Mary Leary, professor, law, and Msgr. Stephen Rossetti, research associate professor, priestly spirituality and wellness, were quoted in Catholic News Service about challenges of the seal of confession due to the church crisis.
..."I think it’s worth noting that the mandatory reporting statutes, the clergy-penitent privilege, and the seal of confession, these three doctrines if you will, are all in tension with each other," said Mary Graw Leary, a professor of law at The Catholic University of America in Washington and a former prosecutor specializing in the abuse and exploitation of children and women. "They all serve very positive social goods. But, these kinds of circumstances bring them in tension with each other and it's a very difficult problem to solve."...
...It would be rare occurrence for a pedophile to confess the sin of child sexual abuse, Msgr. Rossetti told CNS in an April interview. "They are in such denial that what they are doing is child abuse, they just don't confess that," he said. "I have never heard it in the confessional. I never will. None of the priests I know have heard it."...
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