Catholic archbishop says he would rather go to prison

[Cliffy]

Catholic archbishop says he would rather go to prison than report child abuse heard in confession

A Catholic archbishop has said he is prepared to be jailed for failing to report child sex abuse if it is revealed to him during confession.
Denis Hart, Archbishop of Melbourne, insisted confession was "a spiritual encounter with God through the priest" and was "of a higher order" than criminal law.
His comments came after the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse said there should be "no excuse, protection nor privilege" for clergy who failed to alert police of abuse.


Catholic archbishop says he would rather go to prison than report child abuse heard in confession

 

[Hoid]

I think he is right.

 

[petros]

Excommunicated or Prison?

Hmmmmm.

 

[Danbones]

So they start reporting it and the confessions will certainly stop.
But many are getting busted through other means, so they have built themselves a rock and a hard place in a vertical manner.

 

[coldstream]

The seal of the confessional is absolute. No priest can report a crime admitted to in a confession, be that rape, murder, genocide. The priest is simply acting as conduit to and a surrogate of God. That said the Catholic Church in the wake of the abuse scandals of the last 2 decades have instituted strict policies.. including

- referring all reported abuse by victims to police for investigation
- laicizing (defrocking) any cleric for which ONE abuse charge is found credible
- removing from office any bishop who is found to have covered up allegations or protected abusers
- educating children of the limits to a priest's authority and responsible behaviour in Cathechism classes.
- all seminarians go through rigid vetting and psychological testing to expose sexual immaturity, homosexual inclinations or any other form of deviance.. which will exclude them from ordination.
- much enhanced supervision of seminaries and faculty has been invoked, which has led to several being closed for fostering a homoerotic culture.

They have given up on trying to 'rehabilitate' pederasts and pedophiles and will move deliberately to remove them and bring them to justice once identified.

Many dioceses have gone further, in prohibiting a priest or religious to be alone with child without another independent and responsible adult in the room.

But a priest as part of his oath of vocation is prohibited from divulging a confession. That doesn't stop him from acting to protect potential victims short of revealing a sealed confession. And should in fact be encouraging the culprit to report himself to prevent his aggravation of a mortal sin.