During a brief Advent placement at St Catherine's in 2022, Daniel's dedication to the church was evident. Returning for his long-term placement seven months ago, Daniel, an enthusiastic woodworker, built the frame and internal structures of a confessional in the parish carpark, a testament to his commitment to the parishioners.

The now completed structure has soft lighting, timber and felt furnishings, and controlled green and red light indicators above the confessor's door. Daniel described it as the result of a "real labour of love."

Having seen several confessionals around Sydney, Daniel noticed that they often felt daunting, like a 'torture chamber' where one's shame and guilt are amplified. This observation inspired him to create a confessional at St Catherine's that would be the antithesis of this. His goal was to create a beautiful and welcoming space, where beauty would lead and draw people in. Even in the artwork and the soft panels, every detail was intentional. Read more

This extremely serious act - which the Catholic Church of France euphemistically translated as "voyeurism" - is exactly what Bishop Michel Santier did when he was the director of a School of Faith and leader of a new community.

One is initially stunned after hearing of such abuse and perversion.

Then comes the anger.

How can a priest and future bishop - who has taken post-graduate courses in theology and has received a "solid" formation in seminaries aimed at preparing the "ruling class" of Catholicism - fall into such confusion, mixing sin, nudity, undisclosed sexual attraction and religion?

And then one thinks, not without a certain horror, that so much of the sexual abuse committed in the Church is a perversity that is sometimes based on a so-called spiritual vision of sexuality and the flesh, which questions the capacity to show, in the literal sense, an understanding of faith...

Certainly, sexuality - that is, the relationship one has with his or her own body and that of another - remains a complex matter.

Current events, from #MeToo movement to all the abuse cases, offer almost daily proof of this.

There is no reason why the Church should be spared, especially since it has a long tradition of rigid morality where everything related to sexuality has been considered evil.

But for more than half a century, the Church has been indulging in a groundless rhetoric that has not favoured - to say the least - a proper understanding of the sexual revolution and its implications that we are going through in the West.

This is not the least of the paradoxes for an incarnate religion like Christianity!

A certain "theology of the body", one that undoubtedly relies clumsily on the writings of John Paul II, has totally sublimated this relationship to the body.

It has made sexuality a kind of ideal, sacralized by a vision of marriage (conjugality) that is often overly theoretical.

It is a perspective that does not see all there can be in sexuality - dissatisfaction, failure, ambiguity, and, obviously, relationships based on power.

Sexuality can also be a place of great violence, especially among clerics who undergo an imposed chastity and exploit the confessional and their sacramental power to satisfy certain desires.

Here again, we must be careful not to generalise.

But why is there such an inability to speak of sexuality in its complexity, in its humanity, dare I say?

Why make it a kind of sacred place which opens the door to all forms of deviance?

Here again, the Church is not alone.

Such a reflection cannot be done in a vacuum.

On the contrary, the difficulty of holding a discussion about sexuality crosses all of society; one only has to see the way in which the pornographic industry has invaded the world of children.

It is a pity that, in view of the controversies and internal divisions on questions of homosexuality and, more broadly, on new sexual behaviours, the Church has deserted this field.

Its moral teachings have not confronted human sexuality in its complexity, its lights and shadows.

The apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia, which Pope Francis published in 2016 following the two Synod assemblies on the family, opened the door to a more realistic vision, starting from people's real, lived experiences.

But it is still far too timid.

• Isabelle de Gaulmyn is a senior editor at La Croix and a former Vatican correspondent.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

Bishop Michel Santier (pictured), was quietly disciplined by the Vatican and, in 2021, he reported to his diocese he resigned for "health reasons".

However, the weekly Famille Chrétienne revealed Santier was also removed for "using his influence over two young adult men for sexual purposes" in the 1990s and abusing the sacrament of confession.

The Vatican ordered him to live "a life of prayer and penance" in an abbey in Normandy.

However, Archbishop Dominique Lebrun, Santier's metropolitan archbishop, announced last week that "other people" have since had come forward with allegations against Santier.

They claim the retired bishop had sexually abused them when they were young adults.

"Yesterday (October 19) after having heard directly from one of these victims, I immediately sent a report to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith via the apostolic nunciature," Lebrun said.

"There is no doubt that the dicastery will conduct a new investigation in the face of revelations that accentuate the seriousness of the facts of which Bishop Michel Santier is accused."

Santier resigned from his post two years earlier than the customary age of 75.

In a letter to his flock in June 2020, he explained that "the polluted air of the Paris region" did not suit him and had led to diagnoses of asthma and sleep apnoea.

He had been hospitalised with COVID-19 in April that year.

"I don't have the physical strength to continue my ministry among you until I am 75 years old", he said at the time. He also hinted he had undergone "other difficulties," but didn't specify what these were.

These difficulties, Catholic magazine Famille Chrétienne reported earlier this month, were linked to the "spiritual abuse for sexual purposes perpetrated against two adult men" in the 1990s.

French bishops confirmed that Rome took "disciplinary action" against Santier in October 2021 for the acts, which emerged in 2019. The two men asked to remain anonymous.

Last Friday, the French bishops' conference president, Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, acknowledged the revelations had provoked "shock" among French Catholics.

"The feeling of betrayal, the temptation to be discouraged are emotions that I understand and that run through us, as well as the incomprehension and anger of many before the acts themselves," he said.

"I also hear and receive the criticisms made about the lack of communication of the Roman measures when they were enacted.

"There can be no impunity in the Church, regardless of the function of the person involved."

