Folia Theologica et Canonica 11. 33/25 (2022)
Ius canonicum
130 GORAN JOVICIC vors Network of those Abused by Priests) are pushing for no exceptions to be made in the mandatory reporting legislation for the confessional.* 17 The author wonders whether these mandatory reporting laws concerning the seal of confession, which are in the direct violation of the free exercise of the Catholic religion, can be traced back partially into the history of anti-Catholic sentiments and persecution of the Catholic Church in the UK and other parts of the realm. As we will show in this article, the seal of confession belongs to the core of the sacrament of penance, of the freedom of Christian faithful to confess their sins in private. And it must be remembered that the teaching of the religious freedom is a fundamental human right given by God, which is contained in the Magna Charta of the United Nations,18 and in the United States Constitution, which protects the right of the Church for a free exercise of religion. It would be a mistake to think, that the Church and the Second Vatican Council has abandoned her perennial teaching of the ius publicum ecclesiasticum and her teaching of the perfect society, which says that the Church and State are two perfect societies, and that each of them has all the means to organize itself and achieve its final goals—the goal of the state being to ensure the common good of its citizens, the Church’s ultimate goal being the salvation of souls.19 With societas perfecta20 doctrine the Church defends the libertas Ecclesiae in the domain of the spiritual good of men, given to Her from the divine origin and independent of the State.21 Pope Leo XIII declared in his Encyclical letter Imincluding-mandatory-reporting/JFEHZTGNCVBP5HDNMX4UMEH7SU/ (consulted: 1/23/ 2023). 17 The SNAP group said: “For Catholic Church leaders to say they support mandatory reporting “but with exceptions” is simply a contradiction because mandatory reporting means there must be no “legal, confessional, and therapeutic privilege,” - only respected for privacy at the sole request of the victim or survivor.” Catholic Church in NZ commits to sexual abuse changes including mandatory reporting legislation: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/catholic-church-in-nzcommits-to-sexual-abuse-changes-including-mandatory-reporting/JFEHZTGNCVBP5HDNMX4UMEH7SU/ (consulted: 1/23/2023). 18 Universal Declaration of the Human Rights, 10,h December 1947, here: https://www.un.org/en/ about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights (consulted: 1 /23/2023). 19 Pope Gelasius I already in 494 asserted in his Letter of Pope Gelasius to Emperor Anastasius the superiority of the spiritual over temporal power (494) by the teaching of the “two swords”. See here: http://legalhistorysources.com/Canon%20Law/Pope%20Gelasius%20on%20the%20 Two%20Swords.htm (consulted: 1/31/2023). Pope Paul VI used the term of perfect society in Sollicitudo Omnium Ecclesiarum (24 iun. 1969):AAS 61 (1969) 473-474. 20 Leo XIII, Immortale Dei (1 nov. 1885): ASS 18 (1885) 161-180. 21 Cf. in summarized form by Meijers, A. P. H., The independence of the church from the national state: A canonical analysis, in: Bijdragen 72/1 (2011) 3-17. About this topic see also Formicola, J. R., Catholic Clerical Sexual Abuse: Effects on Vatican Sovereignty and Papal Power, in Journal of Church and State 53/4 (2011) 523-544. Coughlin, J. J., Separation, Cooperation, and Human Dignity in Church-State Relations, in The Jurist 73 (2013) 539-554.
