A group of Catholic bishops in Washington state have just filed a lawsuit that answers a new law that requires priests to break the seal of confession when child abuse, whether physical or sexual, is confessed by a parishioner.
The Catholic News Agency reports that the Archdiocese of Seattle as well as the dioceses of Spokane and Yakima is raising some serious issues with the law. Essentially, a priest would face jail time and fines for not reporting abuse that he hears in confession.The argument, and it’s a valid one, is that the law violates priests’ First Amendment rights by not allowing the them to freely exercise their religion. The basic thing here is that what is discussed in confession stays there. Any priest who breaks the seal of confession is automatically excommunicated.
That would prevent them from exercising their religion! They are also expected to go to jail before breaking that sacred seal. But to be honest with you, if I had to confess to something severe, so severe that the priest would even potentially be placed in that situation, I would come forward myself to ensure he doesn’t have to go through that.
Fortunately, I’d never have anything to confess in regards to mistreating children, especially sexually. And I don’t anticipate needing to confess anything that would rise to the level of a serious crime either. So, then, I fully expect my priest to keep it to himself.
This law would basically tell Catholics that their faith doesn’t matter and it would tell priests that it’s a crime to be a priest.
We simply cannot have that, no matter how reprehensible the crime being confessed to is. And make no mistake: abusing a child, whether sexually, physically or verbally, is absolutely vile. I can’t figure out why someone would want to do something like that. It just doesn’t make sense to me. But people do it and they have the right to confess and to expect that that seal won’t be broken.
Don’t misunderstand this post: I am not condoning any of that, especially when it comes to sexual abuse. There never is an excuse for that behavior. Of course such conduct should result in one spending the rest of his or her life in prison.
However, as a practicing Catholic, I must stand with the Church and say that our rights, that is to say adults’ rights, supercede the kids’ rights in this specific case. It’s actually not even a debate. The First Amendment makes this clear.
The law goes into effect on July 27, so there is still enough time for the courts to repeal the law before it even goes into effect, thereby protecting the rights of the affected Catholics involved.
The way the law would work is simply this: priests would be added to the list of mandated reporters, a list that includes teachers, social workers, day care workers and many more. Adding priests to that list would violate their religious rights. I hope that that is not up for debate.
The state’s scumbag governor signed the bill into law earlier this month. According to CNA, he admitted that he’s “aware” of Catholics and their confession, but his actions make it clear that he feels Catholics’ religious rights don’t matter in Washington.
That’s what this is really about. This is an attack on Catholics! That should make the lawsuit a slam dunk!
The CNA quoted a portion of the lawsuit, a portion that makes it clear that the Church does care about child sexual abuse while at the same time caring about the sacred nature of what goes on in the confessional.
“Consistent with the Roman Catholic Church’s efforts to eradicate the societal scourge of child abuse, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle and the dioceses of Yakima and Spokane have each adopted and implemented within their respective dioceses policies that go further in the protection of children than the current requirements of Washington law on reporting child abuse and neglect…”
Anyone who says that this lawsuit is about trying to condone sexual abuse of children would be wrong. They make it clear that it’s a “scourge,” something that I absolutely agree with. There are in fact procedures in place to address child abuse. Each parish and diocese in the country does.
I know my parish has procedures in regards to sexual abuse, and given the nature of my volunteering and work there, I can tell you without question or hesitation that my parish’s policies absolutely do protect children. People want to make Catholic jokes all day long, but most of them don’t understand that we take such things seriously.
Basically, the same general rule applies anywhere in the nation and perhaps the world: clergy and, for that matter, parish personnel, must report suspected sexual abuse, but there is an exception: the priest cannot do anything if the information is learned specifically through confession. This principle is cited in the lawsuit.
If a child comes to the priest and reports the abuse, then of course he is not going to sweep it under the carpet and pretend that he didn’t hear what the child said.
Look, I know it’s a touchy subject and I know that some people become rabid animals when it comes to sexual abuse of children. These people think that any dissent whatsoever is somehow condoning that conduct.
Not so!
Everyone has rights. The children absolutely do. They have the right to be children without being violated sexually or otherwise. However, we as adults have rights too. We have the right to expect that the priest will not disclose the contents of a confession, no matter how repulsive the crime and/or sin.
We already know that priests cannot be compelled to testify in court as that would require them to break the seal and in so doing, their First Amendment rights would be violated and the rights of the parishioner would be violated too.
In the interests of full disclosure, I have in the past written that I have witnessed childhood sexual abuse happen in church and I did nothing. I stand by what I did, or rather did not do.
I witnessed what happened, turned around and walked away. I sleep well at night because I most certainly did not participate in the abuse. I have no desire whatsoever to watch or participate in anything to do with children, especially sexually.
Kids bother me anyway, bother me to the point of doing what I had to do to get rid of my biological daughter.
As for the guy who did what he did to the child, I have to trust that he grew a conscience and took accountabilty for what he did. I simply wasn’t going to force accountability upon him that day. He was my elder priesthood brother and I had to respect that. I still don’t regret how I handled the situation given that I had no obligation of any sort towards the little girl.
The nasty truth that they don’t want you to know is this: at times, the child brings it upon themselves. So it is in the matter of Elizabeth Smart Gilmour, a Mormon woman who, as a child, was reportedly kidnapped and sexually abused on multiple occasions over nine months.
However, some reports indicated in the past that she may have gone willingly as opposed to defending her virtue even unto death, just as her religion commands.
Who said something like that? Spencer W. Kimball, a past church president, is cited as saying in his book The Miracle of Forgiveness that “it is better to die in defending one’s virtue than to live having lost it without a struggle.” She failed in that regard, in my opinion and as such, I do not consider her to be a true victim.
Don’t get it wrong. Even despite this post and what I wrote earlier this month, what the abuser did absolutely disgusted me, but I wasn’t about to ruin his life and his standing in the Mormon church, the church of which I was a member between 1987 to 2022, which is when I left for Catholicism.
Anyway, as for the lawsuit, I can only hope that the court sees the law for what it is: a gross violation of our constitutional and religious rights. They have the power to throw the law out and I hope that they do so. Anything less would be anti-Catholic!