There is much to be gained from a Catholic upbringing; the life-altering guilt of existence is probably the one thing that will stay with you the longest, however. Baked into the very essence of old-school Catholicism is the acceptance of humanity’s sinful and unworthy nature. Over and over again, from the welcoming of a new life into the Church, to bidding farewell to the recently deceased, our failings in the eyes of god are relentlessly hammered home. Such endless criticism would eventually get trying for even the most devote, one imagines, so thankfully Catholicism includes a full-proof method of absolving oneself of guilt in the form of the Act of Confession.
Confession allows one to admit to anything that weighs heavily on ones soul, from the most fleeting of impure thoughts to genocide. The priest, as God’s most holy representative on Earth, will then forgive you your sins, wiping your tarnished soul back to its gleaming virginity and doling out a suitable punishment, usually in the form of a handful of prayers.
Having been born and educated in Ireland in the 80’s and 90’s, every 6 months or so the school would arrange for a team of priests to come in and tackle our hormone soaked sins. No doubt these were in devotion to some major event (probably Easter, for one) but the specifics escape me. What will never escape me is the actual act of confessing, as it was absolutely terrifying. Not for any spiritual reasons, but for the simple fact that my family was blessedly laid back when it came to religion and thus the only time I actually went to confession was when I was made do so at school.
The traditional setting for confession involves the dark mahogany shadows of a confessional. These incense and polish soaked boxes held endless mystery for me as a child, and I still find the symbolism and functionality fascinating. The disembodied priest, separated from sinner; protecting who from whom? Lacking such imposing furniture, however, our school took the far trendier and modern approach of setting up two seats opposite each other in a quiet corner of the hall. Except, in what I can only assume was a fervent desire to maintain the anonymity of the confessional, the priest would never actually look at you. He would always sit slightly sideways and stare very intently at the floor, for all the world as if considering a stain that reminded him of someone’s face but whose name he just couldn’t quite bring to mind at that moment. Thus one was left to deliver ones deeply held sins to a thick, black, dandruff strewn shoulder.
As with most things in Catholicism the process proceeded with a reassuring formality. “Bless me Father for I have sinned” you would say, for the natural course of things in a Catholic world is that the very act of living leads immediately to a state of sinful being. The priest would nod deeply as this most wise of utterances and you would continue with “It has been [however long] since my last confession”.
Now, here is where things got tricky for my poor, childish conscience, for the last time I would have been to confession was the last time the school made us go, at a minimum 6 months ago. And that seemed like far too long to my mind, not at all what I assumed the priest would want to hear. How to overcome this? Well, very simply actually –
“It has been 7 weeks since my last confession.”
“And what would you like to confess, my child?” the priest would ask.
“I often lie” – and just like that I’ve saved face in front of the priest and immediately been forgiven for it in the eyes of the Lord. Such verbal trickery delighted me and I never once considered the implication it might have on my eternal soul. It was with small surprise I turned out to be an atheist.
I tell this tale to illustrate a few points. Firstly, the importance of confession to Catholic worship. It was a big event in the schools calendar and it was made clear to us that this was how we saved our souls, which were soiled with the dirt of existence from the very moment we entered this world (thanks, Eve) and only confiding in the Lord could wipe it clean for a limited period. Seeking absolution of sin is a vital part of a good Catholic death.
Secondly, my disrespect for the whole process might go some way to explaining my surprise at the uproar in Ireland over the suggestion of lifting the seal of the confessional, which rules that there are absolutely no circumstances under which a priest may reveal anything told to him in confession. No exceptions, no grey areas, they simply can’t. (It should be noted that the confessional doesn’t seem to have the same protection in the UK, where only legal advice obtained from a professional adviser is protected in this way).
This controversy arose due to a proposal from the Irish government to introduce mandatory reporting of child abuse. Currently you’re under no legal obligation to tell anyone if you happen to know that someone has abused a child. This applies (pdf) throughout England, Scotland, Wales, and also Ireland (though the situation is slightly different in Northern Ireland where it is a crime not to report an arrestable offense, which would include child abuse). Ministers made it clear that the seal of the confessional would not be exempt from this law; if someone confessed to child abuse then the priest would be forced to tell the authorities. This has been taken as an attack on a fundamental form of Catholic worship, akin, I would imagine, to outlawing the act of communion, and has been roundly denounced as an attack on religious freedom by clergy and lay Catholics alike.
I admit that initially I was all for lifting the seal. Why would you not want to immediately tell someone if you knew about a child being abused? And the proposed change in law wouldn’t prevent people from going to confession; there was now just the caveat that if you told the priest you had abused a child you would probably face a visit from the authorities. With the system as it currently stands, no matter how much a priest might want to report a crime (not solely abuse but any crime) they are currently limited by the constraints of their religious beliefs.
Further, there is no indication that priests particularly feel they should be involving the authorities in these crimes when they do hear them in confession. The case of Michael Joseph McArdle, who claims to have confessed to abuse more than 1,500 times over a 25 year period and found himself repeatedly told to pray it better, provides a particularly extreme example of the potential dangers in such a secretive system. Dr Marie Keenan suggests that the act of confession can be a salve to the conscience of abusers that allows them to continue in their crimes, quoting one of the abusive priests she interviewed as saying “In a strange way the sacramental Confession let us off the hook rather lightly, and perhaps allowed us to minimise what was actually happening . . . Not confronted adequately, we experienced only a short duration of guilt and no sense of responsibility for how we hurt others, only the alleviation of our own guilt and shame.”
