For Ciase, the secrecy of confession “cannot be opposed to the legal obligation to report sexual violence” on minors

Member of the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church (Ciase) and Scientific Director at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Foundation, anthropologist Laëtitia Atlani-Duault worked on the testimonies of victims who arrived directly in Ciase . These testimonies inspired one of the analyzes of the latter, for whom the secrecy of confession could not exempt priests from reporting sexual assaults on minors.

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Numerous testimonies from victims have reached Ciase directly, in addition to the responses to the call for testimonies. How were they taken into account?

Very many victims wished to testify directly, in hearing, before the members of the commission. We thus conducted 153 hearings of victims, conducted by tandems throughout France. To these hearings were added more than two thousand letters and emails sent to Ciase. In order for these testimonies to be heard and especially taken into account in our recommendations, it was necessary to analyze them exhaustively and then select, with the agreement of their authors, the most representative verbatims. What I have done. This made it possible to nourish the words of victims not only with the analysis provided, but also the text of the report itself, which makes it one of its specific features. And if you ask me for the most courageous example of this taking into account, in our recommendations, of the testimonies entrusted to us, it is on the secrecy of confession. We do not recommend the general lifting of the secrecy of confession, but its systematic lifting in the specific case of sexual violence against minors and vulnerable people. For a simple reason, which gives it all its strength: it is the law.

Why does Ciase say, unlike the Catholic Church, that the secrecy of confession is not applicable in cases of sexual assault on a minor or a vulnerable person?

Article 434-3 of the penal code provides for the reporting obligation for anyone with knowledge of deprivation, ill-treatment, assault or sexual assault inflicted on a minor or a vulnerable person. In 2016, the French Bishops’ Conference (CEF) recalled the principle of systematic reporting of facts to the criminal justice system.

But in parallel, the members of the Church often refer to a text dating from 1891 (and therefore even before the separation of the Churches and the State of 1905) according to which they can keep the secret on the revelations which are made to them. in confession. We find this double logic in the Vatican. In fact, Pope Francis published in 2019 a motu proprio which obliges the denunciation of the facts of sexual violence to the ecclesiastical authorities, in parallel with the civil laws, while reaffirming the absolute character of the secrecy of the confession.

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