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Monica Doumit, the Director of Public Affairs and Engagement for the Archdiocese of Sydney in Australia, explains how anti-confession laws are bringing frightening implications not just for priests but for Catholic schools and other Catholic institutions throughout Australia. But do Catholics really have a right to keep secrets from secular authorities?
What happens when the seal of confession is called a crime? Monica Doumit, next.
Cy Kellett:
Hello and welcome to Focus, the Catholic Answers podcast for living, understanding and defending your Catholic faith. I’m Cy Kellett, your host and confession, it’s got some problems. Well, the problems come from this fact that sometimes, priests hear things in confession that the civil authorities would like to have reported to them. This doesn’t just damage confession or offend slightly against a habit that we Catholics have. It destroys the very idea of the sacramental life. It does. It goes right to the root of the idea that each person has a right to a sacramental contact with Jesus Christ, our savior.
And guess what? It’s worse in Australia than it is here in the United States, these attacks on confession. So here to defend confession, one of our favorite Australians, certainly in our top 10 Australians, Monica Doumit from the archdiocese of Sydney, Australia.
Monica Doumit, thanks for being with us on Catholic Answers Focus.
Monica Doumit:
Thank you so much for having me. It’s good to be back.
Cy Kellett:
All right. So you’re all the way down there in Australia and I have to share with you something that has gone on here in America and it’s going to shock you. You’re going to be like, “I can’t even believe that that happens in America.” One of our states, North Dakota and following in a tradition of some other states, has tried to make a law or has threatened to make a law in which Catholic priests would be told, “You must divulge what you hear in confession to the state if what is confessed has to do with child abuse.” And I know that’s probably very upsetting to you as an Australian, you’ve probably never heard of anything like that.
Monica Doumit:
Well, we have a saying down here, “Only in America.”
Cy Kellett:
Well, you speak for the archdiocese of Sydney and you’re a great advocate of life and of Catholic teaching there in Australia. What’s the situation been like in Australia as far as confession?
Monica Doumit:
Well, we had a Royal Commission, so a big government inquiry into child abuse in all institutions that began in about 2013 and ran for five years. At the end of 2017, it came out with its recommendations, a series of about 180 recommendations. One of them was which that our laws should be amended to require priests to do exactly what you say, to divulge what they hear in confession if it has to do with, and I’ll get to this a bit later, not child abuse, but child harm which is much broader.
Six out of our eight states and territories have passed such laws. So pretty much everywhere in Australia with the exception of New South Wales and Western Australia, the law provides no protection for the seal of confession. In some states, it was the very first recommendation out of the 180 that they implemented, sometimes even without consultation with the churches.
Cy Kellett:
Only in Australia, first of all, I want to turn that back on you. Only in Australia. But this is actually, I mean, we’d laugh a little bit, but this is horrific. But, by law, a priest is required to do something that a priest can never do, absolutely ever do.
Monica Doumit:
Absolutely. And the penalties can be incredibly severe. Tasmania has the highest penalties with the potential for imprisonment up to, I think, 21 years for refusing to divulge what was said in confession.
Cy Kellett:
What?
Monica Doumit:
So we’re not messing around here, yeah.
Cy Kellett:
So a priest hears a confession and the person divulges some harm to a child, one will assume that the only time that this will happen will be when people do it intentionally to entrap the priest because what person making a confession is going to go and tell on themselves? That seems extremely unlikely.
Cy Kellett:
So you’re setting up a situation essentially where someone who doesn’t like Catholic priests or doesn’t like Catholics or just wants to make a point goes in, says that they’ve done something to a child, the priest doesn’t report it. And then this person, presumably with a tape recording or some kind of digital recording in hand goes to the Royal mounted police or whatever you have there in Australia, I don’t know. And shares this is. Do you foresee this?
Monica Doumit:
Absolutely. But I’ll take it one step further. What if they don’t even go to confession and just make the accusation? How does a priest defend himself?
Cy Kellett:
Oh yes, I hadn’t thought about that.
Monica Doumit:
He can’t say, “Well, no, they didn’t come to confession. Yes they did. But they didn’t confess that.” So they didn’t even have to make the confession. They can just make it up. And the priest has no defense. I think for the first time ever, what we’re getting is a crime for which the person cannot defend themselves or against which the person cannot defend themselves. It’s extraordinary. It crosses a bridge, it crosses a line that we’ve never had I don’t think in Western democracies.
Cy Kellett:
I got to tell you that there’s a lot of people listening around the world who will say “Good, the priest should confess this. You shouldn’t hear a confession of someone who says, “I, for example, maybe did some sexual violence to a child.” And then you don’t report it. That’s going to be the attitude of a lot of people. Why do we Catholics, why are we so recalcitrant that we won’t go along with this?
