Why is the Catholic Church protecting paedophiles?

By Susie O’brien
Herald Sun
August 15, 2017

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/susie-obrien/why-is-the-catholic-church-protecting-paedophiles/news-story/68e3d0279f5002350b899d91662beafd

Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart said protections for confession should continue to be respected.

You would think the Catholic Church wouldn’t want to absolve paedophiles, but to hand them over to authorities.

This is the only way to interpret the church’s desire to allow allegations of abuse made in the confessional to be exempt from mandatory reporting to police.

In an extraordinary admission, Catholic bishops have opposed any move to force priests to report details of child sexual abuse received during confession.

This is despite calls from the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse to make it illegal for them not to do so.

Recommendations released by the commission this week suggest clergy who fail to report such information would face criminal charges.

The report states confession has been a forum where both victims and perpetrators have disclosed sexual abuse in the past.

So it seems absolutely unbelievable that president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart, said protections for confession should continue to be respected.

“Confession in the Catholic Church is a spiritual encounter with God through the priest,” Archbishop Hart said.

“It is a fundamental part of the freedom of religion, and it is recognised in the law of Australia and many other countries.

“It must remain so here in Australia,” he said.

This stance is tantamount to the church continuing to protect and harbour paedophiles.

As the commission’s report makes very clear, the importance of protecting children from sexual abuse means there should be absolutely no exemption for religious confessions.

This stance makes a mockery of the Catholic Church’s Trust Justice and Healing Council, which also argued for the continued “seal of confession” to remain.

Clearly, the Catholic Church has learnt little from this process.

You would think the Catholic Church wouldn’t want to absolve paedophiles, but to hand them over to authorities.

And yet the church wants to allow confessions by child abusers, or confessions by those involved in the cover-up of child abuse, with no further action than a few Hail Marys. It is outrageous.

This absurd notion needs to be immediately challenged. Religious freedom should not give priests the freedom to sexually abuse children, or protect others who do so.

Every time it’s suggested that Muslim sharia law is followed in this country before our own laws, there is widespread outrage.

This is no different. The Catholic Church’s religious practices should not come before laws designed to protect the most vulnerable in our society.

The Church maintains that paedophiles wouldn’t confess if they knew a priest would tell the police.

But so what?

The entire purpose of the confessional is to absolve and pardon someone for their sins: to offer, as one priest put it, “divine forgiveness and healing”.

Why does the church want to absolve paedophiles? You might think they might want them to burn in hell for eternity.

And yet it would seem this is not the case — the church appears to be more concerned that priests are healed than the people they abuse.

Ultimately, there should be no repentance for paedophiles. They should go to jail rather than receive the privilege of “divine healing”.