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Lawmakers challenge the secrecy of the confessional
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Michael Ejercito
Mar 14, 2023, 7:59:31 AM3/14/23
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https://jeffjacoby.com/26819/lawmakers-challenge-the-secrecy-of
Lawmakers challenge the secrecy of the confessional
by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
March 12, 2023
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HERE IS a proposition no reasonable person could argue with: There must
be laws protecting minors from abuse and neglect and bringing those who
hurt children to justice. Every state has such laws on its books.
Here is a second proposition: People in professions that involve
frequent contact with children, such as social workers, teachers,
doctors, or nurses, should be "mandated reporters" — i.e., required by
law to notify officials when they learn or suspect that a child is being
abused. That too is the law in every state. Some go even further,
requiring all persons, regardless of their profession, to report
suspected abuse or neglect.
Now consider a different kind of proposition, also broadly accepted:
Some relationships between two people, like that between a clergy member
and a penitent, are so important to society, and so dependent on
absolute trust, that the law cannot compel one party to reveal what the
other has said in confidence. There are only a few such privileged
relationships (attorney-client and doctor-patient are the others), and
they have been rooted in American law for 200 years.
Until very recently, these three propositions coexisted everywhere,
striking a balance between the best interests of children and the
imperative of religious freedom.
But in a handful of states, including Vermont, Washington, and Delaware,
there are now legislative efforts to overrule the clergy-penitent
privilege. That would mean that priests could be required to report
information even when it was obtained under the seal of the confessional
— a violation so grave in the eyes of the Catholic Church that a priest
who commits it is punished with automatic excommunication. (Though the
Catholic stricture on the secrecy of confession is the best known, other
religious denominations — among them, Episcopalianism, Orthodox
Christianity, and Mormonism — also obligate clergy to keep a penitent's
confession secret.)
There is little doubt that these bills are being advanced with the best
of intentions. In Vermont, for example, the sponsor of the legislation
is state Senator Dick Sears, a Bennington Democrat who chairs the
Judiciary Committee and has long been a leader in efforts to protect
vulnerable children. He hadn't realized that the law making clergy
members mandated reporters exempted information acquired in the
confessional, he told the Associated Press, and his bill is intended to
end that exemption.
"My gut reaction is nobody should get a free pass," Sears said.
But is there any evidence that child abusers are getting a "free pass"
because the law protects the secrecy of religious confession? As it
happens, that issue has been intensively studied in the wake of the
sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, which was exposed by the
Globe in 2002. According to Eric Kniffin, a civil rights attorney and a
fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, "more than a dozen
in-depth grand jury or attorney general reports have been produced since
2002, yet none have pointed to the sacrament of confession as a
contributing factor, let alone a major factor [in protecting abusers]."
Perhaps, as Bishop Christopher Coyne, the head of Vermont's Catholic
diocese, observed when he testified at a legislative hearing on March 3,
that is because the rule of secrecy does not apply in any religious
setting outside the confessional. Priests and other clergy members
acquire considerable information in non-confessional settings, none of
which is exempt from being reported. "The conversations that we have in
our offices, the counseling sessions that we do, the spiritual direction
that we do — none of that is privileged, and it is all included under
the mandatory reporting statutes," Coyne told lawmakers.
The point is deepened by the American theologian Cathy Caridi. "Priests
can find ways to help the authorities without revealing the content of a
person's confession," Caridi writes in her blog on canon law. If a
penitent indicates that he intends to kill or harm someone, a priest can
alert the police that the intended victim is in danger, as long as he
does not disclose how he obtained the information. She describes a case
"in which police received a phone call from a priest, warning them that
two teenaged sisters were in danger at that very moment. The police
understood that the priest was not permitted to give them more specific
information, and simply located the girls . . . and made sure they were
protected." The priest in that instance was able to help thwart a crime
without violating the sacramental seal.
The privileged status of clergy-pentitent communications has been
recognized in US common law since at least as early as 1813, reinforced
by statute in every state and in judicial decisions. In a 1990 case, the
US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that "the
clergy-communicant relationship is so important, indeed so fundamental
to the western tradition, that it must be sedulously fostered."
As a practical matter, abrogating the penitential privilege isn't likely
to elicit any information that is now kept confidential: Priests are
taught that they must be willing to face prison, torture, or death
rather than break the seal of the confessional. In any case, priests
frequently don't know the identity of the person making a confession.
"The overwhelming majority of sacramental confessions are anonymous,"
the Diocese of Wilmington noted in its statement on the proposed
Delaware law.
The First Amendment's forceful language banning legislators from
"prohibiting the free exercise" of religion doesn't empower religions or
their adherents to flout laws that are applicable to everyone. But as
the Supreme Court has ruled time and again, any law that impinges on a
particular religious belief or practice — even when its purpose is to
advance a vital public goal — must be drawn as narrowly as possible.
Preventing and punishing child abuse is unquestionably a compelling
interest. But is it compelling enough to allow Vermont, Washington, and
Delaware to uproot the longstanding legal protection of confessional
secrecy? To clear the First Amendment's hurdle, they would have to show
why they cannot fight child abuse without trampling on a key religious
belief when more than 40 states are able to do so.
