Anti-Catholic Washington State Law Will BREAK the Sacrosanct SEAL of CONFESSION
DEFEND the SEAL of CONFESSION
Please Pledge to PRAY 3 Hail Marys a Day
Until Divine Mercy Sunday, when the anti-Catholic bill must Pass or Fail
Chilling ANTI-CATHOLIC CHURCH News
On March 5, Lifesitenews.com headlined a story with the following:
Washington Senate passes bill to jail priests for not violating Seal of Confession
The bill is being sponsored by a pro-abortion, pro-LGBT self-professed Catholic state senator.
Under normal circumstances, I would ask you to sign a protest petition against this bill. However, because SB 5375 - HB 1211—is still in the political process, America Needs Fatima cannot send a protest. So, I ask that you commit yourself to praying for its failure.
This slick and insidious ‘reporting’ law clearly masquerades as a concern for ‘child welfare' to undermine one of the most essential sacraments of God’s one true Church.
Three Hail Marys Daily: Begin as soon as possible and pray each day until Divine Mercy Sunday. It seems Providential to me that Divine Mercy Sunday this year coincides with the official Adjournment Day of the Washington state legislature. By that time, their Governor must sign this anti-Catholic bill into law—or it will joyfully go to the graveyard where it belongs.
While we, the America Needs Fatima campaign of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property – TFP, abhor and do everything we can to oppose the widespread collapse in sexual mores in America and the world, we refuse to remain silent when the Church and the Seal of Confession come under attack.
Please forward this prayer petition to all of your friends and contacts.
Critical & Urgent
Your commitment to pray against this proposed law is needed immediately! The legislature is in a hurry because its legislative session ends in a month… April 27, Divine Mercy Sunday. Warning: It’s moving rapidly forward.
- The first reading in the state’s Senate was on January 20. On February 28, ‘rules’ were suspended, and it passed 28-to-20.
- The following week, it passed its First Reading in the state’s House.
- Two weeks ago, a close friend of mine saw it successfully clear its Public Hearing phase, with nearly all testifiers endorsing its passage.
- Last week, it went through its Executive Session with a vote of 8 to 3.
- As I write at 12:58pm, the Bill History just emailed: “Referred to Rules2 [sic] Review.”
Once out of ‘Rules,’ they will pass it on to schedule the full House Chamber vote and then to the likely-to-sign Governor.
If that happens, it would become Washington state law and set a very anti-Catholic precedent for America.
So, again, I ask that you seriously commit to PRAY for the FAILURE of this bill.
Please take action now and share this email or prayer petition with all your friends and contacts.
Priests Will Be Jailed.
Once the Seal of Confession is broken, the Sacrament of Mercy – through which God forgives sins through the ministry of the priest – is severely damaged.
- The Church loses Her freedom.
- The Church and her priests will effectively become an instrument of the State.
- The Church may be compelled to report on other activities of penitent citizens when the State so decides.
- Once the State succeeds in breaking the Seal of Confession regarding child sex abuse, there’s no end to the potential State-mandated abuses.
Catholics have a God-given right to believe, profess, and practice their Catholic faith in full freedom, without improper government interference – anywhere in the world, especially in free societies.
This proposed persecutory Washington state law against the Seal of Confession is shameful in itself.
Divine Law Forbids the Violation Of The Seal Of Confession
If, on the natural plane in the temporal sphere, confidentiality in legal or medical counseling is essential for the good functioning of society, in the supernatural sphere (where the Sacrament of Confession is rooted) confidentiality is an absolute necessity. The need for confidentiality does not stem merely from a law of the natural order, but from an imposition of Divine Law which brooks no exception.
Priests Will Be Jailed
A foundational doctrine of the Roman Catholic Faith for her thousands of years mandates that the Seal of Confession is absolute and inviolable. Pursuant to his oath to the Church, a priest is compelled never to break that seal. Neither is a priest allowed to admit that someone went to confession to him. If necessary, the priest would have to suffer a finding of contempt in a civil court and suffer imprisonment rather than violate his sacred duty and violate the Seal of Confession and his duty to the penitent.
An Ineffective Law
Faithful Priests Prefer Death To Betraying The Seal Of Confession
A secular law forcing priests to break the Seal of Confession places them in the excruciating dilemma of having to choose between obeying God and His Church or a secularist State.
Even from a pragmatic point of view, this proposed Washington state law is absurd. Those guilty of child sexual abuse will simply be more likely to avoid Confession. However, in abstaining from Confession, criminals cut themselves off from the benefits of the Sacrament and thus from supernatural grace and the possibility of effectively quitting their sinful ways.
Sanctifying grace from the Sacrament of Reconciliation is the most effective form of behavior modification. We should peacefully, legally, and prayerfully struggle to keep the integrity of this most powerful tool available to sinners, no matter how shameful the sin.
Confession with Christ
What opponents of confession fail to realize is that confession outweighs any form of professional confidentiality or secrecy. Confession is a supernatural affair. When a person confesses his sins, the priest is merely the minister, acting in the person of Christ. In reality, it is Christ who forgives the sins, and the priest has no right to reveal anything that is confessed to Christ.
A Serious Obligation
A priest cannot use the knowledge he gains in the confession even to save his own life. The moral obligation of priests who hear confession is so great that the Church’s Code of Canon Law qualifies it as “a crime for a confessor in any way to betray a penitent by word or in any other manner or for any reason” (no. 2490).
A priest cannot use the knowledge he gains in the confession even to save his own life or reputation or to refute a false accusation. He cannot even say what he did not hear in confession.
To safeguard this sacred trust, the Church imposes the highest of sanctions. Should a confessor directly violate the Seal of Confession, he incurs automatic excommunication, the loosing of which is reserved solely to the Apostolic See (Code of Canon Law, no. 1888.1).
May Our Lady, the Immaculate Conception, Patroness of the United States of America, protect Holy Mother Church from religious persecution, and obtain from her Divine Son courage and perseverance for all Catholics in this struggle to defend the Church.
When human justice fails us, and we are deprived of our right and our freedom to practice the Catholic faith in its fullness, we must turn to the Supreme Tribunal of God Almighty, “just Judge, searcher of mind and heart” (Jer. 11:20), and urge His Divine intervention to restore order and justice among men.
In Loving Defense of The Seal of Confession, and in Jesus and Mary,
Robert E. Ritchie
Executive Director, America Needs Fatima