Angelus News | May 17, 2019 | Vol. 4 No. 18
A priest waits while sitting in a confessional box in the Cathedral of Barcelona. A new bill making its way through the California legislature would seek to force priests to break divine law in order to follow civil law. But would requiring priests to break the seal of confession in cases of alleged child sexual abuse really prevent abuse? On page 10, editor Pablo Kay weighs both sides of the debate surrounding SB 360 and looks at how similar legislation has fared in other places. On page 13, contributing editor Mike Aquilina recounts the history of confessional secrecy as a key part of the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation in the Catholic faith. And on page 3, Archbishop José H. Gomez writes why the bill is a “mortal threat to the religious freedom of every Catholic.”
A priest waits while sitting in a confessional box in the Cathedral of Barcelona. A new bill making its way through the California legislature would seek to force priests to break divine law in order to follow civil law. But would requiring priests to break the seal of confession in cases of alleged child sexual abuse really prevent abuse? On page 10, editor Pablo Kay weighs both sides of the debate surrounding SB 360 and looks at how similar legislation has fared in other places. On page 13, contributing editor Mike Aquilina recounts the history of confessional secrecy as a key part of the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation in the Catholic faith. And on page 3, Archbishop José H. Gomez writes why the bill is a “mortal threat to the religious freedom of every Catholic.”
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RICHARDBAKERRELIGION/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO<br />
Confession penitent and priest at St. Lawrence’s Church in Feltham, London.<br />
Confession under fire<br />
Why is California<br />
trying to end<br />
centuries-old<br />
privacy protections<br />
for the sacrament?<br />
BY PABLO KAY / ANGELUS<br />
A<br />
bill making its way through the<br />
California legislature would<br />
make the state the largest in the<br />
country — and the first since 1999 —<br />
to require priests to choose between<br />
violating the law or violating the seal of<br />
the confessional.<br />
At issue is the serious matter of child<br />
sexual abuse. Seven states right now require<br />
priests to violate the seal to report<br />
child abuse based on legislation passed<br />
in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s.<br />
While many states have tried since<br />
2002 to pass laws resembling California’s<br />
Senate Bill 360, none have been<br />
successful. Instead, lawmakers around<br />
the country have concluded similar<br />
bills would not protect children and<br />
would be an egregious violation of<br />
religious liberty.<br />
But last year’s “summer of shame” —<br />
which included a Pennsylvania Grand<br />
Jury report on historic abuses by priests,<br />
the revelations of sexual misdeeds by<br />
10 • ANGELUS • <strong>May</strong> <strong>17</strong>, <strong>2019</strong>
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