Priests hiding behind confession seal

The largest group representing victims of pedophile priests wants the Roman Catholic Church to allow clergymen to break the so-called "sacred seal of confession" and reveal sex secrets heard during priest-to-priest confessions.

The church forbids priests to disclose information, even that involving criminal activity, which they get while hearing weekly confessions. Those who do are subject to excommunication from the church. The rule was to protect parishioners asking for forgiveness of sins.

But SNAP, or Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, claims the rule also protects pedophile priests.

"The church uses the rule as yet another way to protect themselves and continue the great web of secrecy," said Phil Saviano, head of the Massachusetts branch of SNAP, in an interview with WorldNetDaily.

Saviano says priests who have heard fellow priests confess to felonies, such as molesting or raping minors, have a "moral obligation" to tell authorities, or at least the parents of the minors.

If they withhold that information, he says, they essentially are acting as co-conspirators in ruining young lives.

"What's more important, adhering to the rule or protecting kids?" Saviano asked.

Breaking the seal of confession is not without precedence.

Last year, for example, a New York City man convicted of murder was released from prison after more than a decade, thanks to a priest who came forward with a story that exonerated him. Father Joseph Towle testified against a parishioner who had privately confessed to the same crime.

But the church rule has wended its way into public law, making it hard to prosecute confessors for crimes or compel priests to testify against them.

Prosecutors treat conversations between priests and parishioners as privileged, the same way attorney-client, doctor-patient and spousal conversations are considered privileged.

SNAP wants the church rule amended as part of reforms under review now by church hierarchy to deal with its mushrooming scandal.

But, in the past, "the seal of confession has been completely off-limits" as a possible reform, Saviano said.

Just since January, when the scandal erupted in Boston, thanks to courageous investigative reporting by the Boston Globe, at least 250 of the nation's 46,000 priests have resigned or been suspended over sexual misconduct claims. Four bishops also have stepped down. Most of the cases involve pederasty, or sex with boys.

On Friday, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will announce its final policy for disciplining abusive priests.

According to the Dallas Morning News, about two-thirds of the church hierarchy is involved in the cover-up of the crimes, which in some cases involved transferring priests who had been convicted of molestation to other churches, where they could prey on more children. At least eight bishops themselves have been accused of molestation.

Saviano thinks the church's conspiracy of silence over the sex crisis is even broader, given the fact that priests confess their sins to fellow priests once a week.

He also thinks that, outside the Boston area, the media has exposed just "the tip of the iceberg" in the total number of church molestation cases.