French Clerical Abuse Report Puts Spotlight on Confession

PARIS – The absolute secret of confession is central to the Roman Catholic faith. What is said in confession is between a penitent and God, the priest a mediator. Any priest who breaks this seal can count on excommunication according to the church laws, which the Vatican places above all others.

But what if there is a known violation of the law of the state?

It’s an issue that has upset attempts to address the sexual abuse cases that have rocked the Church in a number of countries, but one that has been particularly indicted in France, where the state long ago stripped the Catholic Church of its hegemony Has .

A devastating Church-commissioned report issued in October by an independent commission on sexual abuse within the French Catholic Church found that the sacrament of Confession, even on rare occasions, has been used to cover up cases of abuse.

Some victims who wanted to report previous abuses or actively expose abusive priests were urged to speak about it during confession, effectively suppressing their revelations and turning the sacrament into a “weapon of silence,” said Laëtitia Atlani-Duault, a member the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church, which authored the report.

“The fact that this information was heard during confession would free the church from submitting to the laws of the republic,” she said.

The report recommended that priests who heard of abuse during confession should be required to report evidence to state authorities so that perpetrators “would no longer feel protected by church leaders,” said Ms. Atlani-Duault, an anthropologist who at IRD University teaches Paris and Columbia University.

Nonetheless, the morning after the report was published, Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, Archbishop of Reims and President of the Bishops’ Conference of France, reaffirmed the Vatican’s position on absolute confessional secrecy by declaring canon law “superior” to the laws of the republic. “

The comment was sharply rebuked by the French government. Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, quickly called the archbishop over – a symbolic act that angered some Catholic officials.

After a meeting in the minister’s office, the archbishop issued a statement on the “agreement of the essence of confession and the need to protect children” and apologized for his “awkward formulation”.

But he did not deviate from the church’s position on the secrecy of confession. Mr. Darmanin reiterated the government’s position that priests should report child abuse, although he did not state that they were required by law to do so.

Such differences of opinion over the secrecy of confession have broken out in a number of countries that have been abused in their churches, but the debates remain largely unresolved. Under pressure, the Vatican has lifted or relaxed some of its confidentiality policies in recent years, but has stood firm on the confession.

In Australia in 2017, a royal commission recommended that priests found out about sexual abuse in the confessional must report it, and several states have passed laws to do so, but church authorities have refused to do so. In the United States, only a handful of states have denied religious exemptions from mandatory reporting laws.

However, the topic found particular resonance in France, which went through a long and controversial separation of church and state.

“We can say that the Church is not ready to rethink this dogma,” France’s Prime Minister Jean Castex said, according to French media, during a visit to Pope Francis in the Vatican last month. “But we have to find ways to reconcile this with criminal law and the rights of victims.”

Pastor Thomas Poussier, a Catholic priest who wrote about Confession, said he understood why the sacrament had come under suspicion. “It may seem like a big washing machine for the souls of predators,” he said.

During confession, priests must ask victims to report the evidence to outside authorities so that confession doesn’t become “the end of the road,” he added.

The estimated number of abuse victims – 200,000 to 300,000 in 70 years – was extrapolated from a general population survey, a public call for testimony, archival analysis, and other sources. The commission interviewed more than 150 victims and received more than 2,200 written reports.

Ms. Atlani-Duault, the commissioner, said the group had not done a quantitative analysis showing the number of times penitents were led to confess when discussing sexual abuse.

Cases of abuse reported during confession rarely appeared, said Olivier Savignac, a leader of De la parole aux actes !, an umbrella organization of victim groups formed after the report to urge the church to change. On Friday, France’s bishops recognized that the Church had an “institutional responsibility” for “systemic” abuse, an admission that many victims hoped for.

However, Mr Savignac said that Archbishop de Moulins-Beaufort’s comments pointed to a fundamental problem – that the French Catholic Church, like its counterparts in other countries, cannot change independently.

“Without the approval of Rome there can be no reforms of the Catholic Church in France, especially at the level of the secrecy of confession,” said Savignac. “The bishops hide behind Rome because they know very well that Rome’s conservatism works like a firewall.”

When asked whether the accounts in the report were about abuse of the sacraments, the Vatican Press Office said that the information available on the cases was “too little to draw any conclusions.”

The answer is unsatisfactory even to some believers. André Robert, a churchgoer recently found in the Notre-Dame de la Médaille Miraculeuse chapel in Paris’ seventh arrondissement, said that in a secular state, the laws should apply to everyone.

“I wouldn’t understand if the Catholic religion were allowed,” said Robert.

Rev. Cédric Burgun, vice president of the Faculty of Canon Law at the Catholic University of Paris, said the controversy was due in part to a misunderstanding of the sacrament.

In the past few decades, he said, “we have turned confession into a form of psycho-emotional and spiritual assistance,” rather than simply confessing and repenting of sins. Confessionals, which physically separate the priest from the parishioner, are rarely used these days, he added, and confession often takes place in a personal office setting.

If a victim mentions abuse during confession, “the priest should be able to tell the person, ‘What you are telling me is not strictly confessional, so it would be best to speak of it again in a different context, around to see what needs to be done, ‘”said Father Burgun.

But some critics say the reasoning ignores how difficult and cumbersome the process can be for those trying to speak.

Véronique Garnier, 60, who was sexually abused by a priest in her parish at the age of 13, said the church must “put the victims first” but she “still sees things from the perspective of the clergy”.

She drew a parallel with her experience. After she was molested, she said she reached out to her high school chaplain, then to a sister, and finally to another priest. Everyone told her to seek help elsewhere. It took her a year between each time to find the courage to speak up again, she added.

“It’s like seeing another person drowning and telling them, ‘Wait, I see you’re drowning, but I can’t help you so let’s wait for someone else to come over,'” Ms. Garnier said. who wrote a book about her experiences and is now working on child protection for the Diocese of Orléans.

Bruno Py, a law professor at the University of Lorraine in eastern France, said that French priests are subject to the same confidentiality rules that apply to the doctor-patient or lawyer-client relationship. Professionals who break these rules face up to one year in prison and a fine of thousands of euros.

France has made exceptions to these penalties in recent years, particularly in cases of minor abuse, he noted. French law also requires anyone to report abuse against minors or vulnerable persons; Anyone who does not do this faces up to three years imprisonment and a hefty fine.

But barring the rare occasions where there is imminent or life-threatening danger, Mr Py said, the law exempts professionals bound by confidentiality from such obligations. The legal precedent is to give them a choice: they face no penalties for reporting abuse, but neither for keeping the information private.

“Speaking out is allowed; Silence is allowed, ”he said. “The law leaves the individual to his conscience.”

Léontine Gallois contributed the reporting from Paris and Jason Horowitz from Rome.