Folia Theologica et Canonica 10. 32/24 (2021)
Ius canonicum
FOLIA THEOLOGICA ET CANONICA (2021) 71-86 Gorán Jovicic MANDATORY REPORTING LEGISLATION AND THE SEAL OF CONFESSION IN LIGHT OF THE PREVENTION OF CHILD ABUSE AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM Introduction; I. Mandatory Reporting Legislation & the Seal of Confession, 1. France, a. Current Mandatory Reporting Recommendations in France, b. French Bishop Case, 2. USA, a. USA privileged communications, b. California Bill SB 360, c. Louisiana Priest Case, 3. Australia 's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, 4. Ireland’s Children First Act in 2015 Keywords: Prevention of Abuse; Safeguard of Minors; Inviolability of the Seal of Confession; Protection of Religious Freedom Introduction Recent discoveries of abuse1 in the Church and the cover up mentality among some Catholic clergy have caused a great outrage within and outside of the Church and damage of its reputation. It seems that this failure occurred because of various reasons: namely because of “taboo mentality”, decline of moral order and discipline in time of sexual revolution, lack of willingness to implement the Canon Law norms in a post conciliar time, protection of the Church’ reputation etc. The abuse of minors is a long and painful problem, which was not addressed adequately not only in the Church but in various civil institutions, in the family and among other religions as well. The recent discoveries of 100 years of sexual abuse among the boy scouts1 2 and sex trafficking among prominent pub-1 According to the “John Jay Report ” (2004), made by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, between 1950 to 2002, a total of 10,667 individuals had made allegations of child sexual abuse. Of these, the USA Dioceses had been able to identify 6,700 unique accusations against 4,392 clergy over that period, which is about 4% of all 109,694 ordained clergy i.e. priests or deacons or members of religious orders, active in the USA during the time covered by the study. See the Report here: https://www.usccb . org/sites/default/files/issues-and-action/child-and-youth-protection/upload/The-Causes-and- Context-of-Sexual-Abuse-of-Minors-by-Catholic-Priests-in-the-United-States-1950-2010.pdf (consulted: 11.18.2021). 2 See Abused in Scouting, in https://abusedinscouting.com/history-of-abuse/ (consulted: 11.18. 2021).
