The system that conceals.
Hiding sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.
This paper aims to outline major elements of the
covering up of sexual abuse in Catholic institutions of Australia. As
revelations of abuse multiplied the Catholic clergy and hierarchy have been the
main targets of accusations of irresponsible behavior in not denouncing
offenders. However culpable or negligent the managerial group has been they
were not the only people who hid facts, episodes, evidence and perpetrators. Nor
was the entire Catholic populace guilty or complicit, as it was often portrayed
in former more sectarian days.
The identification of responsible others
requires some understanding of a social system and a systemic malady. The group
not the individual is the smallest social unit. The collection of behaviours,
attitudes and values forms a group culture. Though all this develops gradually
there comes a point where the culture is conserved and serves as the norm for
the group.
I believe that my experience as a member of the
Jesuit religious order for twenty years, my studies and experience as an
educational psychologist and organizational psychologist and a client of
Towards Healing (on account of sexually inappropriate behavior of a priest and
former teacher) and my support for victims as a counsellor give me an
integrated view of the system operating in the Catholic Church. See Appendix. 1.
Hopefully, too, the reputations of the majority
of priests and religious who have faithfully served the community will be
better protected from the current guilt by association.
So I offer this paper as an assistance to the
Commission from my understanding and with hope for the Commission achieving
significant results for the people of Australia.
Michael D. Breen B.A., S.T.L., M.Ed.
Robertson July 2013
“Every social evil has its vested interests”
John Fahey S. J.
1958.
Corruptio optima set pessima.
(The very worst is the corruption of the best)
Social Reliance. Who do you trust and why?
There is a sliding scale of trust from little
for shifty snake oil merchants to serious trust for “essential” bodies like the
Church, police or professionals. These bodies are given or used be given a lot
of street credibility. So evidence that those most heavily relied on may not be
all they are cracked up to be, can be seriously shocking; earth shattering for
some. If the foundations of safety in this life and the next are crumbling whom
can they trust? As we will see it is often easier to deny the evidence of
corruption or wrong doing than to live without icons of trust. As Don Quixote
says in “The Man of La Mancha” “I have never had the courage to believe in
nothing.”
Vested Interests.
The Catholic Church (“Church” from now on) has a
vested interest in the good opinion and adherence of its members, and the
respect of others. Church members have a vested interest in a believable
church, providing moral guidance and acting ethically. When trying to
understand sexual abuse by the Catholic clergy and its cover-ups the media and
public opinion focus most responsibility and blame on the church, priests,
bishops, archbishops, cardinals and the Pope. But that is only part of the
whole sorry story. The more serious inquiry, it seems to me, is why the
responsible hierarchy cover-up as they have and how other stakeholders
colluded. What were their motivations, actions and neglect of action, all of
which form the fabric of a systemic problem?
If the Commission is to have a significant
preventive effect it needs to understand the whole system, which it seeks to
improve.
“Some are guilty,
but all are responsible”
Rabbi
Abraham Heschel.
Victims of abuse.
Starting from the victims of abuse we will look
at the various Church and non-church groups, which work together forming a
systemic culture of abuse and cover-up.
For a victim to report abuse by another person
requires courage. More courage is required the higher the perpetrator’s status.
Parents presented with a report by a child can face a trying dilemma as to
whether to believe a timorous child, knowing that the processes of naming and
proving can be traumatic, or risk confronting a trusted pillar of their Church.
But let’s stay with the victim for a moment. Victims traumatized by assault can
be further assaulted by blaming themselves and guilt at what has happened to
them. Wondering how such a shocking thing can have happened to them, victims
often erroneously believe they may have been somehow culpable. So the victim
can become isolated, cloaked by the fear of telling anyone and by guilt about his
or her own responsibility for the acts.
