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National Secular Society ✒ Some clerics want exemptions from reporting requirements on abuse when it's revealed in the confessional. 
Accommodating their demands would undermine efforts to tackle child abuse, says Richard Scorer.

The controversy over the seal of confessional in clerical sex abuse cases has become a flashpoint for competing views of the proper relationship between church and state. 

Are the churches entitled to uphold the seal of the confessional in all circumstances, including where the penitent reveals information which, if reported to the statutory authorities, might protect children from abuse? In Australia, a senior Catholic archbishop encapsulated the official Catholic position on the controversy when he tweeted that "Western governments are increasingly reaching into areas which in the interests of religious freedom and the rights of conscience were long thought no business of government". This, he claimed, amounts to "an attempt to renegotiate the church/state relationship".

In the Catholic Church the seal of the confessional places an absolute duty on priests not to disclose anything that they hear from a penitent during sacramental confession (i.e. the formal sacrament of penance).

Continue reading @ National Secular Society.

The Seal Of The Confessional And Child Abuse ➖ A Religious Privilege Too Far

National Secular Society ✒ Some clerics want exemptions from reporting requirements on abuse when it's revealed in the confessional. 
Accommodating their demands would undermine efforts to tackle child abuse, says Richard Scorer.

The controversy over the seal of confessional in clerical sex abuse cases has become a flashpoint for competing views of the proper relationship between church and state. 

Are the churches entitled to uphold the seal of the confessional in all circumstances, including where the penitent reveals information which, if reported to the statutory authorities, might protect children from abuse? In Australia, a senior Catholic archbishop encapsulated the official Catholic position on the controversy when he tweeted that "Western governments are increasingly reaching into areas which in the interests of religious freedom and the rights of conscience were long thought no business of government". This, he claimed, amounts to "an attempt to renegotiate the church/state relationship".

In the Catholic Church the seal of the confessional places an absolute duty on priests not to disclose anything that they hear from a penitent during sacramental confession (i.e. the formal sacrament of penance).

Continue reading @ National Secular Society.
Confessional Seal National Secular Society

2 comments:

  1. Barry Gilheany2:25 PM, June 27, 2021

    Therapists and counsellors (and other mental health professionals) are mandated by statute and their professional organisations to report child abuse and imminent threats to the lives and safety of third parties.

    These standards should apply to All religious/clerical personnel.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AM3:57 PM, June 27, 2021

    I would be willing to listen to the case made of the seal so long as it is not a religious case.

    ReplyDelete

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