Aussie Bishop Wards off the State's Manipulation of Abuse Hysteria and Defends Confession

Edit: this is simple, but it's courageous and edifying. The message is, "hands off the Church, you vulgarians."

Ballarat bishop says confession is sacred

BY TOM MCILROY

BALLARAT’S Catholic bishop has rejected calls to force priests to report admissions of child sexual abuse taken during confession, to police.

South Australian independent senator Nick Xenophon this week called for priests to be required to report all admissions of child abuse to police, breaching the confidence of a priest and his parishioner.

Bishop Peter Connors called on law makers to respect the sacrament of confession...

Link to original...

You may also read the letters being written in Ireland about this orchestrated dog and pony show, thanks to Father Levi, who doesn't approve of everything we're about here, but provided us with the link, thank you very much. Here's a sample:

Sir, – In the maelstrom of criticism directed at the Catholic Church and some of its hierarchy, we should not forget that it is the State that has ultimate responsibility for the protection of our children. It is right to criticise the shortcomings of the church and set to rights the appalling wrongs that have been perpetrated by some clerics against children. We must not forget, however, that the problem of child sexual and physical abuse is as big (in fact, bigger) in the lay community than it is in the clerical community.

I am no apologist for the shortcomings of the church, but the almost exclusive focus on those shortcomings fails to address the overall problem. I would now like to see an equally powerful light shone on the issue of state protection of children. I have very little doubt that another appalling vista of inadequate procedures, dereliction of duty, protection of self-interest and inadequate resources will be revealed.

No doubt our politicians feel a certain sense of moral gratification in wrapping the knuckles of the Vatican and basking in the political dividends of doing so. The overall problem will not be solved,however, until our politicians are prepared to examine the failures of the State in this area with a similar intensity. – Yours, etc,

FELIX McTIERNAN,

Fitzwilliam Place,

Dublin 2.

Guardian Gloats Over the End of Confessional Ireland

Editor: the Guardian would never enable elements hostile to Catholicism, would it? The Irish Republic continues to dismantled and put away the remnants of an Irish confessional state with the blessing of a people saturated with media hysteria.

[Guardian] There are two parallel revolutions taking place on either side of the Irish Sea that will radically alter the relationship between government and non-state institutions that exercise major temporal power.

In Britain the ongoing revelations of wrongdoing within the Murdoch empire and the public humiliation of a media baron and his son may result in re-alignment in the relationship between politicians and the press, with the former becoming less supplicant to the latter.

One of the most important by-products of the last few incredible weeks has been the end of fear. Specifically, fear of media tycoons who used to boast that some of their newspapers had "won" elections and had left the prime ministerial ambitions of party leaders in ruins. The humbling of Murdoch Senior and Junior this week marked the end of that fear.

Link to Guardian...

Catholic Cartoon blog, here.

Irish Republic Attacks the Church

Editor: in those Leonine Prayers we say after the Immemorial Low Mass, we pray for the "liberty and exultation of Holy Mother the Church". We should be praying extra hard for that as the Irish Republic continues to attack those rights.

Ireland attacks confessional secrecy after Catholic sex abuse scandal

Ireland’s prime minister has said Catholic clerics would be prosecuted if they failed to tell the authorities about crimes disclosed during confession, the latest blow to the prestige of the once-dominant Church. A report this week found that the Church concealed from the authorities the sexual abuse of children by priests as recently as 2009, and that clerics appeared to follow Church law rather than Irish guidelines to protect minors.

“The law of the land should not be stopped by a crozier or a collar,” Prime Minister Enda Kenny told journalists on Thursday, referring to the hooked staff held by Catholic bishops during religious services. Kenny said his government would submit legislation to parliament that could jail clerics for up to five years if they failed to report to authorities information about the abuse of children.

The law will override the confessional privilege in Church law that prevents clerics from sharing information, he said. A series of revelations of rape and beatings by members of religious orders and the priesthood in the past have shattered the dominant role of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Read further...