A rather challenging article appeared in the Church Times a week or so ago, questioning whether we should continue to respect the seal of the confessional where breaches of safeguarding requirements are concerned.
I am sure most of us will have seen the 1953 Alfred Hitchcock thriller ‘I confess’ in which a devout Catholic priest hears the confession of a church employee who admits to committing a murder. When the police begin to suspect the priest of the crime, he is pressured by investigators and others to clear his name, which he can only do by violating the sacred seal of the confessional. We face exactly the same problem if someone confesses to a breach of safeguarding requirements.
The article highlights the view of the church’s new lead safeguarding bishop, the Bishop of Tewkesbury, the Rt Revd Robert Springett, who warns that the seal of the confessional “undermines the view for many of the sincerity of our commitment to safeguarding itself”.
“Our commitment to mandatory reporting must take precedent,” he said in his first presentation to the General Synod, where he explained that confession was not a “regulated activity” as defined by the newly passed Police and Crime Act, “and so the responsibility is firmly in our court.”
Bishop Springer also acknowledged that there were “deeply held views” about the seal, and that he himself was “one for whom the sacrament of reconciliation holds deep personal significance”.
So this is a tough question and none of us want to weaken the message that the seal of the confessional gives, that it is entirely confidential. But at the current time the church is under the cosh for past failures of safeguarding, which led to the resignation of the last Archbishop of Canterbury. I personally agree with the bishop that we need to be seen to be giving priority to safeguarding at the present time so as to restore the reputation of the Church of England in this regard. What do you think?
We tend to think of religious dogma and a person’s strongly-held views as taking the highest priority when discussing complex issues of Christian faith and practice. But time and time again the example we see in Jesus is one in which the best outcome for the individual with whom he engaged was what took the priority, particularly over the dogmatism of the Scribes and Pharisees of his day.
Read the article in the Church Times here.