Priest/Penitent Privilege

I am once again grateful to Rick, this time for his posting on the New Hampshire legislative development concerning penetration of the seal of the confessional. After reading Rick’s posting and other materials associated with this development, I discovered that the current bill before the State legislature is very limited in its scope and undermines only one privilege. While the legislators are at it, why not expand the coverage and add the doctor-patient privilege, the spousal privilege, the lawyer-client privilege? They, too, can insulate many items from public scrutiny including child abuse. So why just this privilege involving the seal of the confessional? I can imagine many scenarios in which doctors and lawyers would have information concerning these tragic kinds of cases but their privilege is not before the legislature. Consequently, it strikes me that there could be a due process issue involved. While we are at it, equal protection, at least among privilege claimants, seems to be at stake as well. And by the way, is it relevant that the legislative proposal was initially suggested by a member of a group whose motto is: “Keep the faith. Change the Church.^tm” I question the soundness of dealing with Church matters through civil legislation. Once again, there are serious concerns about the First Amendment that come into play.

I would like to pose a question for consideration by anyone interested in this legislative development: should they not consider the possibility that a priest might actually try to do the right thing by helping justice in these cases and still respect the seal of the confessional? As a practical matter, I wonder how many child molesters will be going to confession to seek absolution. But I’ll let that one between the priest and the penitent. The priest might just encourage and exhort reconciliation with God and with the neighbor who has been wronged, but we’ll never know what takes place in the exercise of this sacrament nor should we. I also wonder about where the legislators would come down if they were asked to expand the list of sins/crimes and members of other professions who might have information about them? For example, let’s consider the lawyer whose client has discussed matters involving the same matter. We could also consider the physician whose patient has done the same.

I think Representative Bettencourt’s parish priest is on to something. Justice is at stake, and so is integrity, and the two are related. And for those of us who are genuinely concerned about the devastating cancer of child abuse (which is probably most of us), let’s not forget that there are a lot of good people who have the legal protection of different evidentiary privileges who are still trying to combat this curse while at the same time respecting their solemn oaths not to divulge information that should not be divulged because it was received in confidence. While having a superficial appeal, this legislative proposal, I think, would create more problems and solve few, if any. But in the meantime, an important evidentiary privilege risks being compromised.   RJA sj