Confession and Absolution lie at the heart of the difficulties in which Catholic Church in Australia finds itself at the (Australian) Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse.
Absolution and Confession
Witnesses at the Royal Commission demonstrated that the Vatican still does not protect victims. It is not a trivial issue, or one that relates only to the venality of certain clergy. It is also theological. Confession and absolution (including the Last Rites), means that the Catholic Church presents a false image that 1 John does not really apply:
- Whoever claims to live in Jesus MUST walk as Jesus did.
- Everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who DOES the will of God lives forever.
- Jesus appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him KEEPS ON sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
Under the latter verses, how far the Catholic Church in its doctrines of confession and absolution, and the worst of all, Last Rites have deviated from the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Royal Commission
As explained in an article in The Australian newspaper, a panel of experts, specializing in canonical or church law, appeared before the final hearing of the Commission, agreeing almost unanimously that the directives from Rome were often geared to protect its flock rather than its victims.
In was reported there that Crimen Sollicitationis, a Vatican instruction introduced in 1962, enforced secrecy in any investigations into “soliciting sex in the confessional, homosexuality, bestiality and the sexual abuse of children”.
In his submissions, Mr Tapsell said the instruction was “a permanent silence that bound not only the bishop and those involved in the canonical inquiries and trials, but the victims and witnesses who were sworn to observe that secrecy”.
Mr Tapsell said Crimen Sollicitationis was used to protect the reputation of any person involved in an alleged sexual abuse case.
Ms Furness described another canonical instruction, known as a “pontifical secret” as a “permanent silence” enforced in matters of sexual crime.
Counsel assisting the Commission, Stephen Free, described the pastoral approach as a bishop attempting “for an appropriate period of time and with every means available to help the petitioner to overcome the difficulties which he [the clergyman] experiences”.
The approach could involve “transferring him (the perpetrator) from the place in which he is exposed to the danger and according to the nature of the case, giving him the help of brother priests, friends…doctors or psychologists,” Mr Free said.
Father Thomas Doyle described the pastoral approach as “nuts”. He gave evidence regarding a lack of co-operation from the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the church, the Holy See, when faced with allegations of child sexual abuse.
“That has been a major, major, stumbling block for a number of bishops trying to do anything,” Dr Doyle said.
Theological Reform required
For the Catholic Church it is time to face up to the difficulties that their confession and absolution theological nonsense has led them.
Apart from addressing the actual sins and crimes involved in the behavior of which 7% of all Catholic clergy in Australia have been accused, and more than 40% of the members of one particular religious order, nothing will really change at the heart of the Catholic Church until they give up the fiction that a priest can guarantee the entrance into heaven of any sinner via the rites of confession and absolution, plus Last Rites.
