When I was auxiliary bishop in Los Angeles a few years ago, I spoke during a meeting of the Californian hierarchy. We considered a number of movements made by the state legislator, including a proposal to demand that priests break the seal of confession in things that have to do with sexual abuse of children. I remember that I said, “Brothers, I think we should draw a line in the sand on this.”
And we did. In every diocese and archdiocese of the state, the bishops have awakened their people to oppose this legislation. The good Catholics of California have therefore flooded Sacramento with letters and petitions that fiery Catholic privileges – and the legislators have returned.
It was a victory and an important one. However, similar laws have come into effect in six other states and most recently the state of Washington, which, according to the same lines, has walked legal lines, so that priests have to violate trust, even if the caregivers exempt from the same obligation.
In the sacrament of reconciliation, a penitent opens her heart to Christ himself and receives absolution, that is, healing at the level of the soul. (Istock)
Fortunately, the bishops of Washington have filed a lawsuit to prevent the implementation of this law, and they are accompanied by the Ministry of Justice itself. I was very happy to submit, with the help of the Thomas More Society Amicus Curiae Letter to support my brother bishops. As I said in California years ago, we have to draw a line in the sand.
What Leo’s name choice tells us about the new pope
No one doubts that the motivation behind these legislative movements is a deep and completely legitimate care for the safety of children. Catholics share this preoccupation. Starting with the implementation of the Dallas agreements of 2002, no more institution has done in the world to ensure the protection of young people against sexual predation than the Catholic Church.
Moreover, every bishop, priest, deacon and lay minister is a compulsory reporter, which means that he or she is legally obliged to transfer the civil authorities every claim of the sexual abuse of a minor. Furthermore, all those leaders must follow on a constant basis on training with regard to this issue. If you have doubts about my own dedication to eradicate the plague of administrative sexual misconduct, view my book ‘Letter to a suffering church’.
The Catholic bishops of the State Washington opposed a new law signed by the Democratic government Bob Ferguson that they say would violate the seal of confession, which would lead to excommunication for every priest who meets. (Chona Kasinger/Bloomberg via Getty Images and Istock)
However, the question of reporting cannot, for Catholics, be absolutely in the measure that hinders the confidentiality of the confessional. Our conviction is that in the sacrament of reconciliation a penitence opens her heart for Christ himself and gets absolution, that is, healing at the level of the soul.
Morning Glory: Leo’s launch
What occurs in the privacy of confessional is, from a spiritual point of view, a matter of life and death. Therefore, if there were a potential penitence on the part, even the least suspicion that he mentions could be publicly shared, he would not seek this font of grace and the integrity of the sacrament would be completely endangered. This is why the breaking of the seal also results in automatic excommunication of the priest in question.
And this explains the terrible dilemma that is currently being presented to the priests of the state of Washington: they break the seal of the confession (and are therefore confronted with excommunication) or they remain loyal to the sacrament (and are therefore confronted with imprisonment). God knows that the church has been confronted with more brutal persecution on the part of the bourgeois authority over the centuries, but should not be subjected to this kind of abuse in America in America.
A nun participates in the sacrament of the confession in the Immaculate Heart of Mary Cathedral in Kottayam in the South Indian state Kerala, November 4, 2018 (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)
Allow me to double the right American dimension of this question. The first amendment to the Constitution has two very important things to say about religion.
Click here for more the opinion of Fox News
The first relevant clause stipulates that “the congress will not make a law with regard to an establishment of religion.” This means that the type of regulation that was obtained in the 18th-century England between the government and the Church of England should not obtain in the United States. In other words, there should be no religion in our country that is specially favored or authorized by the congress.
But the second relevant clause, less known, stipulates that the congress will not cause a provision that disrupts the “free exercise” of religion. Although no particular church can be institutionally, all churches must be free to express themselves on the public forum. Note that this goes beyond the merely permission to worship as needed; It includes the excercise From a person’s belief in the Burgerenena.
A confessional sign in the church in the Mary Queen of the Universe Shrine in Orlando, Florida. (Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
And there is the rub. For all these laws, which are directly aimed at the integrity of the confessional substances, there are serious violations of the free training clause. They militate both the right of a Catholic priest to hear confessions such as appropriate and against the right of a Catholic penitent to participate in the sacrament without fear.
Click here to get the Fox News app
So, Catholics must indeed rise against this law of the state of Washington and those who like it in other states, but I would insist that all loyal Americans should do the same. At the moment the state threatens the Catholic Church, but if this may end, what will it prevent it from coming on time after the free exercise of other religions?
That is why I say to my Catholic brothers and sisters, but also to all my fellow Americans: “Don’t sit still, draw a line in the sand, fight back.”
Click here to Van Bisschop Robert Barron
