It’s unbelievable that after so many findings of pedophilia and its coverup by the Catholic Church, there are still Catholic bigwigs, people like Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne, who want to continue brushing pedophilia under the rug—or keeping it in the confessional. His denials and evasions have been going on for over six months, yet as far as I know he hasn’t qualified or abandoned them, and he’s still the damn Archbishop of Melbourne.

As YourNewsWire.com and The Guardian reported, Hart, described as “Australia’s most powerful clergy,” responded to a report by Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The commission proposed 85 changes to the criminal law, recommending that priests face criminal charges for failing to report crimes like sexual abuse to the police. It also argued that “there should be ‘no excuse, protection nor privilege’ for Catholic clergy who failed to alert police of abuse within the church.”

Archbishop Hart isn’t buying it. As the Guardian reported, he would prefer to keep confessions of sexual abuse, whether by priests or their victims, within the sacrosanct confines of the confessional, though one could “encourage” a child to speak to someone else like a teacher. But the Archbishop himself would keep mum; after all, there is a “higher order” of sanctity: keeping the confessions private.

Speaking to ABC radio 774 in Melbourne, Hart said he stood by comments he made in 2011 that priests would rather be jailed than violate the sacramental seal. “I believe [confession] is an absolute sacrosanct communication of a higher order that priests by nature respect,” Hart said on Tuesday morning. “We are admitting a communication with God is of a higher order,” he said. “It is a sacred trust. It’s something those who are not Catholics find hard to understand but we believe it is most, most sacred and it’s very much part of us.” He said much of the abuse that occurred was historical and awareness of abuse was greater now, and he believed it was unlikely “anything would ever happen” today. But if someone were to confess they had been sexually abused or they knew of someone who had been, Hart said it would be adequate to encourage them to tell someone else outside of confession. For example, he would encourage a child to tell a teacher, who are already mandated under law to report. Confession, he added, was “perhaps the only opportunity where a person who has offended or a child who has been hurt can have the opportunity for broader advice,” he said.

Hart himself would rather go to jail than report sexual abuse to the authorities (from YNW.com):

Asked whether he was prepared to be jailed for failing to report child sex abuse by Catholic pedophile priests, Archbishop Hart confirmed he was willing to serve prison time. He also claimed the right to cover for pedophiles in the church is an “absolutely sacrosanct communication of a higher order.“

Hart is joined by other Catholic priests:

Father Frank Brennan, a Jesuit priest and professor of law at the Australian Catholic University, joined Hart in saying he would not adhere to any legislative changes. “And if there is a law that says that I have to disclose it, then yes, I will conscientiously refuse to comply with the law,’’ Brennan told the Australian. ‘‘All I can say is that in 32 years no one has ever come near me and confessed anything like that. And instituting such a law, I say, simply reduces rather than increases the prospect that anyone ever will come and confess that to me.’’

Seriously? And what if they do confess? Do they go to jail for rape? No way! The church will simply shuffle them off to a new parish, or urge them to hie to a monastery or take early retirement. Arguing that the law makes predators less likely to confess is not an argument at all, for confession doesn’t accomplish anything—at least not in the real world.

At least in the U.S., while the psychiatrist/patient relationship is confidential, therapists have a duty to report to the police any evidence of a serious crime. I’m not sure that that’s true in Australia, but it doesn’t seem to be true for the priest/parishoner or even the priest/priest relationship.

Here’s Hart justifying his views on the basis that confession allows the rapist priest to be forgiven (but what about the confessing child?). This is sheer lunacy: an example of religion covering up horrible crimes to maintain its doctrine.

Here’s Hart in 2013, refusing to answer a question about whether pedophiles identified by the Church are still on the loose in society.

This is one example of how religion poisons everything. Truly, this man has no business being an Archbishop, much less a priest, for he has a serious morality problem. If he had his way, pedophile priests might be chastised by the Church, or given early retirement, but they’d still be allowed to go free and mingle in society. Yet we know that pedophilia is not usually a one-off thing: pedophiles have a serious and hard-to-cure problem, and society, not the Church, needs to do something about it.

Let us remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 22:21: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.” Civil punishment of pedophilia belongs to Caesar. After that’s taken care of, Hart can let God deal with it.

h/t: Gayle