Skip to main content

FSSPX.News: Australia: Law Against Secrecy of Confession Takes Effect

Image
By

 +

JMJ

 So - this is an important point in this crisis of the Church - the Seal of Confession is now grounds for prosecution and therefore persecution.

All that has to happen is someone to 'fake' a confession and see if it is reported to the authorities.

P^3

 

Courtesy of FSSPX.News

Australia: Law Against Secrecy of Confession Takes Effect

November 27, 2022
Source: fsspx.news

 
 
Western Australian Parliament

The law applies to Western Australia, the largest of the Australian states. Entering into force on November 1, 2022, it obliges ministers of religion to report all cases of child abuse, including those for which the information obtained would have been within the framework of the Sacrament of Penance.

These changes are part of new laws introduced by the government of Mark McGowan, currently Premier of Western Australia. However, this law was passed in October of 2021.

The law specifies that priests will be considered culpable if they failed to report the fact that the information was revealed to them during the administration of the Sacrament of Penance.

The omission of such a report is a crime in this Australian state – as in many countries of the world – punishable by a maximum penalty of $6,000 AUD.

A Growing Restriction

Archbishop Timothy Costelloe of Perth defended the secrecy of confession as essential to the Catholic Faith before a Western Australian parliamentary inquiry.

Acknowledging the “appalling history” of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, the archbishop said he understood why people were appalled by his insistence on maintaining the principle of absolute confidentiality of the sacrament as practiced in the Catholic Church.

“But,” he explained, “sins are not confessed to the priest, but to God. … The priest therefore has neither the right nor the authority to reveal anything that happens in this intimate encounter with God.… Making illegal the free practice of an essential aspect of the Catholic faith seems to me something that modern secular societies have always understood to be beyond the limits of their authority.”

The Minister of Child Protection, Simone McGurk, said the government is committed to implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse published in 2017.

But the parliamentarians willfully ignored a recommendation from the state’s permanent legislative commission, dating from September 2020, asking that sacramental confession be excluded from the scope of the law on the denunciation of abuses committed on minors.

Other States Concerned

Western Australia is not the first Australian state to issue such legislation. It is the fifth Australian state – out of six – to have launched the offensive against the secrecy of sacramental confession after Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, the Australian Capital Territory, and finally, in September 2020, the State of Queensland.

(Source : InfoCatolica - FSSPX.Actualités)
Illustration : Nachoman-au, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Curious Case of Steve Skojec and the Dangers of Deep Diving into the Crisis Sub-Titled: The Failings of Others

By
 + JMJ It's been a while now since Steve Skojec sold 1P5 and abandoned the Catholic Faith. I've been a 'Trad' since 1982 and in those 40+ years I seen this death-spiral before with a similar end point. It seems that anyone who jumps into the fray unprepared for the enormous task of righting wrongs will, eventually, become discouraged by not the task but the people who surround them.   I remember when Skojec complained of the treatment his family received from a traditional priest.  This seems to have been the start of the end for him. So what can we learn from the likes of Steve Skojec, Michael Voris (maybe?), Louie Verrecchio, Gerry Matatix and other celebrity Catholics? Probably quite a lot about what not to do. First, don't burn out on the crisis?  When you burn out, on work or anything else, little things assume a more greater importance than they are due.   This is one of my 'canary in the coal mine' signals that I've been stretching myself too thin
Post a Comment
Read more

What the heck is a congregation of "Pontifical Right"

By
+ JMJ In a discussion with a friend the question occurred to me that I didn't actually know was is involved in being a religious order of 'pontifical right'. I had a vague notion that this meant they reported to Rome as opposed to the local diocese. I'm also aware that, according to the accounts I have heard, the Archbishop received 'praise' and the written direction to incardinate priests directly into the SSPX.  This is interesting because it implies that the SSPX priests were no longer required to incardinate in the local diocese but in the SSPX. This is something that belongs to an order of 'pontifical right'. Anyway here's some definitions: Di diritto pontificio is the Italian term for “of pontifical right” . It is given to the ecclesiastical institutions (the religious and secular institutes, societies of apostolic life) either created by the Holy See or approved by it with the formal decree, known by its Latin name, Decretu
Post a Comment
Read more

De Veritate - St. Thomas Aquinas - What is necessary to believe explicitly?

By
I was recently introduced to a work of St. Thomas De Veritate ( Source ) in the course of an argument concerning the minimum content of explicit faith.  When I submitted the following quote as proof: Theological faith, that is, a supernatural faith in Revelation, is necessary, and this is an effect of grace (D 1789); nemini unquam sine ilIa contigit iustificatio (D 1793). As far as the content of this faith is concerned, according to Hebr. 11, 6, at least the existence of God and retribution in the other world must be firmly held, necessitate medii (by the necessity of means) with explicit faith. In regard to the Trinity and the Incarnation, implicit faith suffices. The supernatural faith necessary for justification is attained when God grants to the unbeliever by internal inspiration or external teaching a knowledge of the truths of Revelation, and actual grace to make the supernatural act of faith. Cf. De verite 14, I I.Ott - Fundamentals of Dogma p241 In response my opponent wrot
Post a Comment
Read more

Rorate-Caeli: New Interview with Fr. Charles Murr on what Mother Pascalina Knew about Bugnini, Paul VI, and Other Major Figures

By
 + JMJ    Rorate has posted an interesting interview that includes details about Bugnini.  I have quoted below the key elements.  This will come as nothing new to seasoned Trads, but represents another step in understanding how we got to this point! P^3 Courtesy of Rorate-Caeli   Fr. Murr, if Archbishop Bugnini was somehow involved with Freemasonry, what can we say, then, about Bugnini and the Conciliar liturgical reforms? MURR: I think it is better to ask whether “Freemasonic designs” had something to do with the liturgical reforms that Bugnini  decided  the Second Vatican Council desired. Were Bugnini’s reforms concerned with a more perfect adoration and worship of God, or with celebrating the Freemasonic concept of the brotherhood of man?  When certain Council Fathers insisted that not one word of the 1,600-year-old Roman Canon be touched, by any stretch of the imagination, could that be taken to mean they wanted to concoct entirely new canons? 10  When Archbishop Carlo Ma
Post a Comment
Read more

Cathinfo and the 'resistance' perspective (updated with response to comment)

By
+ JMJ Matthew, the owner of Cathinfo - a resistance forum has posted a response to a person that indicated his reasons for continuing to go to the SSPX.
3 comments
Read more