Protecting children is a matter of crucial importance. Protecting
religious faith is too. It isn't the job of lawmakers to privilege one
of those worthy aims over the other. It is to strive, with care and
respect, to do both.
(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe).
--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
www.avg.com
Lawmakers challenge the secrecy of the confessional
by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
March 12, 2023
Send
Share
HERE IS a proposition no reasonable person could argue with: There must
be laws protecting minors from abuse and neglect and bringing those who
hurt children to justice. Every state has such laws on its books.
Here is a second proposition: People in professions that involve
frequent contact with children, such as social workers, teachers,
doctors, or nurses, should be "mandated reporters" — i.e., required by
law to notify officials when they learn or suspect that a child is being
abused. That too is the law in every state. Some go even further,
requiring all persons, regardless of their profession, to report
suspected abuse or neglect.
Now consider a different kind of proposition, also broadly accepted:
Some relationships between two people, like that between a clergy member
and a penitent, are so important to society, and so dependent on
absolute trust, that the law cannot compel one party to reveal what the
other has said in confidence. There are only a few such privileged
relationships (attorney-client and doctor-patient are the others), and
they have been rooted in American law for 200 years.
Until very recently, these three propositions coexisted everywhere,
striking a balance between the best interests of children and the
imperative of religious freedom.
But in a handful of states, including Vermont, Washington, and Delaware,
there are now legislative efforts to overrule the clergy-penitent
privilege. That would mean that priests could be required to report
information even when it was obtained under the seal of the confessional
— a violation so grave in the eyes of the Catholic Church that a priest
who commits it is punished with automatic excommunication. (Though the
Catholic stricture on the secrecy of confession is the best known, other
religious denominations — among them, Episcopalianism, Orthodox
Christianity, and Mormonism — also obligate clergy to keep a penitent's
confession secret.)
There is little doubt that these bills are being advanced with the best
of intentions. In Vermont, for example, the sponsor of the legislation
is state Senator Dick Sears, a Bennington Democrat who chairs the
Judiciary Committee and has long been a leader in efforts to protect
vulnerable children. He hadn't realized that the law making clergy
members mandated reporters exempted information acquired in the
confessional, he told the Associated Press, and his bill is intended to
end that exemption.
"My gut reaction is nobody should get a free pass," Sears said.
But is there any evidence that child abusers are getting a "free pass"
because the law protects the secrecy of religious confession? As it
happens, that issue has been intensively studied in the wake of the
sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, which was exposed by the
Globe in 2002. According to Eric Kniffin, a civil rights attorney and a
fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, "more than a dozen
in-depth grand jury or attorney general reports have been produced since
2002, yet none have pointed to the sacrament of confession as a
contributing factor, let alone a major factor [in protecting abusers]."
Perhaps, as Bishop Christopher Coyne, the head of Vermont's Catholic
diocese, observed when he testified at a legislative hearing on March 3,
that is because the rule of secrecy does not apply in any religious
setting outside the confessional. Priests and other clergy members
acquire considerable information in non-confessional settings, none of
which is exempt from being reported. "The conversations that we have in
our offices, the counseling sessions that we do, the spiritual direction
that we do — none of that is privileged, and it is all included under
the mandatory reporting statutes," Coyne told lawmakers.
The point is deepened by the American theologian Cathy Caridi. "Priests
can find ways to help the authorities without revealing the content of a
person's confession," Caridi writes in her blog on canon law. If a
penitent indicates that he intends to kill or harm someone, a priest can
alert the police that the intended victim is in danger, as long as he
does not disclose how he obtained the information. She describes a case
"in which police received a phone call from a priest, warning them that
two teenaged sisters were in danger at that very moment. The police
understood that the priest was not permitted to give them more specific
information, and simply located the girls . . . and made sure they were
protected." The priest in that instance was able to help thwart a crime
without violating the sacramental seal.
The privileged status of clergy-pentitent communications has been
recognized in US common law since at least as early as 1813, reinforced
by statute in every state and in judicial decisions. In a 1990 case, the
US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that "the
clergy-communicant relationship is so important, indeed so fundamental
to the western tradition, that it must be sedulously fostered."
As a practical matter, abrogating the penitential privilege isn't likely
to elicit any information that is now kept confidential: Priests are
taught that they must be willing to face prison, torture, or death
rather than break the seal of the confessional. In any case, priests
frequently don't know the identity of the person making a confession.
"The overwhelming majority of sacramental confessions are anonymous,"
the Diocese of Wilmington noted in its statement on the proposed
Delaware law.
The First Amendment's forceful language banning legislators from
"prohibiting the free exercise" of religion doesn't empower religions or
their adherents to flout laws that are applicable to everyone. But as
the Supreme Court has ruled time and again, any law that impinges on a
particular religious belief or practice — even when its purpose is to
advance a vital public goal — must be drawn as narrowly as possible.
