Parolin to French prime minister: Fight against abuse must respect seal of confession
News: France
The Vatican Secretary of State reaffirmed the Church’s stance that the seal of confession is inviolable, during an exchange with the French prime minister this week. France is considering a law that would demand priests break the seal to report suspected abuse of minors.
A meeting between Parolin and French Prime Minister Jean Castex marked the 100-year anniversary of restored Franco-Vatican diplomatic relations, which came in 1921 after nearly two decades of tension over the strict French practice of secularism, known as laïcité.
In comments released by Vatican Media, Parolin and Castex traded thinly-veiled comments on a proposed French law to require priests to report sexual abuse of minors that they learn about in the context of sacramental confession.
Castex said that France’s 1905 laïcité policy does not exclude religion from society but “simply delimits the spheres of intervention of the state on the one hand and of religion [on the] other.”
He said the Church must “find the necessary answers” to address abuse, and stressed that the separation of Church and state “is not at all the separation between Church and law.”
Parolin emphasized in remarks that the Church is determined to fight abuse and collaborate fully with civil authorities, but added that this must always be done while “respecting the nature, the mission and the sacramental structure of the Church which are proper to her.”
Church law holds that Catholic priests cannot under any circumstances disclose anything said during a confession, or even reveal whether a confession has taken place. Known as the “seal of confession,” this presumption of confidentiality allows penitents to confess their sins freely.
The Code of Canon Law states that “a confessor who directly violates the sacramental seal incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See; one who does so only indirectly is to be punished according to the gravity of the delict.”
Confessions in the Catholic Church are private, and thus regulations such as the proposed French law are virtually always unenforceable.
Other countries and states have also attempted to pass legislation forcing priests to violate the seal of confession, but these efforts have been largely unsuccessful.
In 2016, the Louisiana Supreme Court upheld the seal of confession after a lawsuit sought to challenge a state legal provision exempting priests as mandatory reporters of abuse of minors in cases where there is a religious duty to keep communication confidential.
A 2019 California bill to require priests to violate the seal of confession in some circumstances passed the state senate but was withdrawn shortly before it was to be debated in an assembly committee. The measure had drawn widespread criticism, including a statement from Bishop Michael Barber of Oakland saying none of the local priests would follow the regulation if it became law.
The Australian states of Victoria and Queensland passed laws in recent years requiring priests to report known or suspected sexual abuse of children, even if doing so requires a violation of the seal of confession. The laws were passed after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommended in 2017 that the seal of confession be removed in order to fight the sexual abuse of children.
The Australian bishops said they would abide by the other recommendations issued by the Royal Commission, but reaffirmed that the seal of confession is inviolable. The Vatican also reiterated this principle in its response to the Royal Commission’s report.
The confession is ultimately between me and God, the priest is just there to facilitate my reconciliation with The Lord. They can try to subpoena God, but I don't think He will heed the demands of President Macron, especially since Mr. Macron doesn't exactly go out of his way to heed the demands of Our Lord.
An ongoing and difficult discussion in Australia
One of the casualties of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was the confidentiality of the Catholic Sacrament of Penance — commonly called ‘the Seal of Confession’. 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 excommunication 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.
https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article/the-plenary-council--restoring-the-third-rite