This article, Debate over clergy exemption pits sanctity of confession against child safety | National Catholic Reporter (ncronline.org) was on the NCR site today. You can go ahead and read it if you want to. I am mainly going to comment briefly on some things which seem like moot points and straw men
Most of the situations discussed in the article are regarding priests which used confession as a means of sexually abusing someone. The abusers may have told their victim that they were bound under the seal of confession, but that is in fact not true. The penitent is not bound, the priest is. There is no change needed to canon law to address this, the victim is of course free to tell someone about the abuse; and would hopefully be encouraged to report it. If they tell a teacher or a counselor, that person is a mandated reporter.
The article discusses "...priests exploiting the sacrament to target, groom and abuse vulnerable people." If a priest bullies or intimidates a person he has abused into believing that they are bound by the seal of confession, it is nonetheless not true. Apparently Cardinal Law intimidated some people who reported abuse to him by saying that they were bound under the seal of confession, and then later said he didn't remember it.
"...It is very easy for professionals to do nothing on their own, when there is no accountability," he said. "Some professionals have been shown to use their confidentiality privileges to cover up situations that all observers believe did not merit privilege and should have been reported. This includes the kinds of situations such as when clergy became aware of abuse outside of the confessional, such as in school environments."
"...Priests who learn of sexual abuse during a confession can encourage the penitent to surrender to law enforcement, or suggest to someone who disclosed the abuse to meet with them outside the sacrament."
"The priest also can withhold absolution if he has strong reason to believe that the penitent is not contrite and has no intention of changing their behavior. But theologians say the priest cannot mandate penitents surrender themselves to law enforcement as a penance."
My husband and I had a conversation about this matter. I said, "Not saying of course that you would ever do anything like that; but hypothetically, if you had done something seriously wrong which was in fact a crime, would you confess it face to face to a priest you knew?' He said, "Of course not! If I confessed it, it would be out of town, to a priest I didn't know, behind the screen." I'm guessing this would be the case for most people. It would be done anonymously. What would the priest be able to do, open the door to the penitent's side and do a citizen's arrest? He could, as the article said, counsel the person to turn himself in, or refuse absolution if he felt the person was not repentant. And a priest can always ask a person who discloses that they were abused to meet with them outside of confession so that he can report it.
This is complicated, but it sounded to me like Fr. Connell was advocating that secular law be revised such that it does not recognize the seal in cases of child molestation.
ReplyDeleteThat strikes me as weird because the priest would still be required by the Church to preserve the seal, but required by law to report.
There is no evidence that Fr Connell has narcked on any child molesters, so not sure why AB Listecki relieved him of confessional duties. Maybe to show that the diocese takes the seal seriously, even if it means protecting criminals?
Can't the priest make a penitent's turning himself in a condition of absolution?
Reminds me of that Montgomery Clift movie, "I Confess."
Yeah I didn't completely understand that whole thing of why Fr. Connell kind of fell on his sword.
DeleteAnd if secular law were going to be revised not to recognize the seal for that crime, why not others, such as murder?
The article mostly talked about sexual abuse happening in the context of confession. In which the victim is free to tell someone, even though the perpetrator may have tried to convince them otherwise.
I think instances where a person tells that they have sexually abused someone in confession are relatively rare. Because most abusers have convinced themselves that they didn't do anything wrong.
The issue of a reporting law cannot be evaluated without evaluating two other things touched upon by the article.
ReplyDeleteFirst is the issue of whether priests are using the confessional as a means of sexually abusing penitents. John Cornwall has the theory that sexual abuse of children and adolescences became a greater problem in the church after we adopted the practices of frequent communion (thereby requiring frequent confession) and earlier communion (because younger and more vulnerable people were confessing). It is good the Bishopaccountablity.org and Notre Dame are collecting data on this issue.
In general society gives certain professionals certain privileges (confidentially) and certain responsibilities (mandated reporting) precisely because it expects certain positive results. If the confessional is a hotbed for sexual abuse this has profound implications for the Church’s claim that its religious rights are being denied.
The second issue is the claim by many people in the church that the present practice of private confession with absolute secrecy is something that the Church cannot change. The practice of the first thousand years where public confession and public repentance were the norm contradicts those assertions.
There is no reason why we could not return to public confession and public repentance in the case of certain sins. Somehow “reduction to the lay state” hardly seems a fitting penance for serial sexual abuse by priests. It seems to me that a lifetime of public penance in which everyone would know that the priest had been a sexual abuser with perhaps communion once annually would be a more fitting way to deal with the issue.
As I pointed out in recent post on https://newgathering.blogspot.com/2023/03/casuistry-and-clericalism.html the Lateran Council was well aware of the challenges that private confession presented in terms of the competence of the confessors and their ability to maintain confidentially.
Although Francis has relaxed it, the recent practice of the Church has reserved absolution from the excommunication occurred because of an abortion to the bishop or priests delegated by him. Perhaps that needs to be done in regard to absolution of sexual abuse sins, especially in terms of priest abusers.
It is one thing if the confessional is performing a great public service in reforming people's lives, another thing if people are just using it to feel better about themselves without any real amendment.
I don't think any religion can assert a separate set of laws for its members. That would mean that Moslems can have sharia law, and some cultures could have honor killings. There was a tradition in Europe that clergy could only be judged by church courts not civil courts.
