Cardinal Sean Brady has been attacked by The Irish Times for expressing misgivings about the Government’s 
proposals to undermine the seal of confession.
In an editorial today, the paper criticised as “unfair and disproportionate” his suggestion that the proposal to require priests to report confessions of child abuse to the civil authorities amounts to an attack on freedom of religion.
On Sunday in Knock, Cardinal Brady said that the sacrament of confession was a sacred and treasured rite.
Cardinal Brady said: “Freedom to participate in worship and to enjoy the long-established rites of the Church is so fundamental that any intrusion upon it is a challenge to the very basis of a free society.
“For example, the inviolability of the seal of confession is so fundamental to the very nature of the sacrament that any proposal that undermines that inviolability is a challenge to the right of every Catholic to freedom of religion and conscience.”
The paper’s editorial said that freedom of religion was “an important principle in a pluralist society” but suggested that legislation compromising the seal of confession was necessary for the protection of children.
Without giving examples, the paper added, “Other jurisdictions deal with the issue of priest-penitent privilege in various ways. With goodwill, it ought to be possible here to negotiate through conflicting rights and freedoms in the primary interest of children.”
However, the Minister for Children, Frances Fitzgerald, has reiterated the Government’s intention to apply their mandatory reporting legislation to the confessional.
According to the RTE news website, Ms Fitzgerald said she intends to bring the draft heads of the planned legislation to Government in coming months.
In the US, states such as Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland and New Hampshire all considered a similar move in the early 2000s after there was a public outcry there about clerical abuse, but they all retreated from the move in the end.