At this
point of damage the victim may act out with dejected or withdrawn behaviours or
with angry outbursts, delinquency or aggressive sullenness. There have been, too, numbers of unnecessary
victim deaths by suicide. Though each case is personally different, the result
is the same. Unfortunately the motives, despair and rage are unknown to us in
most cases of suicide. Nevertheless, those left suffer the loss, the unanswered
questions and bargaining legacies. The desperation ramifies.
Sometimes children reported
matters without any adult taking a responsible stance on behalf of their child.
One child I know when a visiting priest played with his genitals in the back
seat of the family car, years later told his mother of the event. Her response
was, “I suppose they had their problems”, providing herself with a vindication
of the esteemed priest. Her terror realizing that a priest could behave in this
way towards her child caused her to dissociate from motherly protection to
safeguarding her belief in her faith and its ministers. Children were not
always rewarded for their courage in disclosure because of the confusion it
caused adults and some were left wondering why they bothered reporting such
matters or simply decided to trust adults less.
Even if there were several victims at the same
school or parish they would be unlikely to talk to one another about “those
matters”; so they had no solidarity to begin a group complaint. Perpetrators
often found ways to prevent reporting so that victims’ terror imposed silence.
Defence of perpetrators at the expense of their victims.
Responsible others.
“Protection is a racket. You only ever defend yourself”.
Communications theory dictum.
Sometimes a responsible older person would be
thwarted when they tried to represent children’s’ accounts of abuse. A man who
was a school prefect at the school I attended told me several younger boys had
complained to him about the sexually inappropriate behaviour of a priest
teacher at the school. The prefect, a lad in his late teens approached the
headmaster, who was a priest, and told the headmaster of the boys’ complaints.
The headmaster told him that this was nonsense and to take no notice of the
younger boys.
Strangely, years later, when the schoolboy
prefect was a grown man he was asked to be a witness in a Towards Healing case
against the same priest he first agreed but later declined to testify saying,
“They were only young boys and may not have known what was happening”. He had
originally told the complainant of the original reports and the headmaster’s
admonition to forget the matter. Why the change in his stance? Could this not
have been a belated opportunity to represent those powerless children as well
as the current complainant in a responsible forum? But from the ex prefect’s
point of view he would have to break ranks with his alumni friends, be a dobber
and perhaps reassess his investments in his church and his old school to which
he had sent his sons. Who knows his motives?
The salient point is that the
victims had their lines of redress cut by responsible adults, whose vested
interests in their belief systems, the structures of their faith and the
uncertainty of the consequences of speaking out, outweighed a sense of justice
and the protection of the vulnerable.
Social Icons, Totems for the Tribe.
Mutual cover-ups, laity and clergy.
Parents had their vested interests in not
denouncing priests or members of religious orders whom they knew or who taught
their children. To understand this it is necessary to consider the
socio-religious culture of Australia until fairly recently.
The Australian class structure gave ascendency
to Anglican/Protestants over what were seen as bog ignorant, poor Irish
Catholics. But the Catholics had their own structures, the aristocracy of which
was the clergy. Catholics saw themselves as had their forebears in Ireland poor
and powerless, discriminated against in the job market but connected with the
greatest power of all in heaven and the officers of his army on earth.
The hierarchy of Bishops and Archbishops and
then Cardinals after the 1950s, the priests, brothers and nuns were Catholic
nobility. The Irish family was said to have entertained an aspiration of having
“A bull in the field, a well in the yard and a son in the Church”. This was
achievable in the new colony. So to have a priest, brother or nun in the family
or as a family friend was very special. These figures were looked on as the
totems for the tribe. They were to stand tall at the edge of the village, not
so close as to show imperfections or feelings. They were given status respect
and resources by the faithful who in turn considered they had friends in high
places even mediators with the Deity.
In the eyes of many Catholics, priests, bishops etc.
were above everyone and the law and it was praiseworthy to keep individual
priests from feeling the effects of much of everyday life including the law.
They were special, they were different, and they were apart.
Clericalism.
The notion of “cleric” or ‘clergy” as we know it
today has evolved over time so much so that we need to see how it has changed
and how this contributes to social changes surrounding sexual abuse.