I don't think confession is a hotbed of sexual abuse. I think there have been a few bad actors. When I was growing up they used the old style confessionals. There was a literal wall between the penitent and the priest, with a small window covered by a screen or curtain. That was a little intimidating, but I don't see how there would have been a possibility of physical contact. Now we have a choice of going behind a screen, or face to face, which I usually choose. If there is a penance service it is out in the open in full view. Hard to see how there would be opportunity for abuse under those circumstances either..
DeleteI would not like to go back to the days when the laity received Communion seldom or never.
The confessional was unlikely to be a place of sexual activity. Usually there was a line in the church. However, it might have been an opportunity for priests to become familiar with the sexual thoughts and practices of young men, especially servers in their parish who often were the targets of abuse.
DeleteMany priests of that era had gone to minor seminaries followed by major seminary and had little exposure to dating. They likely had some exposure to the thinking and sexual behavior of their fellow seminarians.
Their subsequent curiosity about the sexually of young males has often been clinically related more to their own immature sexually and the relative availability of young males over young females rather than homosexual attraction. I think the confessional is a very plausible location for breaking down the boundaries about talking about sex, at least for priests.
Jack, that was always my assumption, that the confessional was a way for priests to identify youngsters who might be exploitable.
DeleteA few random observations (Part 1 of 2):
ReplyDelete1. Full disclosure: at one time, then-Bishop (now-Archbishop) Listecki was the auxiliary bishop of the vicariate where I live in the Chicago Archdiocese. For a brief period of 5-6 months after my ordination I was his "subject" as a deacon, prior to his being sent to lead a small diocese in Wisconsin. I never met him one-to-one, and I am certain I could bump into him on the sidewalk and he'd have no idea who I am. (And now, 20 years later, I might not recognize him any longer, either.) When I was in formation, he once did a presentation on moral theology to our class. He has some of the same qualifications as Fr. Connell, i.e. he is a canon lawyer and a civil lawyer. So Connell's having his faculty canceled is not a case of the more-qualified underling being disciplined by his less-qualified boss.
1.a. From what I observed of Listecki from those days, he does not strike me as the sort of man whose patience with an independent thinker like Fr. Connell would be unlimited.
2. Connell, at least for a time, was on the distro for the late Jim McCrea's Catholic news discussion group, so some of us have communicated directly with him. He may be lurking here now, for all we know.
3. I admire Fr. Connell's courageous witness, and have told him so, but I disagree with his idea discussed in the article. I don't think civil law should try to force the church to make an exception to the so-called seal of the confessional. The prominent priests and theologians quoted in the NCR article give good explanations as to why. It's not difficult to think of a dozen or a hundred other exceptions to the confessional seal which should be made 'for the good of society.'
4. The seal itself needs to be properly understood by Catholics. As Katherine notes, the priest is the one who is bound by confidentiality, not the penitent. The penitent always is free to describe what went on in the confessional to anyone s/he chooses. No priest or bishop has the authority to silence a penitent, anywhere, ever.
Continued in next comment...
Part 2 of 2:
Delete5. Every state has its own mandated-reporting laws, so it is difficult to generalize, but in Illinois, all clergy (including me) are mandated reporters. The confessional seal should be understood to be a narrow religious exception to the mandated reporter requirements for priests and bishops. (I suppose all of you already understand that deacons are neither granted faculties for, nor are trained for, hearing confessions and granting absolutions, for which I am extremely grateful.) There are many situations outside the seal of the confessional where that narrow exception would not excuse a member of clergy from his/her mandated reporting requirements. Could there be other exceptions for clergy? What if a member of the clergy is providing religious counseling to someone? (One possible setting for such counseling could be a Catholic high school which employs members of religious order or diocesan clergy as counselors.) What if the member of the clergy is acting as a spiritual adviser? Does the confidentiality in these settings trump the mandated reporting requirement? Pretty clearly, there is no confessional seal in these situations; and there are many other possible sets of circumstances where the mandated reporting requirement unquestionably applies.
6. The primary responsibility for reporting abuse belongs to the victim. We can acknowledge this while also acknowledging that it can be very, very difficult for a victim to report abuse.
7. I have to say that I wouldn't want to return to the days of public confession and public penance :-). But there are other possibilities. Katherine certainly is onto something regarding the design of the confessionals: for individual reconciliation, there should be a wall - literally - between minors and priests. A small grill or screen can allow verbal communication while maintaining anonymity and preventing any direct physical contact. In addition, we can make our confessionals transparent (literally), thus making physical concealment virtually impossible.
We can also utilize the option, which is in the liturgical books but apparently never, ever authorized for actual use*, of general absolution. Bring entire classrooms of schoolchildren into church for reconciliation, without forcing them to directly confess their individual sins to the priest.
* I'm still amazed that the option for general absolution was not permitted to be utilized during the COVID pandemic. I struggle to think of a set of circumstances more tailor-made for general absolution than the pandemic.
About general absolution, I agree that it could have been used during Covid. But my thoughts about general absolution are, what's the point? We already have a form of general absolution during Mass, at the penitential rite. Even where formal general absolution is permitted, say for soldiers under attack in the battlefield, the understanding is that they would confess mortal sins later, if they live through it. And it seems to me that for truly mortal sins there should be that level of accountability. It seems to me that what needs to be reexamined is what constitutes a mortal sin. Basically it is something where we blew up our relationship with God.
DeleteThis is not to say I am at all against personal confession for venial sins, for the grace of the sacrament, and for a little spiritual counseling. But we don't need general absolution for that.