By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
DOVETON Catholic priest Michael Shadbolt says he faces a “moral dilemma” on whether to report child sex abuse uncovered during a confessional.
Father Shadbolt leads Holy Family parish, which was featured in a landmark parliamentary report Betrayal of Trust on the handling of criminal child abuse by religious and other institutions.
The State Government is set to act on the damning report’s recommendations, including introducing a crime for concealing child abuse.
However, Fr Shadbolt said he is “seeking clarification” from church leaders on whether this would extend to the “secrecy of the confessional”.
“It has never happened to me but it causes me great difficulty. The care of children should be the highest priority but I want to be true to my teachings about the secrecy of the confession.
“It was drummed into us you don’t mention what’s said in a confessional to anybody. I see the importance of that but what if kids are likely to be abused? Boy, what a dilemma.”
“If you learn of the crime in a confession but also somewhere else, I don’t think that should be kept secret,” Fr Shadbolt said.
“What if a child was to come in [to a confessional] and say they were a victim, this is something I’d need to clarify.”
He said there was also a possible scenario in which a child sex abuser may suspect a priest knows of their crime, but deliberately attempt to silence the priest by confessing.
“That could be an instance where he is confessing not for penitence but to shut the priest up,” he said.
Fr Shadbolt said there had been little debate on the dilemmas within the church movement.
“It’s regarded as a non-issue among priests because no paedophile is going to come and confess that to a priest, certainly not to a priest he knows or can identify him.”
Fr Shadbolt said last week’s report was “confronting and shaming”.
He said it would take the church “100 years or more” to recover from the scandal – one of the worst things to happen to the church since the Protestant Reformation “all but destroyed the Catholic church” in the 16th century.
“We can’t regard this report as the end of an ugly period in our church’s history,” he said.
“We can only recover our reputation by ensuring this doesn’t happen again.”
Fr Shadbolt moved to Holy Family parish after the reign of accused child sex abuser, the late Father Peter Searson, who was at Holy Family from 1984-97.
Last week’s report stated the Catholic church failed to act on complaints against Father Searson, as well as other suspicious clergymen.
“At first I couldn’t believe these claims,” Fr Shadbolt said. “I thought it would be a tiny minority of priests but the cases kept coming. This suggested there were a significant minority – that’s the hardest thing to accept.
“I was convinced that the media were beating it up. There’s some truth in that, but not much. The media didn’t cause this issue, we caused it.”
Former teacher at the parish’s school Carmel Rafferty gave evidence to the inquiry that she was silenced, shut down and bullied in 1992 when she dared to question Father Searson’s behaviour.
Last week she spoke at a “rally of hope” on Parliament House steps – the day the inquiry’s report was handed down.
“I feel we’ve reached a watershed moment where we have been trying to be heard and finally our government has heard us and believed us,” she later told the Journal.
“There was a huge sense of relief that the burden has been lifted off our shoulders.”
