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Vatican News noted that the bishops’ conference statement described Darmanin’s request as an “invitation” rather than a “summons,” as has been widely described in media reports.
PARIS, France – The president of the bishops’ conference of France has accepted a request to discuss his recent comments on the denominational seal with the country’s interior minister.
Bishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort will meet Gérald Darmanin on October 12 at the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior in Paris, according to an October 7 press release. declaration on the website of the episcopal conference.
“Bishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort will be happy to discuss with the Minister of the Interior the meaning of the sacrament of confession for Catholics and the theological, spiritual and canonical foundations of the seal of confession,” said the press release.
He explained that Darmanin, responsible for religious affairs, contacted the Archbishop of Reims on October 7, expressing his wish to organize a meeting. Archbishop Moulins-Beaufort accepted the request shortly after receiving the message, he added.
Vatican News Noted that the bishops’ conference statement described Darmanin’s request as an “invitation” rather than a “summons,” as has been widely described in the media.
Darmanin responded to the comments made by Bishop Moulins-Beaufort in an interview on October 6 after the publication of a historical report on abuses in the French Catholic Church.
In the maintenance with FranceInfo, the archbishop was in a hurry to know if the confessional seal took precedence over French laws.
“The seal of confession is imposed on us and in this it is stronger than the laws of the Republic”, he declared.
France has a mandatory declaration law, with penalties for failure to stop or report a crime.
French government spokesman Gabriel Attal said on October 7: “Nothing takes precedence over the laws of the republic in our country.
The statement on the Episcopal Conference website said that the meeting with Darmanin “will be an opportunity for [Archbishop Moulins-Beaufort] to recall that today, the seal of confession, imposed on priests by canon law, is not contrary to French criminal law, as the Chancellery circular of August 11, 2004 underlines.
The 2004 “Circular on the professional secrecy of ministers of religion” was issued by the French Ministry of Justice.
The Vatican has firmly defended the denominational seal in response to mandatory reporting laws around the world.
In June 2019, the Apostolic Penitentiary, a dicastery of the Roman Curia, published a Remark reaffirming the inviolability of the sacramental seal.
The memo said that “there appears to be some disturbing ‘negative prejudice’ expressed against the Catholic Church whose existence on the one hand is culturally presented and socially reconstituted in light of the tensions that may arise within the hierarchy. itself and, on the other hand, others emanate from the recent appalling scandals of abuse perpetrated by certain members of the clergy.
He continues: “This prejudice, oblivious of the true nature of the Church, of her authentic history and of the real and beneficial presence that she has always had and that she has in human life, is sometimes transformed into the unjustifiable “claim” that the Church itself, in certain matters, should conform its own legal system to the civil systems of the states in which it is present, as the only possible “guarantee of correctness and rectitude”.
He adds: “The inviolable secrecy of confession derives directly from revealed divine right and is rooted in the very nature of the sacrament, to the point of admitting no exception in the ecclesial sphere, nor, above all, in the civil sphere. . ”
As president of the conference of bishops of France, Bishop Moulins-Beaufort spoke on topics such as the pandemic restrictions on public worship and changes to the country’s bioethics law.
Last December he Recount AIIC that “the Church in France is being challenged in many ways”.
Tuesday, Bishop Moulins-Beaufort was talking at the launch of a report concluding that hundreds of thousands of children have been abused in the Catholic Church in France over the past 70 years.
The final report of the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) said about 216,000 children were abused by priests, deacons, monks or nuns from 1950 to 2020.
Among the reports 45 recommendations was a request for the Church to reconsider the seal of confession over abuse.
He said: “Send a clear message from the authorities of the Church to the penitents who go to confession and to the faithful that the seal of confession cannot derogate from the obligation foreseen by the [French] Penal Code – which is, in the opinion of the Commission, compatible with the obligation of natural divine right to protect the life and dignity of the person – to report to the judicial and administrative authorities all cases of sexual violence inflicted on a child or a vulnerable person. “
The Oct. 7 statement posted on the French Bishops’ Conference website said the confession provided a space for survivors of abuse to discuss their experiences.
“The confession is also a moment during which a victim, for example a child, can talk about what she has suffered, and be reassured about her innocence … because the certainty of the secret allows her to share what she has suffered. lived. is the most difficult, â€he said.
“This time can then be, with the encouragement of the priest who receives this confession, a first step in the liberation of the word, outside the sacrament.
“The secrecy of confessions has always been respected by the French Republic. It is the honor of the French Republic to respect the dignity of the conscience of each person.
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