The Minister of the Interior receives this Tuesday the president of the bishops, who put religious secrecy above the civil laws of the Republic
The secret of confession divides the French Government and the Gallic Episcopal Conference after the publication last week of a report that revealed that some 330,000 French minors were victims of sexual abuse by priests or lay pedophiles in Catholic institutions between 1950 and 2020.
The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, will ask the president of the French Episcopal Conference, Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, for explanations this Tuesday after he caused a great controversy by ensuring that the confidentiality of confession is “stronger than the laws of the Republic”. “There is nothing stronger than the laws of the Republic in our country,” the government spokesman, Gabriel Attal, responded a few days ago.
France is debating these days about the secret of confession. In its report, the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuses in the Church (Ciase) recommended “to send a clear message” to confessors and the faithful that “the secrecy of confession cannot derogate from the obligation to point out to the judicial and administrative authorities the cases of sexual violence inflicted on a minor or a vulnerable person ”.
The Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, considers that the confidentiality of confession – contemplated by French law as professional secret – “is not absolute”. The priest has, according to the minister, the “imperative obligation” to alert the authorities in order to “put an end” to the sexual abuse of minors that is taking place. “If he does not do it, he should be condemned,” said the minister.
In 2019, the Chilean Church, the target of complaints for child abuse, rejected a law debated in that country that forced it to break the secret, assuring that it is “a sacred act” of reconciliation “with God.”
The head of the French bishops clarified after his first statements that secrecy allows both victims and aggressors to be entrusted. Would the victims trust each other if they think it won’t remain a secret? Let’s not steal this possibility from them, “said De Moulins-Beaufort, who nonetheless stressed that he was trying hard to find an alternative.
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