Monica Doumit:
Well, I think there’s a few reasons and not only theological reasons. So if we’re talking from what confession is, it’s a conversation between the penitent and God. The priest is there, as you know, sitting in the person of Christ, but he’s not there in his own capacity as a citizen of the state, as a civil person. And so what this really is the state intruding on the very intricacies of somebody’s conscience and the manifestation of that conscience. And so that’s, in terms of a theological or religious perspective, that’s what we’re looking at.
But if we’re talking about just from a practical perspective and my archbishop is really good at speaking at this, he say’s it’s just going to be ineffectual because if somebody knows that they’re going to be reported to the police, they’re not going to come to confession. But if you have somebody who is sincerely trying to change their lives, confession is sometimes the very first step that they will take in recognizing the wrong that they are doing and seeking to amend that.
The Royal Commission itself said that at least for children that there should be safe spaces created where they can talk about it. One of the things that we’ve heard from is abused victims who say that the very first place they spoke about their abuse was in confession. And so there’s a practical element for confession that actually, I think, assists in detecting crime in the way that it encourages people to own up and face up to what’s happened.
I mean, any Catholic knows you don’t go to confession to hide. You go to confession to own up. And that’s just this crazy misunderstanding of what confession is. I mean, everyone says, “Oh, it’s this secret place where you go to hide all of your sins.” If I wanted to hide my sins, I’d just stay home. Right?
Cy Kellett:
Exactly. Yeah. So will this make it possible or is this even a step that even Australian states that have done this will not cross, but do you think that this will go to the point of the police, it has happened here in the United States once, recording a confession so that they could get the information and the ultimate outcome of that here in the United States was none of that evidence could be used because the court said, “You can’t record a confession,” that the state doesn’t have the authority to do that. So do you think it will get to that point, it’ll just become more and more intrusive?
Monica Doumit:
Look, I think it will. I think that our first problem is probably not the police, but the media. So I think that the first person who’ll get into a confessional recording isn’t someone who’s looking to make a complaint to the police but someone who’s looking to make a quick dollar out of a good story. That’s what I think. But Cy, it actually goes beyond just what happened in the confessional. So let me give you a couple of examples.
In Melbourne, which is quite a big city in Australia, their local city council wanted to write to all of the churches in the municipality and say, “Are you going to follow the mandatory reporting laws?” And then what they wanted to do was if they got no response from the church or if the response from the church said, “No, we’re going to uphold the seal of confession,” to erect a sign outside the church on council land that says, “This place is not safe for children.”
Cy Kellett:
Oh my God.
Monica Doumit:
So even without anybody walking into a confessional and confessing anything, these are the types of steps that they want to take to punish the churches, even for announcing the intention to uphold the seal. Another one in the Australian Capital Territory which is where Canberra is, the capital of Australia. On the same day that the laws changed about the confessional seal, they changed the education regulations so that the laws that govern the schools, they said that any non-government school, which means essentially a religious school that doesn’t follow the recommendations of the Royal Commission could have its registration canceled.
So in theory, you’ve got a school that’s applying for registration or applying to renew its registration, and they say, “Okay, well, do you take the children to confession during school hours?” Yes. Will the priests break the seal? No. All of a sudden you’ve set yourself up for a fight with the education authorities about whether or not your school can be registered.
Again, nothing is being confessed at this point. This is just announcing an intention to uphold the seal. And so there are certain sort of extra legislative ways that they can try and wedge the church, wedge Catholic schools in order to break the seal, or at least to punish them for pronouncing their intention to uphold it. It’s just extraordinary.
And this goes further than abuse. A lot of the laws talk about child harm, which is emotional harm, neglect, physical, psychological harm. And so you could have a priest in there who’s hearing a confession and there’s someone saying, “Well, look, I screamed at my children or I keep screaming at my children. I’m losing my cool,” or something like that. And he’s got to make the assessment in his mind, is that emotional harm? Is that psychological harm or is this just a standard confession? So this isn’t just about abuse. This is about all forms of what they call child harm.
Cy Kellett:
Well, it does seem to me that part of our conversation with the wider society in defending the Catholic practice of confession, which includes all of this, the Catholic practice of confession can never include the priest divulging. So if you say the priest must divulge what’s heard, that’s the end of the sacrament. That’s not like, “Well, that’s a minor modification.” That’s the end of what Catholics have always done. At least since confession has become an individual thing rather than a communal thing.