The word derives from Kleros the Greek word for a field to denote ownership of land or
property, an inheritance. Property owners were assumed to be able to read and
write and so were “cleres”, clerks. The “clerical order” took on a restricted
meaning “the body of men set apart by ordination for religious service in the
Christian Church as opposed to the laity”. “Old law benefit of his
clergy…allowed to a clergyman of exemption from trial by a secular court;
modified and extended later to everyone who could read (thus ‘benefit of the clerical
office’ became = ‘benefit of scholarship’) Abolished 1827” Shorter Oxford
Dictionary 1935 p. 323. The Christian church group was tried in clerical courts
separate from the common court of the illiterate laity. Later the secular term
narrowed to describe Christian ministers.
So clergy applies to a much wider group than
ordained priests, it is a social function whose niche in society is maintained
by its members and the laity or the rest of society.
Society evolves to have groups to attend to
health, doctors; to justice, the legal people; to defence from attack,
soldiers; to truth and inquiry, scholars; to public safety, police; to
spiritual and transcendental soul matters, ministers, rabbis, bishops, imams
and shamans. These functioning groups are clergy.
As defined in George Wilson’s “Clericalism” 2008
“Clergy” guilds within society, groupings recognised collectively as different
from the rest of the populace”. 1.George B. Wilson in “Clericalism” 2008
Liturgical Press Minnesota. P.13.
[1]What concerns us here is the ways in which the clerical class functioned,
its privileges, separateness, initiations, etc., also its relationships to the non-clerical
laity.[2]
Professional perks conferred by the populace.
Titles like Doctor, Professor, Justice, and
Father bring special status to the clergies. These groups have special standing
in society. They are presumed to have powers commensurate with their titles.
They are supposed to have gained entry to the special group by mastering a discipline;
a body of knowledge, by performing in accordance with a set of self-regulated
ethics and be remunerated differently from other groups. Patients give power to
physicians in exchange for a cure presuming “ the doctor” is skilled and acts
according to the Hippocratic oath. Symbolic objects like wigs, barristers’
bags, stethoscopes and vestments reinforce the specialness of clerical groups. [3] In turn
the cleric reflects on their status, “People call me this, I must be special”
and the lay person says, “He or she is called by that title I had better behave
accordingly.”
Among other perks, include: parking spaces,
discounts, free entry to events or free transport, leniency for traffic
offences and people used to raise their hats to clerics. Laity are often marginalised
by the arcane language used by clerical in-groups. Clerical groups frequently
enjoy economic benefits denied to others such as generous mortgages, hidden
revenues such as free meals and a bottle of Scotch, upgrades on aeroplanes. The
tragedy of all these perks is that the practitioner loses touch with the lives
of people they are there to serve. Distinction turns into superiority. Those
clerics seen as closer to God are separated from those less close ordinary
folk.
An associate of Richard Nixon spelled out the
inevitable effects of being special, “When they play ‘Hail to the Chief’; give
you a twenty-one gun salute and everybody stands when you come into a room, and
nobody tells you to go to hell, you lose touch with reality.”
Let them eat cake.
So clerics become beyond judgment of their peers
or feedback from those best placed to critique them. If an individual is found
wanting it is as if the group ego is attacked and the ranks clang closed.
Messengers delivering bad news will be attacked, discredited or shut down. To
be a whistle blower is an enormous risk requiring enormous civil courage and
often ends in career destruction.
It is not surprising that clerical groups breed
secrecy and unaccountability. Society in general does not see clerics bound by
the law in the usual ways. The laity does not chose who will be their clerics;
the self-chosen enjoy a non-democratic source of power.
Obviously the above notes on clergies do not
apply to all clerics. Especially in the last few years several clerical groups
have reflected on their status and behaviours and have modified their training
and their practice. Some have not; conventions change slowly. But the world, the culture, the ethos which
is being examined by the current Commission is a slice of history. Nonetheless,
if the Commission is to form a true picture of clerical abuse it needs to
understand the institutions, which formed perpetrators and the culture in which
victims lived. Nor will the future be different without a thorough scan of the
current pathology.
