Elwher wrote:After reflection, I still t\believe that this is a bad law, as the seal of the Confessional should remain sacrosanct. However, I also realize that, if I understand it correctly, this is a useless law.
Consider the scenario. Fr. Hawk appears before Fr. Silenzo as a penitent. In his confession, he admits to molesting children. Fr. Silenzo, in accordance to his vows to Mother Church, says nothing to the authorities and is therefore in violation of the law. How is he going to be accused, much less convicted? Only two people know what was said in this confession. Fr. Silenzo cannot turn himself in without violating the seal of the confessional, which he has already proven he will not do. Fr. Hawk can not turn in Fr. Silenzo without turning himself in, which he is unlikely to want to do or he would have already done so. Unless the police are going to send in agents to make false confessions and record them, I see no way for this law to be anything but an exercise in feel good politics designed to distract the people from any real solutions to a severs problem.
Consider the actual real life scenarios which have created the requirement for this law:
Father A confesses to Father B that he has been molesting children in his private chambers. Father B recommends that Father A be moved from this parish to a Catholic Children's home, without explaining why he needs him out of the parish. Or does Father B does not block a requested move, despite his knowledge that Father A has been raping children. It is later uncovered that Father A has abused several hundred children during his 40 year tenure at the children's home.
So if this law was in place, and the same situation occurred, investigation would be conducted as to why the priest was moved. The priest he confessed to would then be charged with failure to report and child endangerment. As he well should be.
Had the Catholic Church removed these priests from contact with the public, and made efforts to discipline them appropriately, this law would not be currently being considered. Fact is, they instead chose to endanger children. These priests knew, as a direct result of the Confessional that these priests had, and were likely to again, molest children. They could have ensured that they were not in a position to do so without breaching the seal. They chose not to. They lose the privilege.