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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SHUTTERSTOCK<br />
A plan that’s always good<br />
BY DR. GRAZIE POZO CHRISTIE / ANGELUS<br />
My sister-in-law, Adriana,<br />
just told me last week<br />
that she and her husband<br />
are starting the adoption<br />
process.<br />
I’m simply thrilled. I have an<br />
adopted child, and I am so glad that<br />
Adriana will taste that same joy — a<br />
joy unlike any other joy. Personally,<br />
I could tell you that she deserves it,<br />
because she is so good, and she has<br />
shouldered the cross of infertility with<br />
commendable courage.<br />
But more admirably, she and her<br />
husband have carried that cross<br />
with the integrity of Catholics who<br />
understand and treasure the teachings<br />
of the Church regarding marriage<br />
and procreation. Even when those<br />
teachings came across as complicated,<br />
and seemed to block their way to their<br />
highest desire: a child.<br />
After two years of marriage and many<br />
tests, Adriana’s gynecologist offered<br />
to send her to a fertility specialist, for<br />
procedures like insemination with her<br />
husband’s or even a stranger’s sperm.<br />
Or, he said, in vitro fertilization could<br />
be a solution for her and talked about<br />
freezing embryos and how convenient<br />
that could be.<br />
She and her husband resisted all his<br />
blandishments. They instinctively felt<br />
these artificial means must be wrong<br />
so they investigated, reading widely<br />
on the ethics of marital sexuality and<br />
the great gift of procreation. Their<br />
instincts were correct.<br />
One day she called me and read<br />
a quote from Pope Pius XII about<br />
insemination: “To reduce the common<br />
life of a husband and wife and<br />
the conjugal act to a mere organic<br />
function for the transmission of seed<br />
would be to convert the domestic<br />
hearth, the family sanctuary, into a<br />
biological laboratory.”<br />
This rang very true to her. She understood<br />
that it was wrong to use her<br />
body simply as a conduit for obtaining<br />
a child, and to violate her husband’s<br />
24 • ANGELUS • <strong>May</strong> <strong>17</strong>, <strong>2019</strong>
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