Freedom and Light in a Dark Box

The California Senate recently passed a bill that would require Catholic priests to break the sacramental seal of confession regarding information of sexual abuse of minors. While I’m not one to cry religious oppression in the U.S., this bill is a violation of the freedom of religion, dictating that spiritual matters come under the control of the state authorities. It also absolutely will not work. Not one person will be safer from this bill. But many souls could be hurt by it. But the bill isn’t really about helping victims. It’s about flexing authority over the Church and punishing it for its collective sin.

Priests are already mandated reporters of abuse. Unless it’s from confession, priests are required, like many other professions, to report known or suspected cases of abuse. The bill would do away with the confession exception. But how would that work?

Priests cannot violate the seal of confession. He would be automatically excommunicated. If faced with breaking the seal or going to prison, they are taught to go to prison. They have to put the sacrament above their own comfort or lives. Good shepherds suffer for their sheep. Confession can be anonymous, behind screens, without names. The priest would not necessarily know who is confessing to report it even if he could. The sacrament is for spiritual grace, not information gathering. A priest might instruct someone to come talk to him outside the confession, where as a mandated reporter he could do more, but in the box, he is only there to act in persona Christi and absolve sin.

But what if people worry that the seal of confession isn’t absolute? What if they fear going to confession or giving a full confession? Would someone genuinely confess child abuse only in confession knowing the priest will go to the police? State interference in religion violates the First Amendment. Dictating how a sacrament works and dissuading believers from practicing their religion is abuse of state power. In Communist Poland (and probably other places), the state would try to bug confessionals to gain intel on priests and parishioners. Spies infiltrated church communities. Will sting operations be set up, with someone confessing something then arresting the priest when he doesn’t report it? Sacred space means nothing to secularists. Sacramental grace means nothing to those seeking power and control.

Surely, this is only a first step. Why should priests have report child sex abuse but not child neglect, adult rape, murder, domestic abuse, suicide, self-harm, etc.? Once it is established that the confessional is not sacred, then the state can intrude further and further into people’s sins/crimes.

In further proof that this law isn’t really about saving victims but intruding on the sacrament, the state lessened the scope of the bill. Priests only have to report from the confessional if it’s a coworker or other priest. That greatly reduces the people affected. It might make some feel safer, but that’s the point—they might not fight it as much. It greatly reduces the odds of the state actually catching a criminal this way. And of course, as mentioned before, confession can be done anonymously; how should a priest know if it’s a person he should report or who that person is? Though that doesn’t matter; he’s not going to break the sacred seal no matter who it is.

I’m not too worried. I hope that the bill doesn’t pass the House in the fall. There are lots of people in California fighting it. I trust that no one will violate the seal even if it does pass. I think most faithful will still seek out the sacrament, even if the bill burdens them with worry that their private confession to God isn’t so private.

Proponents of the bill say that the Church is surrounded in secrets and cover-ups and that this is a way of exposing the truth. Yet it is the opposite. Confession is where people openly bare their souls, articulating their sins, thus exposing them to the light. We are not burdened to carry our sin and shame alone, in the dark recesses of our minds. We confess, we lay bare, with no fear of repercussion of any kind. Our faults seem so less powerful when exposed to the light of God’s mercy.  Our free will means we sin, but we can also freely choose to return to God, contritely asking for forgiveness that He readily waits to give. State interference with the confessional threatens our freedom.