“Like any other culture, the clerical culture is
the product of everyone affected by-or implicated in-its continuance. That
includes equally those who are seen as lay people vis-a-vis a particular body
of clergy. Cultures are generated by the behavioural interactions between a particular clergy and its
corresponding laity. The generation and continuance of a culture is a matter of
relationships, a single reality mutually created by both sets of participants.”
[4]
The creep of faith.
Our fathers, chained in
prisons dark,
Were still in heart and
conscience free:
How sweet would be
their children's fate,
If they, like them,
could die for thee!
Faith of our fathers!
Holy Faith!
We will be true to thee
till death.
Catholic Hymn.
An act of faith requires a leap to go beyond
palpable or reasoned evidence. Experience, research, the scientific method will
usually provide a basis to believe or trust what is stated. But faith based
belief requires the suspension of belief in the world order as we know it and
commit to credence in a world beyond ours. Over time the matters of belief form
a way of life, a set of teachings and a believing community, with its own
culture. In effect the believing community sees and inhabits a different world.
The community supports, teaches and celebrates the beliefs so that for children
born into that community it is life, it is not strange and many grow up with
the persuasions of that faith group. What impacts on a young unformed
personality has a marked long-term effect.
Faith based groups often see themselves a
superior to others. They have fought to the death to defend beliefs against the
beliefs of another group. They have potent rituals of inclusion, initiation and
expulsion. They tend to push individual authority and responsibility up to
leaders or in the case of the Catholic Church to one leader who is God’s
representative, the Pope.
This verges on superstition, which Aquinas in Secunda Secundae 92-1 defines
as “excessive adoration given to God or
adoration due to God given to someone or something else. Suspicion feeds on
fear and sustaining rituals and often breeds secrecy.
“Nothing succeeds like excess.”
Oscar Wilde.
Extreme groups become cults with excesses of
dogma, behavioural norms and rituals. In cases such as the Jonestown cult in
Guyana in 1978 individuals give their leader, Jim Jones, power to compel self
and group annihilation when 918 died.
Faith consciousness of
believers can easily extend their abnormal credibility beyond dogmas to the
structures, cultural norms or individual devotions. The group assumes power to
canonize the saintly and define the diabolical. “That’s the way it is” replaces
normal everyday common sense or critical skepticism. Rational argument may be
suspended or replaced with circular argument, “I believe this because the Bible
says it is true and God gave us the Bible so it must be true”.
Faith based groups forcefully defend the
boundaries where they encounter everyday secular society. Many of the matters
cannot be defended rationally because the nature of faith and its foundation
outside reason. However their allegiance is firmer than to a football team or
to observable evidence for many believers.
Cessation of faith would lead to exiting a
special group, its culture, celebrations and one’s friends in the group. It
could mean a sense of self-betrayal for having gone along with that for so long
and paid for the investment in a number of ways. But much more than that; it
could mean forfeiting a belief in a blessed after life. Itcould be a loss of
meaning, a loss of a childhood home country and dialect.
The attitude is well expressed by a respondent
on a Catholic website, Eureka Street. Writing in response to an article by Michael
Kelly SJ about how the Royal Commission could clean out the Augean Stables of
the Church,
“Esther” writes, “I agree that the Church can and will be
purified by this 'secular inquisition' — there will be 'gift' to us in the
pain, but we would be naive if we believed that all our inquisitors were simply
interested in challenging the Church about its failings. Already we have seen
folks using the Church's day of reckoning as an opportunity to 'settle old
scores'. We must remain humble and trusting, but we are also entitled to defend
ourselves against broadside attacks that simply aim to destroy the fundamentals
of our faith.”
