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News 9 Bishops call for protection of confessional seal
expert supports local views
By Mark Bowling
THE priest leading the Church’s worldwide efforts to combat sexual abuse has added his weight to Aus- tralians demanding the seal of the confessional must remain intact.
Protecting the sacred relationship between priest and penitent has been ercely debated after the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse recommended that members of the clergy be required to report to police any incidents
of child sexual abuse even if received during confession.
A founding member of the Holy See’s Ponti - cal Commission for the Protection of Minors Jesuit Father Hans Zollner said “if a terrorist or a murderer or a child abuser try to confess a priest can always withhold the absolution”.
“Then you would be still bound to the seal of confession, but you should urge the person to meet outside the confessional and/or to report him/herself to police,” Fr Zollner said.
“In Australia the reporting laws are different from one state to another.
“So, we will need to see what the reaction to this recommendation will be.”
Australian Church leaders spoke out about
the sacred nature of the confessional seal after
it was headlined as one of 85 recommendations contained in a report released by the Royal Com- mission into child sexual abuse on August 14.
The report, titled Criminal Justice, includes reform to police and prosecution responses, evi- dence of complainants, sentences and appeals, and grooming offences.
Persons in institutions should report if they know, suspect or should have suspected a child is being or has been sexually abused.
This would make it illegal for clergy to refuse to report incidents of child sexual abuses that are received during confession even though the Church believes the penitent is speaking to God.
Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge said protecting the sacred dialogue between God and sinner in the confessional needed to be para- mount if Australian lawmakers were to follow the Commission recommendations.
Archbishop Coleridge said the nal decision would rest with the parliaments of Australia and it was “with them that the Church must now speak, since it is they who will decide the law of the land”.
“All citizens are bound to respect the law,
but it is ultimately conscience which stands in judgment upon the decisions of individuals who, if they choose to break the law, choose also to accept the consequences of that,” he said.
“The challenge for the Church is to hold together two key values – rst, the protection of the young and vulnerable, and second, the pro-
Sacrament questioned: “In the Sacrament of Penance, the relationship between priest and penitent is unlike any other relationship, because the
CRAIG Brereton has worked on the frontline protecting and car- ing for the young and homeless.
Mr Brereton, a father-of-four, is stepping into a new role as safeguarding co-ordina- tor with the Townsville diocese, after 18 years as a volunteer and later a public serv- ant working for the protection of children.
“Getting young people back on track in the home and with support – that is the work I have been doing and I am really proud of that,” he said.
Mr Brereton’s appointment means
that each of Queensland’s ve Catholic dioceses now has an of cer dedicated to safeguarding children, young people and vulnerable adults, a task which Townsville Bishop Tim Harris said was a priority.
“This is a signi cant step for the diocese to employ a dedicated person to help the Church to ensure that all possible measures are in place to protect children, young peo- ple and all vulnerable adults from any form of abuse and that our Catholic community is fully educated about this vital aspect of
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our life and mission,” Bishop Harris said. Mr Brereton, 44, attended Catholic schools in Townsville – St Joseph’s,
Mundingburra; St John Fisher Primary School and Ignatius Park College.
After completing an apprenticeship,
he worked as a butcher, and volunteered his spare time working with Townsville’s young people and homeless.
He later completed a social work degree and, in 2008, joined the Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services.
He has spent the past four years working with high-risk adolescents – some in crimi- nal detention – helping to lead them back to their families and a pathway to education.
“Getting them back on track, and back in the home with support is the goal,” Mr Brereton said of his recent work, which entailed dealing with entrenched mental health, drug and alcohol issues, and recur- ring criminal behaviour.
He said his acquired knowledge, profes- sional and life experience put him in a good position to take up his new role as a Church
safeguarding of cer, ensuring policies and processes were robust and effective to help protect children, young people and vulner- able adults.
“Transparency, accountability, research and practice, and collaboration (with key agencies and the community) is imperative if positives outcomes are to be experienced by those we support and protect,” he said.
“I thank Bishop Tim for this opportunity and look forward to working with him,
the priests, parishes and the people of the diocese.”
Bishop Harris said Mr Brereton’s work would also focus on the professional integrity of clergy and Church workers and all those engaged in activities involving children.
“We must deliver more than words,” Bishop Harris said.
“We must deliver action and outcomes. I believe this new position will help us greatly in delivering those outcomes.”
– Mark Bowling
Protecting children: Townsville’s new safeguarding co-ordinator Craig Brereton with Townsville Bishop Tim Harris.
penitent speaks not to the priest but to God, with the priest only a mediator.”
Photo: CNS
ing confession.
“One can help much by reacting in an appro-
priate, professional way.”
Fr Zollner arrives in Australia this week, visit-
ing Adelaide, and then Brisbane where he will speak to priests and parish lay leaders about the worldwide signi cance of clerical abuse on the Church.
He will also address theological and spiritual aspects of the abuse crisis.
“I would like to share my experience, observa- tions and re ections on how the Church faces this scourge of abuse, and what is being done in terms of safeguarding,” Fr Zollner said.
“In the second presentation, I will under- line the ‘forgotten dimension’, the theological and spiritual implications of abuse, rst of all the spiritual trauma that many survivors have described to me as the most severe trauma they have suffered.”
Fr Zollner will speak at a session open to parishioners and clergy at Clairvaux Mackillop College, Upper Mount Gravatt, on Saturday, September 2, from 9am to 4pm.
tection of the sacrosanct character of the sinner’s dialogue with God.”
Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart also responded to the recommendations, saying the sacrament of Penance was “a spiritual encounter with God through the priest”.
“It is a fundamental part of the freedom of religion, and it is recognised in the Law of Australia and many other countries,” Archbishop Hart said.
“It must remain so here in Australia.
“Outside of this all offences against children must be reported to the authorities, and we are absolutely committed to doing so.”
Jesuit academic and human rights lawyer Fr Frank Brennan said he would defy any law com- pelling clergy to break the seal of the confes- sional to report child sexual abuse.
“If the law is changed, abolishing the seal of the confessional, I will conscientiously refuse to comply with the law,” Fr Brennan wrote in Fair- fax Media soon after the Commission’s report was released.
The Royal Commission’s nal hearing into the Catholic Church in February asked a panel of priests with more than 150 years’ combined experience if they had ever heard a person admit to a crime during confession.
The priests responded that they could not recall this happening.
Several priests in the panel said it was pos- sible to withhold absolution until the penitent confessed the crime to police.
Fr Zollner, a German theologian and psychol- ogist, said in 22 years as a priest he had “never come across such a person in confession”.
“All needs to be done so that abuse is stopped. Yet almost no abuser talks about it, all the more if she/he knows that it is reported,” he said.
“Unfortunately, even many victims need time and much encouragement to speak up.
“As a therapist, I have met quite a number of survivors of all kinds of abuse who in the rst moment were unwilling and unprepared to report and go public.
“What is needed is proper training for all kinds of situations in pastoral encounters, includ-
New safety role protecting children, young people and vulnerable adults
The Catholic Leader, August 27, 2017