However I now find myself moving more towards agreement with those that say the seal should not be broken. Not, I hasten to add, for any religious freedom reasons, but for the simple, evidence based fact that mandatory reporting does not seem to make children any safer from abuse.
A number of psychologist and social workers raised concerns about the effectiveness of the proposed system in Ireland. Experience in Australia seems to suggest that mandatory reporting leads to a flood of false positives, as people report anything that might be construed as abuse for fear of breaking the law themselves for not reporting it. This obviously has an impact on the child protection services as each report has to be investigated, with potential knock-on effects on the time and resources given over to actually helping children. A review of the evidence of various mandatory reporting systems from around the world suggested that while “extremely difficult to isolate the direct impact mandatory reporting legislation has, the available information suggests that mandatory reporting is unlikely [to] lead to improvements in the protection of children and young people.”
If the evidence suggests it doesn’t work there’s no reason to impinge on people’s behaviour and customs, religious or otherwise.
An “attack on religious freedom” is a cry that has lost a lot of its power in Western Europe in modern times, mainly because it is now made so often. Ireland knows the true meaning of losing religious freedom, when priests had to live like fugitives and mass was delivered in secret. And certainly France is doing its best to give meaning back to the statement by outlawing certain forms of clothing. But generally the cry seems to go up every time someone is prevented from discriminating against an innocent third party on “religious grounds”, or as an emotive and inaccurate summary of a more complex issue.
Religious freedom, and freedom of thought in general, is something that is enshrined in humanities key rights documents. However these rights come with limitations, which at first glance might sit badly with us; the limiting of human rights is something that happens on the news, not in these green and pleasant lands. There is a logic to these limitations, though. Our rights, at least when it comes to religion and thought, only stretch as far as the next person. When your rights start impinging on them, limits need to be put in place.
Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion…” Article 29 (2) adds the caveat – “In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others…” This point is hammered home in Article 30 – “Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.”
The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms is even more explicit, with Article 9 stating – “1. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion… 2. Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society…for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”
In other words, believe and worship as you please, just don’t negatively impact other people. Of course as with most things in life it’s not as simple as that, is it? Because how do you define negatively impacting someone else? What about the significant impact on quality of life caused by those damnable noisy Christians being summoned to their places of worship every Sunday by the rousing strike of metal upon metal? Or the Buddhists, preaching love and acceptance, undermining the prodigious and expensive work the arms trade has put into building up its ever burgeoning empire of destruction? And those agnostics, with their smug, holier than thou, assured-uncertainty, forcing others to question their dearly held beliefs?
And then what of the negative impact on those we prevent negatively impacting people? And then? And then? And then? And the world spins madly on…
If one is so inclined to look, typically in the more Daily Mail-esque scented expulsions, it is easy to find numerous tracts lambasting the apparent rise of “anti-Christian sentiment”. The usual stuff about Christmas being banned (FALSE), the Christian calendar being banned (FALSE), Islahomoterrorimmigrants being more important than this Christian Nation (I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT ANY MORE). Christianity is not being attacked, any more than my desire to freely poke people right in the eye with pointy sticks is being attacked. If it makes you feel any better I could set up a whole religion based around the idea of poking people right in the eye with pointy sticks, with particular poking zealotry reserved for those not amongst the ocularly enlightened. Would you support my religious freedom then?
I doubt it. It’s interesting that often those who are most vocal about religious freedom for their particular brand of worship seem a lot less open to the idea of other religions being allowed an equal share of that freedom. For an extreme example see the idea of introducing Sharia law. Not many in Western Europe are shouting for that particular religious freedom, oddly. They can understand the impact such a ruling would have on others, including themselves. What they seem incapable of doing is extending this understanding to their own (admittedly less sweeping) religious desires.
Suggesting the seal of confession be lifted in an attempt to keep children safe from abuse is not an attack on religious freedom. An ill thought out and knee-jerk political move, perhaps, but not an attack on religious freedom. No one (at least no one worth listening to) wants to stop people practicing their religion, publicly and as they see fit. Religions in all their stunningly varied forms make up a truly wonderful and vitally important part of the mad tapestry that is humankind. The issue is that in this ever crowded world we live in we need to make room for everyone, both physically and ideologically. Or, at least, we need to make room for everyone willing to make room for everyone. Intolerant of intolerance, and all that.
The simple answer is that there are no simple answers, and anyone or anything that claims to offer them should be considered with the utmost suspicion. Apparently we’re adults, with a grown-up brain and a grown-up ability to make grown-up decisions. This means trying to understand things from the other person’s perspective and seeking a compromise. Freedom of thought and freedom of religion are not the freedom to do as you please. It’s very easy to feel picked on when your particular brand of madness is targeted, but until the day humanity is reduced to a grey sludge of homogeneous thought, concessions will have to be made to ensure this existence is more than just bearable.
Brother Nex 