The whole confession idea, with a priest as an intermediary is something hard for me to get my Jew head around, it seems very man-made and man-convenient to me.
I would love to hear feedback from any Catholic readers about this issue-I haven't seen much about the report from Ireland in the mainstream media.
What do you think about it?
2 comments:
As Charles Lewis makes clear in his _National Post_ article, the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession) is an integral part of Catholic observance . . . and not just Catholic, as the Orthodox and Coptic churches, indeed all of the Christian churches with pre-Reformation roots, recognize it. Priests in these churches are held to stand _in persona christi_, i.e., as representatives of the Christ for the purpose of effecting the sacraments, which are outward signs of God's grace, purchased for us by Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. The (New Testament) Scriptural basis for the priest's action as Christ's earthly representative is supported by multiple passages, but among the most commonly cited are Lk 10:16, "He that heareth you, heareth me: and he that despiseth you despiseth me," and Mt 18:18, "Amen I say unto you, whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven."
The (New Testament) Scriptural basis for Confession is John 20:23, in which the risen Christ says to the assembled Apostles (whom the Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic, and other pre-Reformation churches regard as the first bishops), "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained."
Continued--
Continued from above.
The "seal of the confessional" is an important element of Confession, as the sacrament requires an untrammeled recitation of one's sins to the priest--again, he is standing in for Christ--following an examination of conscience and a resolution of true penitence. Without these things, the sacrament is not valid. As a pledge of his penitence, the sinner must submit to a penance imposed by the priest. The penance is commensurate with the gravity of the sins confessed. In cases of grave breaches of the moral law that also breach human law, e.g., robbery, murder, rape, the seduction of children(!), the penance assigned by the confessor would in many cases include turning oneself in to the secular authorities. However, since human law and Divine law often diverge, e.g., an act of resistance against a tyrant is almost always against the tyrant's law, but not necessarily against Divine law, much gray area exists as to what should and should not be reported to the civil authorities. Also, many mitigating factors might accompany the commission of a sin, e.g., theft of food by a hungry man who cannot find work, that would result in an injustice if the penitent is made to turn himself in to the authorities.
The problem, as Mr. Lewis discusses in his article, is that sexual predators generally rationalize their crimes by convincing themselves that the victim was a willing participant. (We are, by the way, seeing the beginning of the mainstreaming of the position that the seduction of children by adults--especially when homosexuals are involved--is not necessarily a bad thing. This position is often advanced by many of the same people who gleefully attack the Catholic clergy over the pederasty scandals--they generally have involved pubescent boys--and who, in my opinion, are less concerned with obtaining justice for the victims than with discrediting the Church because of its moral theology, which condemns abortion and homosexual sodomy.) Hence, where the matter comes up in the confessional, it generally involves a confessant who accuses a priest of having molested him/her. Under the canon law of the Church, priests are accorded rights, including the presumption of innocence and the need for corroborating evidence before an accusation is sustained. This, I need not tell Conservative, is not just a New Testament requirement (e.g., 1 Timothy 5:19), but comes down from the Torah as well (e.g., Dt 17:6).
Though this in no way mitigates sexual predation by Catholic priests, people of faith outside the Catholic Church might wish to temper their _schadenfreude_ when they read the latest round of accusations levied against the Church. The Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination in the world, after Islam, and, because of its canon law tradition of due process, it keeps extensive records of processes brought against its clergy. Thus, it makes a fat, juicy target for those who wish both to suppress freedom of religion and to mainstream all sorts of immoral practices--like pederasty--that have been held to be gravely sinful since the time of the Patriarchs. Other denominations do not have the centralized institutional structure of the Catholic Church, and are not as easy a target . . . but targets they are, and the best available evidence (e.g., Philip Jenkins' _Pedophiles and Priests_ and studies of church liability insurance rates) is that the problem of sexually predatory clergy is equally weighty across the denominational board. The religious life draws a great many saintly persons, but also a small minority of creepy ones (who mistake the fact that they feel "different" for God's call). I note, for example, that Orthodox Jews are beginning to come under attack as well. I suspect this is for the same reason the Catholic Church has, not because of concern for the victims, but because Orthodox and Hasidic Jews refuse to accept the destigmatization of sexual sin.
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