by Henrietta Gomes
Catholic Standard - March 6, 2003
Last week, Maryland State Senators rejected a bill
which would require priests to report any information about child abuse obtained
in the confessional except from the abuser. The bill was unanimously defeated
by the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee a few days after it was introduced
by Sen. Delores Kelley (D-Baltimore). Asked whether the measure overstepped
the boundaries of religious freedom, Kelley said during the hearing, "sometimes
the state must intervene" to protect children.
Before the hearing, many Catholics from the Archdiocese
of Washington contacted legislators by phone, e-mail, and fax, urging them
not to pass the legislation. Writing in his weekly column in the Catholic
Standard, Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick said he would instruct his
priests to disobey such a law and would be willing to go to jail on the matter.
Breaking the seal of Confession would violate canon Law, causing any priest
who does so to be excommunicated.
Since 1987, a law in Maryland has been in effect that
requires priests to report all instances of child abuse they hear about outside
of the confessional.
"There is a mandate in Maryland that teachers and police
must report any type of abuse, and so clergy should also report," said Kelley
at the hearing last week. Passing the bill, said Kelley, would be in the
best interest of Maryland's protection of children, "who are most
vulnerable."
Ellen Mugmon, representing the Coalition to Protect
Maryland's Children, testified that the state must "regulate religion when
children need to be protected."
Vick Polin—a member of the Awareness Center that
provides resources for Jewish survivors of childhood sexual abuse or
assault—testified "because many cases have been covered up in the past,
the bill should pass." Polin added, "If clergy were mandated to report then
these people (abusers) will get help."
Arguing against the bill, Dick Dowling, the executive
director of Maryland Catholic Conference, said, "There is not one example
of a person suffering of being abused because of our Sacrament of
reconciliation." About Confession, Dowling said "this is a time honored
agreement," and he said the sacramental seal of Confession is a central tenet
of the Catholic faith. He noted that the current abuse reporting law, which
respects the privacy of the confessional, was "carefully scrutinized by elements
of the interfaith community: when it was drafted in the late 1980s.
Father Daniel Mindling, a dean of Mount Saint Mary's
Seminary in Emmetsburg called the Sacrament of Reconciliation, "an act of
worship which needs protection. You can't admit sins with no guarantee,"
he said. "It would weaken our ability to practice our faith. We believe God
instituted this," the priest said about the sacrament. About abuse, he said,
"If I learn about it in any other way, I report it."
The controversial bill would have required priests
to report suspected abuse heard about in the confessional from a non-abuser,
such as a family member. Church policy in the archdioceses of Baltimore and
Washington requires priests and any church workers to report suspected abuse
to civil authorities, but information learned in the confessional is confidential
according to canon law.
David Kinkopf, an attorney for the Baltimore Archdiocese
said, "Our country was founded on religious freedom and religious exercise."
He said the proposed measure would be unconstitutional and violate the separation
of church and state.
State Sen. John Giannetti Jr. (Prince George's and
Anne Arundel), a member of the Judicial Proceedings Committee, said in a
statement that his office received hundreds of calls and e-mails on the matter.
"When a man becomes a priest, he takes certain sacred vows," the senator
said. "No law should impose on those sanctified vows, and I am going to make
sure that they are upheld.
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