Source: ABC News
Soon after the inadequate sentencing of Archbishop Wilson to 12 months of home detention (and even this he will appeal!), his successor, the Acting Archbishop of Adelaide Greg O’Kelly says that the new laws coming into effect in October requiring priests to report admissions of child sexual abuse heard during confession won’t affect the church.
Politicians can change the law, but we can’t change the nature of the confessional, which is a sacred encounter between a penitent and someone seeking forgiveness and a priest representing Christ.
That does not change by the law of politicians.
Wow.
The same old we’re in the world but not of the world mantra.
South Australian Catholics must be doing a collective facepalm at the moment. Or at least they should be.
As this ABC News article comments:
Under the Catholic Church, to gain absolution — and therefore to then be able to take holy communion again and avoid eternal damnation — a person needs to be contrite about their sins and do penance.
In the 21st century, that should give anyone pause and is a good example of why people need to be respected but beliefs don’t.
Strictly speaking, I think the foregoing only applies to so-called mortal sins. But then again, since homosexuality is counted as a mortal sin, there’s a whole segment of society that is apparently damned by nothing other than their natural state of being.
Then there’s abortion. Obviously women shouldn’t have control over their own bodies and severely deformed babies should always be brought into the world just because the Catholic church says so.
Duh.
Then there’s apostasy. That’s right. We hear about apostates having their lives threatened in some Muslim majority rule countries. But in Catholicism, it’s apparently also a grave matter to give up one’s the Christian faith. I suppose that’s not surprising since not being a Catholic means, well, not being a Catholic. Which is apparently bad…
In any case, that many of us still give such ideas the time of day is a solid indication of our lack of maturity as a species.
Religious groups demand tolerance and freedom while at the same time themselves being forces for intolerance and placing restrictions on freedom.
And yet, as Paul Collins, a former Catholic priest said in a recent ABC interview:
What’s happened within Catholicism really over the last 40 years has been a complete collapse of people going anywhere near a confessional.
Most Catholics including myself haven’t been near a confessional for 30 years or even longer.
A casual conversation with a friend who has Catholic relatives of various ages suggests this may not be an unreasonable statement.
Apparently, modern Catholic Mass allows a person to admit their sinful nature and gain absolution by the priest, asking God to have mercy on them and to forgive their sins.
So, if this is the case, wouldn’t it be nice if O’Kelly just said, yes, we’ll go along with it, especially in light of dwindling confessor numbers, instead of insulting the rest of us by ignoring the law of the land, especially since as O’Kelly himself says, priests have mandatory reporting training and responsibilities anyway?
Here’s how silly it gets, in O’Kelly’s own words:
Anything said inside the confessional box is subject to the seal of confession, but if a child mentioned he or she had been abused while there “it’s the sort of the thing where you’d invite them to speak to you outside of confession”.
In other words, what is said inside the magic box, stays inside the magic box, but if a mortal sin is spoken about outside the magic box, then the priest can report it?
We’re meant to take this seriously?
Maybe it’s best to just allow senior Catholic clerics to continue to talk themselves into the total irrelevance to which they and their Church should be relegated.
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