Cy Kellett:
So is there a way that … I guess what I want to ask you about is, are we facing this growing secularism that doesn’t understand religion at all and says, “What you Catholics are asking for is special privileges that you used to get and we just don’t want to give you those privileges anymore.” Do you think that that’s what’s happening and how do we answer that in a way that actually makes sense to the secular person?
Monica Doumit:
I think you’re exactly right. And I think the sacrament of confession is so misunderstood because even amongst Catholics, it’s so underutilized. And every article that you read written about this or every news report begins with most Catholics don’t go to confession, but. And then they start talking about the seal. And so what I like to say to people is the first and best way that you can defend the seal of confession is actually to go to confession, utilize the sacrament. We can’t expect the priests to be risking themselves, risking prison time in order to defend the seal. We can’t expect politicians to be standing up for something that’s thoroughly unpopular if then we’re not ready and willing to actually make use of the sacraments. So for all of the Catholics out there who want to know the first and best way to fight the state on in positions like this, it’s actually to go to confession.
But then beyond that, I think it really is speaking about the experience of confession, both from the side of the penitent and the side of the confessor. Again, I think it’s about explaining that this isn’t somewhere where we go over to hide, it’s not like this little hiding spot for Catholic sins. It’s the first step that I take to acknowledge the wrong that I’ve done and to really express a desire and to receive the grace to remedy it. That this, if anything, assists in society being better.
I think that I’m a better person for going to compassion. Not because it’s something that I do, but it’s about God’s work in me. You don’t want me living in society if I’m not also going to confession, because I would be a horrible, horrible person. I don’t know how we explain that. And I think we really do need to be speaking from personal experience, because if you look at confession from the outside, the idea of confession, it’s very, very strange to people who’ve never experienced sacramental confession. I guess I don’t blame them for misunderstanding it.
Cy Kellett:
I see what you’re saying, yes. Right. I mean, I don’t know if you’re a Catholic from childhood, but if you got a good catechesis in the second grade and you made your first confession and it’s been something that you’ve done all your life, you have a totally different sense of it than probably just about every other person on earth. I hadn’t thought about that, but yeah, it seems exotic and weird.
Monica Doumit:
Absolutely. And popular culture portrays it as something really dark. Think of all of the movies, there’s a lot of purple in there in the confessional boxes. In cinemas, it’s always really sort of dark. Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
And the priests always talk in the movies in confession. I’ve never heard a priest talk like that. They’re always like very … I don’t know, the priest comes across almost creepy, whereas that’s just not what confession is like. Although I suppose I’ve had some creepy confessions. There have been, I don’t want to just act like it’s all roses and everything, but in general, no, it’s not the way it’s depicted in the movies. It’s not what you think it is if you’ve never been.
And I would take exception on one thing you said and that is that Catholics don’t avail themselves of the sacrament of confession. I actually think that a lot of Catholics just have a misconception that confession is something you do later when you’re getting near death. So I would think a lot of priests do hear confessions very late in life that the person didn’t go for 40 … Well, that doesn’t mean the person doesn’t believe in confession, it’s just their practice of it is wrong. You should go every month or go every year at least. But I think a lot of Catholics who go their whole life, as a matter of fact, I know quite a few of these who say, “I didn’t go for 40 years. And then I got the diagnosis of cancer and I went and I’m so glad I went. That kind of thing, Monica.
Monica Doumit:
Oh yeah, sorry. You’re absolutely right. But it does seem something that you can put off, that’s something that’s just not a regular part of your faith practice.
Cy Kellett:
Right, right.
Monica Doumit:
I was one of the ones who grew up in the era of third rite of reconciliation, I think, for many, many years. I mean, my first confession was a third rite. I was that era.
Cy Kellett:
I don’t know what that is. You have to tell me, what does that mean?
Monica Doumit:
So the general absolution. The communal.
Cy Kellett:
Oh, you Australians are wild. [crosstalk 00:17:57] Yes, right. Oh, so you didn’t make a personal confession?
Monica Doumit:
Not my first confession. I think the school took us for the second, but for the most part, the general practice was Easter and Christmas, you had the big communal, general absolution. It wasn’t, I think, until [inaudible 00:18:16] stepped in and went, “Actually, let’s not do that anymore.” But yeah. So depending I think, like you said on if you had a good catechesis of confession growing up, your impression of it is different, your use of the sacrament is different.
Cy Kellett:
Yes. So, I want to get a sense of Australia too. I mean, my understanding of … You talked about Tasmania as the state that’s probably most aggressive in this and people in Tasmania don’t believe in God. I mean, it’s also a very secular state, isn’t it? I’m not trying to pick on them. I’m just trying to give people, this is not a place where you’re going to find a lot of Catholics.