Esther 18 Jan
2013 Eureka Street on line.
There you have it. Esther expressed the fear
that if all this gets out fundamentals of her faith will be attacked and
destroyed. So never let your guard down entirely. Never ask why anyone would
want to destroy the fundamentals of another’s faith nor on what the
fundamentals were founded. Asking questions is dangerous, it is like a
bushfire, you never know where it will end. That is the way it ever was and
“loyal” Catholics understand it thus.
So in faith-based groups, the once made leap of
faith can leapfrog to further credence in the specialness of the group, its
individuals and its officers. Hence anything, which discredits the
organization, can be imagined to imperil the mythic foundations.
Even in the ordinary everyday world people shocked by a calamity, an ‘act of God’, will ask, “How can God let this happen?” Or will be so shocked that they will cease to believe and lose faith.
Even in the ordinary everyday world people shocked by a calamity, an ‘act of God’, will ask, “How can God let this happen?” Or will be so shocked that they will cease to believe and lose faith.
A scandal, if it were proven, could cause people
to leave their Church as a scandal does in other groups. Unsurprisingly a
common response to scandal is to deny it outright or at least until it is well
proven. To prevent it being proven evidence could be hidden, moved or destroyed.
This raises the question for me as to the status of notes and files of Church
solicitors who are alleged to have advised clerics to lie about evidence of
abuse. The very distance between the status of clerics and the baseness of an
act can itself be a reason for denial. Stated as, “No person in such a sacred position
could do such a terrible thing”.
So for a simple Catholic to have to contemplate
a clerical scandal could be the undoing of their belief system. Better not go
there. So also for other members of the clerical class, doctors, lawyers and
police. Better not ask any questions. Protection
of the religious clergy would be a priority for some, especially bigoted
Catholics. After all if the ranks of lawyers, doctors and police can close to
shield their own class why not members of the religious clergy? The second
order motive would be to protect the faith of the faithful and their belief
system and not to betray their faith-based group. For many people who are
scarcely religious at all and who use churches for baptisms, marriages and
funerals a church presence is a conserved requirement for a comfortable
traditional world.
Destroy the Messenger.
Whistleblowers
in the commercial world and other arenas require enormous courage in Australia.
“I don’t think people generally understand that whistle blowing is a
harrowing business. It changes your life
forever.”[5]
We have witnessed the danger and the price
extracted for Detective Inspector Peter Fox whose appearances on national
television have been a catalyst for the current Newcastle Commission. He
recounts he was warned, “Beware of the Catholic Mafia”, in the NSW police. The mother of a victim appearing at the
Newcastle Commission recounted how she was shunned and abused by members of her
Church congregation for denouncing a vicious pedophile priest who preyed on her
son.
Celibacy and training for it?
Patently
most of the Catholic clergy are law abiding, unselfish and hard working
priests, brothers and nuns. But what kind of training did they receive for this
most burdensome of vows?
An
ex-priest with whom I worked in Ireland in 1973 said about our shared training,
“It was training for nothing; not even the priesthood”. Celibacy is often cited
as a cause for acts of sexual abuse. Married men have also been abusers, as
well as clerics. Nonetheless the Church, which requires the vow, ought not only
review the requirement for celibacy but also bear responsibility for the lack
of training for this burden. For my part and in discussion with other priests
and ex-priests training for celibacy was non-existent except for defensive
remarks about “externs”, those outside monasteries and especially defensive
remarks about women, which were patently projections by underdeveloped celibate
imaginations.
In Conclusion.
I have attempted to outline the various groups
involved in the management of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church and the
ways these groups interacted to maintain secrecy and cover-up offenders and
offences.
The pervading theme is that though the fingers of
accusation point largely at the hierarchy, religious and priests the cover-up
extends beyond those groups. Catholic laity, victims, police. lawyers, and at
least one judge have formed parts of a firewall around abusive behavior.
Feelings of shame, fear, pride, revenge and guilt along with the dynamics of each group at
conscious and unconscious levels and the
interactions between groups inside and outside the Church constitute a highly
complex interwoven system.
