
In the 1300s, it was also decided that any priest who broke the seal of the confessional would be immediately excommunicated. The idea of confessing in a little black box, where the priest and the penitent were separated by a curtain, was not introduced until the 1600s.
Confession has taken many forms over many centuries.
In recent decades, the numbers who privately confess to a priest has dramatically dropped off. It’s now most often done as part of a Mass.
But the resistance to change the seal of the confessional is still strong.
Greg O’Kelly, who became acting archbishop following the resignation of Wilson, has already said he won’t be abiding by new laws that require priests to report confessions of child abuse.
“Politicians can change the law but we can’t change the nature of the confessional, which is a sacred encounter,’’ he said.
Influential priests such as O’Kelly need to see the benefit of driving change from within the Church, rather than letting politicians drive the agenda.
SA Best is now proposing to jail priests for five years if they don’t report confessed child abuse.
O’Kelly has also said in 46 years as a priest he had never encountered a confession of child sexual abuse.
And he said a priest had the power to not grant absolution of sins if they believed the confessor was not genuinely wanting to reform.
Which doesn’t square with the case of a priest called Michael McArdle who in 2004 confessed to molesting 1500 children to 30 different priests.
Imagine the good just one of these priests could have done if they had placed the welfare of children above a church rule written in 1151.
The Church has to find a way to place its priorities in the correct order.
Its future depends on it.
Michael McGuire is a journalist for The Adelaide Advertiser.