Confessional rules should not be altered for abuse

INCIDENTS OF child sexual abuse cannot be made a special case in the confessional with absolution conditional on disclosure to the police, a priest who works with abuse victims said this week.

Fr Dominic Allain, who runs the programme “Grief to Grace: Healing the Wounds of Abuse in the UK”, was responding to calls for an end to the absolute seal of the confessional when penitents are confessing to abuse.

But he stressed that if a penitent could not demonstrate clearly that he would not commit the sin again, it would be right for a priest to withhold absolution.

“It is a requirement for any absolution for the penitent to be not intending to sin in this way again. But however much we think paedophilia is a heinous crime, I don’t think you cansingle it out as the one sin that requires a person to disclose it in order to have absolution,” he commented.

Fr Allain said absolution could not be made conditional on anything that happened outside of the sacrament itself.

The debate over the confessional and abuse has come into focus after a  report criticised the the Church of England’s handling of allegations of child abuse committed by a former dean of Manchester, Robert Waddington. Following the report’s publication, the Church announced it was researching whether the confidentiality of the confessional should be waived where abuse was disclosed.