To convey this is challenging but hopefully this
paper paints an overall though incomplete picture of the various vested
interests which have contributed to systemic cover-ups.
One last story. Some time ago at a family gathering,
a cousin told of a priest teacher at her son’s school who allegedly said to
students, “Come here and I will tuck your shirt into your trousers for you.”
And proceeded to do so when the pupil approached. The boys thought this
“creepy”.
Checking the current staff-list the named priest is
slated as a “student advisor.” This usually means a one to one interview in
private.
Concerned that so many of these cases have never
been reported I later phoned the cousin to ask if anyone had reported the
accused priest to the appropriate authorities. I was told, “No’ and that the
boys had managed the matter. The headmaster was concerned and professional when
I checked the matter with him. He asked could I get someone to provide some
more facts for him to act one way or the other.
When I inquired my cousin was defensive and refused
to involve her son or his peers and terminated the phone conversation. This I
relayed to the headmaster. He was
concerned and frustrated. He was presented with allegations but not sufficient
evidence to proceed. He presented no desire to cover-up or silence inquiry.
I could have been seen to be meddlesome by him or my
cousin. But I was concerned having heard the allegations and lack of follow up
at a time when the seriousness of the matter was publicly patent. So many cases
have been passed over for lack of reporting, it seemed important to pass on to
the headmaster the allegations as stated about an active staff member.
But in the minds and consciences of the lay people
involved it was acceptable to dump second-hand accusations about a priest on
the table at lunch, endanger the priest’s reputation, set up an intrigue and
take no further responsible action to protect current students.
This was not a clerical cover-up, it was a failure
of the laity. The clergy tried to do the right thing but needed evidence from
the accuser. On the other hand this kind of story is a juicy piece of gossip to
dump on a luncheon table irresponsible as that is.
What this illustrates is part of the complexity and
fracturing of responsibility around matters of abuse, embedded in and enacted
by members of the Church.
Acknowledgments: Thanks to Gregan John McMahon, Peter Byrne, Dennis Wilson and
Bernard Eddy for their help and Jayne Breen for her support and checking.
Appendix. 1
My experiences as a
complainant of inappropriate sexual behaviour.
The
school I attended was St Ignatius College Riverview, Sydney. On two occasions I
was the subject of inappropriate behaviour on the part of Father Gerald Jones
S.J. deceased.
When in
2001 I saw that a bursary was named after Jones I was amazed and outraged.
Contacting the College development officer I was met with resistance and
referred to the Headmaster who handed the matter to the Jesuit Provincial, the
man in charge of all Australian Jesuits. I myself had been a Jesuit for twenty
years. In making a complaint I sought to have the name on the bursary removed
while resolving a matter I had hitherto buried in my consciousness.
The
Provincial’s secretary was also resistant to my complaint and later said in a
letter, “I cannot see why you regard the events as you describe as sinister”.
He said the Jesuits had inquired of some of “the most eminent and distinguished
former students” without hearing any support of my claims. I was also told I
could drop the matter at any time.
The
Jesuits then joined Towards Healing a Church funded body for the resolution of
abuse claims against Catholic clergy. I submitted my record of complaint and
later an independent lawyer interviewed me and she also interviewed referees
some of whom I nominated. The independent lawyer reported to Towards Healing
that the behaviour involved was beyond the bounds of prudent and appropriate
behaviour towards a student. Subsequently Towards healing appointed a liaison
person to meet me and convey my request to the Jesuits. I wanted, an apology
for the original behaviour, and for the temporising which had occurred since
2001 till 2007, I wanted to meet face to face with the defensive Provincial
secretary and a financial settlement.
A
new Jesuit Provincial took office and was told in a briefing that my matter was
concluded. Later my Towards Healing liaison person told me the Jesuits were
offering $7000.00 to settle the matter without any mention of anything else
viz. an apology, meeting the Jesuits or having the accused’s name removed from
the bursary. I replied that I found the offer insulting and demeaning and gave
my reasons for my judgment.
