Where the Rubber Hits the Road: Ireland attacks confessional secrecy after Catholic sex abuse scandal

15 July, 2011

Ireland attacks confessional secrecy after Catholic sex abuse scandal | FaithWorld

6 comments:

MaryG15 July, 2011
the good priests will go jail if the confessional is the ONLY way they knew of the offense..i am almost 74 and i have never heard of a priest breaking the seal of confession
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PatO15 July, 2011
Plenty of priests will break the seal of confession if they are threatened with jail time. Priest have shown us no honor in this crisis.

Priests started by raping thousands of children. Then bishops passed them around without warning parents. Then they lied about it. Then they disparaged the victims.

When the priests were caught, very few told the truth. Most took advantage of expensive lawyers, paid by parishioners, to try to get them out of doing any jail time.

Their priority was always to avoid getting caught and avoid doing jail time.

The concept of the honorable priest is long dead, and now everyone knows it.

Ireland is brilliant in breaking the "seal of confession". The Catholic church won't stop it's own internal child rape, and the laws of the land won't allow Catholic beliefs about confessional secrecy to hide Catholic beliefs about hiding child rape.

Pretty simple. Pretty brilliant. Pretty soon in America, we hope.
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Fr. Tim Moyle15 July, 2011
Pat: You are making a couple of mistakes in your argument. First you are assuming that all priests are like the predators you describe. That is patently false. Judging all priests in such a manner is akin to saying that all lawyers should be judged according the malfeasance of a few. Second, virtually no priest will violate the seal of the confessional. Like all men, some will no doubt crack under the pressure and threat of prosecution and will let an outside power pierce the veil of the confessional, but most will not. If there is ONE thing that is POUNDED and IMPRESSED upon every seminarian and priest, it is the fact that violating that seal is most likely the most serious mortal sin that a priest can commit. It carries a Church penalty of immediate expulsion from the priesthood and the Church and is viewed as a direct betrayal of God. Just as our moral character keeps 99% of us (a figure of speech, not a statistical fact) from harming innocent children, so too do our religious natures prevent us from committing such an offense.

Finally, IF you knew anything about the clergy sex scandals and the seal of confession you would understand why it is that the church has always put in place procedures (such as instructing Bishops not to hear the confession of a priest so as to not be forced into silence when action is called for) to protect the sacrament from being abused to cover up such capital sins.

Fr. Tim
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MBrandon15 July, 2011
PatO

Clearly there is something in your cropper for you to spout such bias which is unfounded in the facts. I have never personally met a person abused by a priest, though I have known many people who were sexually abused. Why is that? Because the numbers do not support your assertions. Why do you rail against scout leaders, teachers, or sports coaches? The statistics of their abuse are far greater currently than the abuses of priests.

If you understood the spiritual aspect of the seal of the confessional, you might not be so harsh to judge. Of course, if we understood the real source of your angst, we might be better able to respond to this vitriol.
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Anonymous16 July, 2011
Lets be honest, most of the people frothing at the mouth about Catholic Priests abusing children really don't give a hoot about the victims or the problem of sexual abuse rampant throughout society. Its just the sharpest stick in the wood pile to poke in the eyes of the church they loath.
Statistically your child faces far greater risk at a public school than in church. Studies have shown there are 100 times more victims of public school staff than priests. If they really cared they'd be railing against school teachers and staff as well or demanding justice for their victims but they're dead silent about it.
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MaryG16 July, 2011
they don't complain about the teachers etc because, if monies have been paid to victims, it had not been made public as the the church payments have. I have no doubt there was terrible abuse by priests and i have no doubt it was sinfully covered up and i also have NO doubt there has been a lot of false complaints just to get on the gravy train...have school boards , or law societies , or medical societies made payments to victims like the church has done?...didn't make the headlines or the evening news if they did.
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