Monica Doumit:
No, like the practice rates are unfortunately quite low in Tasmania, probably in terms of an archdiocese, it’s the lowest rate, which is really sad because the Archbishop down there, I just have to say, Archbishop Julian Porteous is amazing, such a good and holy Archbishop, such a good man. And I do believe that practice rates will increase from the fruits of his ministry and from his prayer life. So he’s a very, very wonderful Archbishop. But it is a horribly secular state down there.
Victoria is another one. Practice rates are quite reasonable there, but there’s a real hostility in particular, I think, in Victoria against faith and against the Catholic church, which just makes some of this really, really difficult. It’s a very difficult argument to fight at a political level as well. Usually what happens if a law that’s contentious comes up, you’ve got one party that supports it, one party that opposes it. And there’s a debate.
But for something like the seal of confession, there’s almost no opposition within the parliament for these laws. Any opposition has to come from outside and has to come from people of faith standing up. And because it’s not something that we share with our other Christian brothers and sisters, the collaboration that sometimes you get on other issues, like issues of life, doesn’t necessarily happen for the seal of confession.
Cy Kellett:
I think that’s beginning to happen in the United States too. I mean, I’ll just tell you, I looked it up, in that North Dakota bill that I started our conversation with the people who proposed it, Judy Lee, Republican, Kathy Hogan, Democrat, Curt Kreun, Republican, Mike Brandenburg, Republican, Mary Schneider, Democrat. This was not a partisan issue there in North Dakota. I think it took people pointing out that … I mean, we do have the benefit in the United States of a very long and deep history of religious freedom that we can appeal to. But I think more and more people are starting to think of religious freedom as freedom from religion rather than freedom to do things like have your own sacraments, like confession and that the state just doesn’t get to interfere in.
Monica Doumit:
Absolutely. And you have that great tradition of religious freedom in Australia. The way religious freedom is recognized is as an exemption to other laws. So religious freedom is protected because you’ve got discrimination law and then the churches are exempt in these circumstances. So you can’t discriminate on the basis of sex, except churches are allowed to choose their ministers.
Cy Kellett:
I see.
Monica Doumit:
And so religious freedom is already framed as something which is special treatment. And so that’s already a little bit on the nose. I don’t know if you have that expression in the United States, but people don’t like it. And then you add a horrible, horrible history of child abuse. And let’s not mix words here. I mean, the church itself did so much damage.
Cy Kellett:
Sure.
Monica Doumit:
And so you add that to this, and it’s just-
Cy Kellett:
If it’s thought of as an exception, people are tired of giving you the exception. That’s the situation [crosstalk 00:22:26]
Monica Doumit:
Exactly right. And you don’t deserve it. You’ve proven that you don’t deserve the exemption, more so that you can’t be trusted with an exemption. So why should we give it to you?
Cy Kellett:
But the person who’s coming to make the confession does deserve it. And there’s no history, there’s no wrong that removes the right of the person to speak to Jesus in the person of the priest, that never goes away. There’s nothing that mitigates it.
Monica Doumit:
Absolutely. And I think, good can always come out of situations like this. And I think that for us, it really should be a teaching moment. And instead of sort of shying away and stepping away from this, then we should take it as an opportunity to really keep speaking about the benefits of confession, the practice of confession, why it’s something that’s actually really beautiful and needed. So maybe that’s how we approach this.
Cy Kellett:
So, I mean, apologetics is what we do. And part of apologetics is defending the sacraments. So help me out before we let you go. And I’m very, very grateful that you took the time with us. Okay. So I mean, here in America, we call it an elevator pitch. You probably call it like a lift pitch or something there in Australia, I don’t know what you all say. But I’m on the elevator with the person, the secular person, who says, “You Catholics shouldn’t be allowed to keep secrets the way you do in confession.” What’s our apologetic, what’s our defense of it to that person?
Monica Doumit:
I’m going to steal mine from Archbishop Anthony Fisher, who is my boss and who is much more eloquent on this.
Cy Kellett:
Smart move.
Monica Doumit:
He says, “It’s unjust. It’s ineffectual. And it’s self-defeating.” So it’s unjust because it’s contrary to divine law and freedom of religion. It’s ineffective because priests aren’t going to break the seal. They will suffer the civil penalties to protect the seal. And it’s self-defeating because, like I keep saying, the confessional is sometimes the first place that people come to start amending their lives. And so if you take away that opportunity, that one space where they feel safe to actually own up to what they’re doing, then no child is going to be made safer.