Moulins-Beaufort said the French bishops would be reflecting on the way investigation results are communicated to Catholics when they meet at their plenary assembly in Lourdes next week.

"We will bring to Rome the fruit of our reflections and our proposals to improve what can be improved," he said.

French Catholics have learned of a series of abuse scandals in recent years.

The Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) concluded in 2021 that as many as 330,000 children were abused from 1950 to 2020 in the French Catholic Church.

The French bishops then promised to undertake "a vast programme of renewal" of their governance practices.

Source

• The Pillar
• The Tablet

One of its recommendations is that the states and territories "create a criminal offence of failure to report targeted at child sexual abuse in an institutional context".

If such an offence were created, those of us who work in an institution which cares for children would be required to report to police if we knew, suspected or should have suspected that another adult working in the institution was sexually abusing or had sexually abused a child.

Failure to report could result in a criminal conviction.

The commission notes: 'We acknowledge that if this recommendation is implemented then clergy hearing confession may have to decide between complying with the civil law obligation to report and complying with a duty in their role as a confessor.'

Being a priest and a lawyer, I welcome the recommendation of this new criminal offence in most instances, but I will continue to comply with my duty as a confessor.

The public, and not just my fellow Catholics, are entitled to know why.

I am one of those Australians who has been shocked and revolted by the revelations of child sexual abuse at the royal commission.

I had no idea that such abuse was so prevalent in our society.

I am one of those Catholics who is deeply ashamed and numbed by the statistics of abuse in my own Church and the failures, especially before 1996, to deal adequately with reports of abuse.

I welcome the royal commission's spotlight on our society and on my Church.

It is not surprising that the royal commission has looked closely at any distinctively Catholic practice, culture or tradition wondering whether it might be a contributing factor to abuse or cover-up.

Some Australians, including some members of the royal commission and their staff, have suspected that the Catholic practice of confession has contributed to abuse and cover up.

I don't think it has, and that's why I will continue to honour the seal of the confessional.

• Fr Frank Brennan SJ is the CEO of Catholic Social Services Australia.

"More than any other issues, it is probably the one that will unite both the liberal and conservative winds of the Church," Fr Tony Flannery said in an email to CNA.

"If even one exception was made to the seal of Confession, then the whole Sacrament would collapse."

Flannery said the Association of Catholic Priests hasn't taken the proposed new law that seriously because it was simply "unworkable."

"When a person confesses in the confessional box, the priest would not normally know who they are, or indeed be able to see them," he explained.

"So how is he to report them?"

It is also "unlikely" that a person involved in sexual abuse would go to confession, Fr. Flannery pointed out.

"In my forty years of priesthood, I don't ever remember someone confessing that they were currently abusing someone," he said.

Flannery suggested reporting this sin could be the 'thin edge of the wedge,' and asked why limit mandatory reporting to just sexual abuse. Why not extend it to the likes of marital infidelity, tax evasion and murder?

He labelled the Prime Minister's response to the serious issues identified in the Cloyne Report as a a little strong and hoped that given time a more reasoned approach might be worked through.

Last week, Irish Prime Minister Edna Kennedy said "the law of the land should not be stopped by a collar or crozier," and Minister of Justice, Alan Shatter warned that there would be "no grey legal areas" and that doctors' privilege would also have to be abandoned.

Shatter made no reference to lawyer-client privilege.

Sources

• Irish Central
• DFW Catholic
• CathNews NZ - Pacific
• Image: Flickr

To date, in the Republic, Northern Ireland and Britain it is respected under custom and practice, while in the US it is protected under two constitutional amendments.

Legislation to breach the seal of the confessional would be "unenforceable", "impractical", and "a distraction from the main issue", chief executive of the Catholic Church's child protection watchdog, the National Board for Safeguarding Children, Ian Elliott said last night.

A Presbyterian, he was not so much defending the Catholic Church as pointing out that "such legislation is unenforceable unless you bug the confessional", he said

Insistence on doing so would "only antagonise and distract from the main issue which is the protection of children. Why fight it, when we should concentrate on priorities?" he asked.

He recalled from his experience as lead child protection adviser in Northern Ireland that the advice of civil servants there was to respect the seal.

Dr Gerard Whyte, associate professor of law at Trinity College Dublin, said "the seal of the confessional enjoys some legal protection in civil law as well as under canon law and so it is more accurate to characterise the issue here as one of securing a balance between conflicting civil rights".

Continue reading the Irish Times' article: Confessional seal: what it means in irish legislation and abroad

Source

• Image: Offscreen

The new laws are an unprecedented display of tough action against the Catholic Church, in what was traditionally a Catholic country.

"The law of the land should not be stopped by a collar or a crozier," said Irish Prime Minister, Edna Kenny.

The Minister of Justice, Alan Shatter has warned that doctors too will be expected to abandon their Hippocratic oath when it relates to sexual abuse.

Shatter promises the legislation will have "no grey legal areas" around the investigation and prosecution of anybody, who conceals or fails to report to the police, sexual offenses against children or vulnerable adults.

The new law will not respect any internal rules of any organisation, faith, confessional seal or otherwise, Shatter said.

The move was about what the state expected of every person and organisation involved in child protection.

Children's Minister, Frances Fitzgerald said the report heralded the end of voluntary compliance over child protection measures and that all organisations, religious, sporting, educational or or medical will be treated the same in the state's eyes.

"There will be no exceptions, no exemptions," she said.

The new law is expected to be passed before Christmas.

Sources

• Belfast Telegraph
• Irish Times
• Image: Photobucket