When I was 16, I went to confession. I wish the priest had reported what I'd told him

By Mary-Rose Maccoll
Guardian
August 17, 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/18/when-i-was-16-i-went-to-confession-i-wish-the-priest-had-reported-what-id-told-him

“What happened to me after that time has had lifelong consequences. I was a child who had a child. The priest let me down badly.”

Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart has said he’ll risk going to jail rather than report what’s said to him in the sacrament of confession, even if what’s confessed relates to child sexual abuse.

His latest comments, made on ABC radio, were responding to a recommendation from the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse to make reporting child sexual abuse allegations mandatory in institutions including when an allegation is made in religious confession. Failure to report would be a criminal offence.

The recommendation is one of a suite of proposed reforms to improve transparency and reporting of sexual abuse and improve the law’s effectiveness to apprehend sexual abusers and protect children.

Archbishop Hart wouldn’t report something said in confession by a child who’s been abused or by an abuser. Non-Catholics don’t understand confession, he said. Confession is sacrosanct, above the law, which is what makes it different from other forms of telling. It’s communication with God of a higher order.

Like many Catholics, I spent my childhood in fortnightly confession and frankly I don’t understand confession either. I recall the queasy light and the slightly creepy whispering of the priest in that little tardis of shame that sat on one side of the church. I got the same penance every fortnight by making up the same sins. I’d say I lied, I stole, because I couldn’t think of any actual sins. My penance was always a couple of Hail Marys.

The seal of confession, its secrecy, was important, we were told in religion class at school. A priest was hanged for a murder he didn’t commit because he wouldn’t reveal the murderer’s true identity, which he’d learned through confession. That’s how tight the seal was. It amazed us.

When I was 16, I went to confession for real. I’d been sexually abused by a Catholic high school teacher and her husband. I went to see a priest on the suggestion of one of my abusers, because I was so upset.

The priest I saw gave me absolution which didn’t make me any less upset. I can’t remember what the penance was. He didn’t do anything about what I told him as far as I know. I guess he maintained the seal of confession, the higher order communication with God in Archbishop Hart’s terms. I wish he had done something, reported what I’d told him to my school, parents or the police, because I’d have been far less harmed. What happened to me after that time has had lifelong consequences. I was a child who had a child. The priest let me down badly.

I don’t think we can afford to let Archbishop Hart and his colleagues make judgements about what is and isn’t reported when it comes to sexual abuse of children. In my lifetime, hundreds of his priests and brothers harmed children terribly. People in senior roles who knew covered up these crimes. Whatever is done in relation to reporting needs to be simple and clear and externally driven.

Confession is as vulnerable to corruption as any other human activity. In Ryan White’s excellent Netflix documentary series, The Keepers, it was the sacrament of confession that enabled paedophile priests to target the most vulnerable children by using the sins they confessed.

The Catholic church is not above the law. It’s not above anything. It’s down here on Earth with the rest of us and ought to be more concerned about protecting children than protecting its practices.