So that’s the elevator pitch. And I would add to the Archbishop and just say, also it crosses a line of creating a criminal offense for which a person does not have the ability to defend themselves. And I think that’s a very, very scary place for Western democracies to be.
Cy Kellett:
That is a horrifying aspect. I hadn’t thought about that implication. But the priest can’t even say, “I never heard this person’s confession.” And maybe people don’t understand that. But the priest can’t say anything that reveals confession secrets. And so if you said, “I never heard this person’s confession.” Well, that would imply that maybe you heard someone else’s confession and you can’t do that. So the priest just can’t. He’s stuck. I assume the priests are not being like macho and mouthing off about this, though. I assume they’re just trying to just let this go quietly as much as they can. Is that correct about what’s going on in Australia
Monica Doumit:
For the most part. I think you’ve heard about it in the pulpit a few times, particularly in states that are challenging this. One of the most powerful homilies I heard was from a priest who just said, “I promise you now that I will not break the seal ever.” That’s been a great thing too. It’s been the ability for priests to sort of renew that commitment, even in light of these laws, to their faithful which I think is important for people in the pews to be hearing. But then also encouraging them and saying, “I’m upholding my part of the bargain, but it’s also a two way street. So you guys need to stand up and fight. So you guys need to be coming to confession and making use of the sacrament.” But really within the context of the mass and preaching is where you’re hearing it most from the priests, at least.
And, thankfully, the bishops have been really good and standing up. The Archbishop of Perth wrote this extraordinary letter to one of the government ministers who challenged him to publicly come out and support the laws. And essentially said she was virtue signaling. She was just wonderful. So, he came out really, really strongly. And the faithful loved it, absolutely backed it. Also took the opportunity to write a wonderful pastoral letter. So the bishops are doing a really good job on that. And I have to give credit where it’s due because they’ve been great.
Cy Kellett:
Well, you have so many wonderful lay Catholics in Australia, too. I know because I got to meet them, people like yourself. And I imagine that pressure, government pressure actually brings out the best in some of us, some of us who might get lazy otherwise. So, I mean, I don’t wish for it, but Australia is certainly in our prayers and I’m very grateful that you came to talk about this serious topic.
And we’re going to continue to call on you when things get out of hand down there in Australia to explain what’s going on. But I do ask that. I mean, I hope that Catholics who live in situations where they don’t face this kind of pressure will continue to pray for those who do face this kind of pressure. Pray for the church in Australia, pray for the priests around the world who face this increasing state invasive pressure. Monica Doumit, thanks very much.
Monica Doumit:
Thank you so much for having me.
Cy Kellett:
I think one of the things that Monica said that the secular person will be least sympathetic too and we have to almost turn to our secular friends and say, “Take this seriously, we’re not joking about this, or we need you to try to grasp what we believe here.” And that is where Monica said the person is not confessing to the priests, the person is confessing to Jesus Christ, the Lord, God. And the priest is there in persona Christi, the priest is there to represent Christ.
So Christ is not a citizen of Australia. Christ is not a citizen of the United States. Christ is the King of heaven and earth. And so what He hears from us cannot be put under subpoena by civil authorities. I know that’s very hard for a secular person to hear but it’s much easier to make … Monica did a good job of making the practical arguments. Well, this is not going to do you any good, because if you say, “We have to tell you what we hear in confession,” people just going to stop going to confession. It’s not going to produce more information for you. It’s just going to produce less of the sacrament for us. So you’re not going to get what you want and we’re not going to get what we need.
So on a practical level, we can make that argument. But I do think we have to … That spiritual argument that she made, that I have a right to talk to Jesus in the sacraments. I have a right to receive Jesus in the sacraments and that right, it far predates and far exceeds any rights that the state has. I have the right to speak to God in the way that God has invited me to speak to Him.
And He gave us confession. He gave it to us and the state can’t take it away, destroy it, undermine it by saying, “Well, we get to hear some of what gets said between you and God.” No, we can’t have that. And we won’t have it.
But in a practical way, sometimes I think it’s best, especially with … If I were a priest in Australia, I wouldn’t be out there going, “I don’t care about it,” because someone’s going to end up tricking you or doing something that puts you in jail in Tasmania for 21 years. But those of us who are not priests, I think we’ve got to stick up for the priests and we got to stick up for our right to receive the sacraments that God Himself has given us. I think we can have that conversation, even with people who don’t believe in God or in the sacraments that Jesus gave us.
Hey, we’d love to hear from you. If you’re a secular person who disagrees with you, we’d love to hear from you as well. You can always contact us via email at focus@catholic.com, focus@catholic.com is our email address. Please like and subscribe if you’re watching on YouTube, that really helps to grow the podcast.
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