IRELAND
Dail Mail (United Kingdom)
By Mark Dooley
PUBLISHED: 13:09 EST, 23 May 2012
The Government of Ireland is currently drafting legislation on the mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse. If passed, this will oblige Catholic priests to break the seal of Confession in order to report those abusers who seek absolution. Many have vowed, on pain of imprisonment, never to break the sacred seal.
In a country which has abandoned its sense of the sacred, it is difficult for many to understand why a Catholic priest would rather face jail than break the confessional seal. Why, people may ask, would a priest knowingly protect a paedophile when he could save a child from further abuse? How could he offer spiritual consolation to someone who violates his vows to prey on the innocent?
For those of us who regard clerical child abuse as a terrible evil, those are difficult questions to answer. For far too long, the confessional was used by abusers to salve their soul before succumbing to the next bout of wickedness. For far too long, they tarnished one of the great sacraments of the Church in order to avoid divine condemnation.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.