A boy finally finds the courage to speak. It took him months, maybe years. For a long time, he has carried alone a secret that no child should carry, with shame, fear, and this terrible conviction, so common among victims, that it is better to remain silent.
One day, he confided in a teacher. The reaction is immediate, caring, responsible. The same day, he was taken to the principal’s office, his parents were summoned, and the questions began to pile up. And he panics. He found the strength to talk to one person, not everyone. Between the moment he said a few words and the moment he found himself facing his parents, he didn’t even have time to understand what was happening to him.
Releasing your suffering at your own pace
So he denies it. He says he lied, makes up a story, and everything stops. In appearance only. The wound remains, the silence returns, thicker than before. And for almost a year, in this silence that was taken for a lie, what he suffered continued.
Then he meets a priest. For the first time in a long time, he knows that there is a place where he can say what he wants without immediately fearing the consequences, where he can express his suffering at his own pace, where the word still belongs to him. He starts talking again. Not all at once: a few sentences, then more, over the weeks and confessions.
The priest minimizes nothing and protects no one. He helps him understand that he is not guilty, to slowly emerge from the shame, to regain his footing, and, when the time comes, to do what had to be done. Without this protected space, he would probably never have spoken again, and he would perhaps never have been able to act.
This priest has never remained passive. In the very secret of the confession, he not only listened: he accompanied her approach, step by step, until helping her to release a word that had remained buried. The seal does not lock the priest into impotence, quite the contrary. A child who comes to confide can learn to put into words what he is going through, helping him understand what he should say and who to turn to. No priest worthy of the name can leave a child alone with such a weight. But he does it with him, never against him.
The guarantee that no one will be able to take their history
This is why the current debate worries me. I understand those who want to call this secret into question: they want to better protect the victims, and this goal is also mine. But I fear that this measure will produce the opposite of what it seeks, because it risks ignoring the way in which a victim’s speech is born.
“Sometimes the only place where victims will ever speak is where no one will immediately be able to get to grips with their story. Take away that guarantee, and some won’t talk anymore. Not at all anymore. » Grégory Turpin
We almost never speak in one piece. We speak in fragments, we move forward then we step back, we test the listener before confiding more. This is not a cover-up; this is how a broken word returns. And some victims distrust institutions, because it is sometimes institutions, or adults in positions of authority, who have betrayed them. Sometimes the only place they will ever speak is where no one will be able to immediately grasp their story. Take away that guarantee, and some won’t talk anymore. Not at all anymore.
The real question remains: what would we gain from breaking this secret? Proponents of such a measure would respond that it would create a clearer legal obligation. But it is not clear that it produces more effective reports. Many abusers would simply stop confessing in a place where they know they can be denounced. Society would then gain neither name, nor fact, nor confession. On the other hand, it would risk losing one of the rare places where victims begin to speak.
We would perhaps not close a door behind the guilty; we would especially close it in front of some of those we claim to protect.
What comes under the sacramental seal
It is still necessary to say precisely what this secret covers, because the debate often gets lost due to failure to distinguish the situations. The sacramental seal prohibits the confessor from betraying what is entrusted to him within the framework of confession. It does not cover any words addressed to a priest, nor any information known by a cleric, nor the institutional responsibilities of a bishop, superior or management.
Everything that a cleric learns outside of the sacrament does not fall under the sacramental seal. This must therefore be treated according to common law, with the necessary protection, reporting and accountability obligations. Priests, bishops, superiors or those in charge who covered up abuse, displaced perpetrators, ignored alerts or preferred to preserve an institution rather than protect victims must answer for their actions. These did not protect the secret of confession; they betrayed their mission.
Condemning these failings does not amount to weakening the sacramental seal. On the contrary, it is a reminder that everything known outside of faith must be taken seriously, transmitted when the law requires it, and treated with the greatest firmness.
Help the victim break the silence
This is what the debate too often forgets: we must distinguish what must be said from what cannot be said. A bishopric, a direction, a council, a pastoral meeting are not a confessional. The obligations of protection and reporting must apply fully to everything known outside the sacrament. But the denomination is not an administrative office. It is not a governance tool. It is sometimes the last space where a wounded person dares to say what they cannot say anywhere else.
This secret, moreover, imposes neither silence nor inaction on the priest. He can, he must, encourage the person who confides to seek help, to speak outside, to file a complaint, to be accompanied by competent people. It can help the victim break the silence without brutalizing them, without confiscating their story, without reproducing this dispossession that so many victims have already suffered. What the secrecy of confession protects is not impunity. It is the possibility, for a broken word, to begin to exist.
A spiritual act
To understand Catholics’ attachment to this secret, we must understand what this sacrament is. For a Christian, it is neither a private conversation, nor an advice session, nor psychological support. It is a spiritual act where we place before God what we have that is most fragile, most shameful, most painful. Secrecy is not one rule among others: it is the condition of existence.
Without the absolute certainty that nothing will ever be used against him, the penitent no longer gives himself up, and confession ceases to be the unique place of truth that millions of believers find there. Even those who do not share this faith can understand it: every society recognizes spaces for speech of which trust is the very condition.
Protect victims, yes. This is why we must understand that some wounds only begin to heal when someone finally finds a place to speak without fear. Destroying this place will not necessarily protect more. This may only silence a few more. If I defend this place of speech today, it is because it one day allowed the boy that I was to begin to live again.
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