So far
there had been an inquiry by the Provincial’s secretary and by Towards Healing.
The Jesuit Provincial had said on ABC TV that the Jesuit strategy up to that
time had been legalistic and defensive. He announced a more humane process via
Towards Healing. Still however, at this time I had had no response from Towards
Healing’s independent inquiry.
Only
when I submitted a draft press release to Towards Healing outlining my case, my
grievances and the supposed new approach by the Jesuits as opposed to their
practice, was a meeting arranged for May 24th 2008 with the Jesuit
Provincial and another Jesuit. My wife accompanied me at the meeting.
Afterwards,
the Provincial wrote. “Even after so many years of correspondence and despite
your own long relationship with the Society (the Jesuits), this was the first
time that you have met face to face with the Provincial about matters that are
deeply important to you. I do apologize for this long and unnecessary delay.
When I returned this week to my committee they agreed that we should not be
obdurate, but should respond directly to what you propose and ask. … Even so I
do hope with this letter to communicate my own and the Society’s appreciation
and esteem for you”.
What is
notable is the amount of time the whole matter took to settle; 2001 to 2008.
Also that though several people knew about the perpetrator there was such
reluctance to acknowledge the behaviour of the offending priest, even though
this was widely discussed among students at the time and by alumni after
leaving school. I still wonder if I as a former Jesuit had such resistance to a
complaint what could be the fate of others.
Appendix. 2.
.
The Canon Law right
to conceal matter from the sacrament of Penance. (Confession.)
A note on “Mental
Restrictions”.
To safeguard the inviolable secrecy of the
Sacrament of Confession a confessor has the right to not only deny but to
either understate or overstate their experience and anything to do with the
penitent. This includes admission that the penitent even confessed to the
priest.
Throughout the history of the sacrament this
has been a serious matter and priests have died rather than reveal such matter.
That is the juridical framework within the Church in which the penitent
approaches the confessional.
Were a
priest to be asked about a penitent, in practise what would happen is that the
priest to protect the penitent or themselves may construct a story to lead the
inquirer away from the matter. A simple denial would be considered
insufficient.
So a
priest could say, “I have never heard this person’s confession.” Or “I was
overseas at the time.” The practice is known as a Mental Restriction.
The justification for this practice is that
any person should know that a priest will never reveal what is told him in
confession and that someone asking about such matter must expect an answer
which neither directly or indirectly conveys information about the penitent.
Basically they have no right to confessional information. So the priest is
entitled to make up a story and the inquirer ought know that this is a response
to an illicit inquiry which binds direct or indirect information. Direct information would be, “James came to
me and confessed murder”.
Indirect
information would be. “Someone confessed murder to me last Saturday”, when it
was known where the priest was hearing confessions and who might have gone to
confession, say in a small town.
However if a penitent confessed to murder, or
other serious crime, the priest could refuse to give the sacrament of
Absolution unless the penitent either told him of his having murdered, outside
the confessional or promised to contact the police and state he had committed
murdered. What he could not do, would be
to denounce the person to the authorities. Though the confessor is required to
insure the penitent is repentant and performs restoration.
This obligation is based on natural law of
justice surrounding privacy and Canon Law, Canon 889 § 1. The Confessional Seal
is called a most grave matter. It obliges even after the death of the penitent.
However the confessor could with express and freely given permission of the
penitent reveal matters confessed. The law
also forbids a penitent confessing a matter so as to bind the confessor to
secrecy, in other words confessing for reasons other than to seek absolution
and express contrition.[6]
Priests know these technical matters, from
their study of Theology and Canon Law though they are somewhat complex. They
are less well understood by the laity and non- Catholics. Matters concerning
the veracity of priests in court or alleged misuse of Mental Restrictions have
occurred from time to time as in the celebrated case of Conningham suing for
divorce and citing Monsignor O’Haran2. as co-respondent in the case.
[3] Prior to decimal currency they were paid in Guineas, twenty one shillings,
not Pounds of 20 shillings.
