Posted on 07/19/2011 11:05:19 AM PDT by massmike
A group of Irish priests has announced that the country’s Catholic clergy will refuse to comply with any law requiring them to break the seal of the confession. The statement of defiance comes in response to proposed legislation announced by the government late last week, under which priests could face up to five years in prison for failure to disclose sexual crimes against minors admitted by penitents.
The Irish government said that under the legislation confessions would not be exempt from rules on mandatory reporting of child abuse, claiming that the move is a response to Ireland’s clerical abuse crisis. Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny said that the Catholic Church’s canon law would not be allowed to supersede state law.
However, Fr. PJ Madden, a spokesman for the Association of Catholic Priests, told the UK’s Catholic Herald that priests will urge a penitent who confesses to a crime to go to police, but said that the sacramental seal of confession is “above and beyond all else.”
David Quinn, a popular Irish columnist and commentator on religion and director of the think-tank the Iona Institute, wrote that such a law would be “unprecedented.” It would, “make us the one and only country in the Western world to have such a law,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at lifesitenews.com ...
First it starts with that ... then they can start legislating any confession. I feel that the priest should make the confessor own up on their own by making them understand the nature of what they did and ask G-d’s forgiveness, turn themselves in to show they’ve admitted to their crime and take their punishment. What? Next up lawyer/client confidentiality?
What`s next Ireland, forcing defence lawyers to turn on their clients... what would be the point of this law the child abusers would just not go to confession then would they...
If it’s prison or break the confessional seal....the choice would seem pretty clear. A ‘no-brainer’ actually.
Er, how would they prove the cases? If the priest says nothing, I suppose the guy confessing is going to go to the police and ocmplain?
Confessions are not the realm of Caesar.
Caesar needs to learn that.
Idiotic. What will this gain anyone?
With the seal of confession in place, the confessor can work with the abuser to get the abuser to resign, get therapy, etc. Check out SNAP’s ‘bishop’s accountability” database: most of those who were proven guilty were known to be guilty because they confessed in the sacramental sense, and then came forward with their confessions (in the legal sense).
Take the seal of confession away, and the priests simply will simply “self-confess.”
Here in Omaha Nebraska this past year the Sheriff & county prosecutor put electronic eavesdropping gear in the room used by attorney/client consultation & also for clergy /inmate counseling . Listened in on both . Federal judge said it was fine, hell even the f%$#ing public defender lawyer was in on it. The bastard had the stones to petition the court for extra money for snitching on his client.
Electronic eavesdropping gear in the confessional that’s how . Make no mistake it has already happened here in Omaha Nebraska in the county lock-up.
You really don’t say what you think the clear choice is. I hope it’s prison because the real choice for a priest is between prison and damnation for breaking his vows. This choice too ought to be a “no-brainer”.
Can they do that? Interesting. They get to forgive their own sins. Oh, well, I do all my confessing to Jesus, directly.
Your errors on the Sacrament of Reconciliation aside, you are self-confessing in your self-church.
Nonsense.
I confess to Christ. My church is of the Baptist flavor. While I do have a pastor, I have no priest other than our Lord.
And my errors are?
In the link..
So do Catholics. The point was that in an ill-informed corollary to your ill-informed post, you too would be "self-confessing" with yourself as priest.
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