familiar with the Confession Booth. That's when you're
supposed to go on a regular basis to confess all the sins
you've committed since the last time you were there. Now, these could be
smaller sins, like you cheated on a test,
to unforgivable sins, like "I'm gay and my boyfriend and
I got it on and it was amazing." Seriously, the Catholic Church says
that act is "intrinsically disordered". Anyway, the priest hears you out, and then suggests
a way for you to make amends for your sins.
Now, it could be as simple as saying some
prayers, a few Hail Marys here and there. They might say, "Go volunteer
at a soup kitchen". I mean, the idea is, sure, Christ died for your sins, and sure,
you have to genuinely be repentant, but you should also do something
else to make up for what you did. But here's the really important
thing about Confession.
It is a secret between
you and the priest. The priest can't tell anybody what
you told him. That is part of the deal. Priests are bound by the Seal of
Confession.
They promise to die before revealing
what you told them, and to break that would mean
getting kicked out of the Church. Now, that sounds
great to me, but they wouldn't want that. It's that promise that's been a problem
for Catholic priests lately. In South Australia,
for example, they just passed a law requiring
priests to go to the authorities if someone confesses,
for example, that he molested a child.
And the priests
don't want to do it. They say secular law is not as
important as their Seal of Confession. Now, the irony
in this situation is that the acting
archbishop who said that got his job because
the actual archbishop was convicted of
covering up child abuse. In another case, a priest
named Michael McArdle apparently confessed
to molesting kids 1,500 times, to 30 different priests,
over the course of 25 years.
And none of those priests
reported him to the police. He was just forgiven
1,500 times. That is the sort of thing
the new law is designed to stop. So the question is: What should
take precedence? Religious beliefs
or secular law? It's the same argument we have when a pharmacist
doesn't want to give a patient birth control because he thinks
it's abortion, Or when a baker won't serve gay customers,
because it would violate his conscience.
Just like in those instances,
secular law has to win. We are not governed by religious rules,
no matter how seriously some people take them. You know, I used to be
a public school teacher, and if a student came up
to me and confided in me that, you know, she was
cutting herself, or-- or even if I noticed
marks on her arms, I had a legal obligation to
tell her counselor about that. It didn't matter that
I was breaking a trust and, you know what?
That makes sense.
My silence would have meant
more harm to that student. Priests need to have
that same obligation. No amount of Hail Marys is
as important as stopping an abuser before he commits
another crime. To paraphrase an
Australian TV host, by staying silent, they're just protecting
predators in God's name.
My name is Hemant Mehta and
I write at FriendlyAtheist.Com What do you want
to see a video about? Let us know in the comments below
and we'll be sure to check it out. And don't forget to subscribe..
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