Preventing and punishing child abuse is unquestionably a compelling
interest. But is it compelling enough to allow Vermont, Washington, and
Delaware to uproot the longstanding legal protection of confessional
secrecy? To clear the First Amendment's hurdle, they would have to show
why they cannot fight child abuse without trampling on a key religious
belief when more than 40 states are able to do so.
Protecting children is a matter of crucial importance. Protecting
religious faith is too. It isn't the job of lawmakers to privilege one
of those worthy aims over the other. It is to strive, with care and
respect, to do both.
(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe).
--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
www.avg.com
HeartDoc Andrew
Mar 14, 2023, 11:36:08 AM3/14/23
to
but rather expose them." (Ephesians 5:11 w/ parenthetical
clarification)
Source:
https://biblehub.com/ephesians/5-11.htm
In the interim, the only *healthy* way to eradicate the COVID-19
virus, thereby saving lives, in the US & elsewhere is by rapidly (
http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 ) finding out at any given moment,
including even while on-line, who among us are unwittingly contagious
(i.e pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic) in order to
http://WDJW.great-site.net/ConvinceItForward (John 15:12) for them to
call their doctor and self-quarantine per their doctor in hopes of
stopping this pandemic. Thus, we're hoping for the best while
preparing for the worse-case scenario of the Alpha lineage mutations
and others like the Omicron, Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota, Lambda, Mu &
Delta lineage mutations combining via slip-RNA-replication to form
hybrids like http://tinyurl.com/Deltamicron that may render current
COVID vaccines/monoclonals/medicines/pills no longer effective.
Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry ( http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest
) and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
So how are you ?
...because we mindfully choose to openly care with our heart,
HeartDoc Andrew <><
--
Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD
Cardiologist with an http://bit.ly/EternalMedicalLicense
2024 & upwards non-partisan candidate for U.S. President:
http://WonderfullyHungry.org
and author of the 2PD-OMER Approach:
http://bit.ly/HeartDocAndrewCare
which is the only **healthy** cure for the U.S. healthcare crisis
Michael Ejercito
Mar 15, 2023, 9:06:39 AM3/15/23
to
Michael
HeartDoc Andrew
Mar 15, 2023, 1:01:48 PM3/15/23
to
Michael Ejercito wrote:
While wonderfully hungry in the Holy Spirit, Who causes (Deuteronomy
8:3) us to hunger, I note that you, Michael, are rapture ready (Luke
17:37 means no COVID just as eagles circling over their food have no
COVID) and pray (2 Chronicles 7:14) that our Everlasting (Isaiah 9:6)
Father in Heaven continues to give us "much more" (Luke 11:13) Holy
Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) so that we'd have much more of His Help to
always say/write that we're "wonderfully hungry" in **all** ways
including especially caring to
http://WDJW.great-site.net/ConvinceItForward (John 15:12 as shown by
http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest ) with all glory (
http://bit.ly/Psalm112_1 ) to GOD (aka HaShem, Elohim, Abba, DEO), in
the name (John 16:23) of LORD Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen.
Laus DEO !
Suggested further reading:
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.med.cardiology/c/5EWtT4CwCOg/m/QjNF57xRBAAJ
Shorter link:
http://bit.ly/StatCOVID-19Test
Be hungrier, which really is wonderfully healthier especially for
diabetics and other heart disease patients:
http://bit.ly/HeartDocAndrew touts hunger (Luke 6:21a) with all glory
( http://bit.ly/Psalm112_1 ) to GOD, Who causes us to hunger
(Deuteronomy 8:3) when He blesses us right now (Luke 6:21a) thereby
removing the http://WDJW.great-site.net/VAT from around the heart
8:3) us to hunger, I note that you, Michael, are rapture ready (Luke
17:37 means no COVID just as eagles circling over their food have no
COVID) and pray (2 Chronicles 7:14) that our Everlasting (Isaiah 9:6)
Father in Heaven continues to give us "much more" (Luke 11:13) Holy
Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) so that we'd have much more of His Help to
always say/write that we're "wonderfully hungry" in **all** ways
including especially caring to
http://WDJW.great-site.net/ConvinceItForward (John 15:12 as shown by
http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest ) with all glory (
http://bit.ly/Psalm112_1 ) to GOD (aka HaShem, Elohim, Abba, DEO), in
the name (John 16:23) of LORD Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen.
Laus DEO !
Suggested further reading:
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.med.cardiology/c/5EWtT4CwCOg/m/QjNF57xRBAAJ
Shorter link:
http://bit.ly/StatCOVID-19Test
Be hungrier, which really is wonderfully healthier especially for
diabetics and other heart disease patients:
http://bit.ly/HeartDocAndrew touts hunger (Luke 6:21a) with all glory
( http://bit.ly/Psalm112_1 ) to GOD, Who causes us to hunger
(Deuteronomy 8:3) when He blesses us right now (Luke 6:21a) thereby
removing the http://WDJW.great-site.net/VAT from around the heart
Michael Ejercito
Mar 16, 2023, 6:38:24 PM3/16/23
to
HeartDoc Andrew
Mar 16, 2023, 6:51:09 PM3/16/23
to
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