CofE: ‘Come and confess your sins, but we might have to report you to the police’
by Archbishop Cranmer:
It their guidelines for Safeguarding Children and Young Adults from Harm, the Diocese of Canterbury has apparently abolished the Seal of the Confessional. No longer may the penitent sinner confess his or her vices and crimes to a priest in the sure and certain knowledge of ecclesial probity and pastoral confidentiality; henceforth, if the priest hears something which touches on another person’s ‘wellbeing’ or ‘safeguarding’, you can expect to be reported to the police or social services or the RSPCA (for why should concern for wellbeing stop with humans?).
This isn’t just any old diocese; it is Canterbury. The edict is thereby being promulgated under the aegis and in the name of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Has the Church of England really become so unconcerned with exhorting sinners to confess to one another that they’re perfectly content to induce in them the fear of police action should the sin involve a potential crime against the ‘wellbeing’ of another? The Diocese of Canterbury explains:
[…] There is a world of difference between the priest exhorting the penitent to report themselves to the police (or social services, or the RSPCA, etc.) as a contiguous act of penitence, and the priest actively doing the reporting (beyond, that is, to a bishop, as the higher spiritual authority). True repentance may have temporal consequences and demand restitution, but is it really for the spiritual authority to ensure that the temporal authorities are informed of a debt that needs paying? What, then, actually happens in the confessional after the sinner’s guilt and shame are admitted? Is absolution withheld until the priest has handed the penitent over to the relevant authorities? Is the act of reconciliation somehow suspended pending the priest finding time to visit the police station?
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