After Gearoid O Donchu says he would do nothing different as a result of hearing the confession, so he would let the people who drank the poisoned wine after him drink it and die.
Michael responded [5:40]
I think anybody listening to this will understand that that is a deeply immoral position – that on the basis of what you believe the creator of the universe is saying to you that you would allow another innocent priest to die by drinking altar wine that you are knowingly leaving there that’s poisoned – or more seriously, because it’s an actual case that we’re talking about, you would leave vulnerable children to be raped on the basis of not giving information that you know that could protect those children from being raped – it’s absolutely shocking and it shows that religion corrupts our natural sense of morality.
The priest explained about the super-special role of the confessional.
In confession the priest is acting as facilitator or mediator between god and the sinner, giving forgiveness, giving god’s forgiveness.
Just parenthetically – the absurd arrogance of that. I know that’s old news, but still. What makes them think – even accepting the god claims, even buying the notion that there’s a god – that they can “give” god’s forgiveness? The whole idea is ridiculous any way you look at it, including even goddy ways.
Michael asks then why do you try to persuade them to go to the authorities? If all you do is listen and give god’s forgiveness, why try to persuade and counsel them? The priest says he never said his only role is to listen, he also advises, but it all stays in the confessional. Joe Duffy says “In fairness, this is canon law.”
I stopped there – 8:23 – because I want to expostulate. So the fuck what?? What makes anyone think “canon law” is allowed to flout secular law? Why does anyone bother to say such a thing?
It’s exactly the same as the Mafia and other criminal organizations you know. They too have their own internal laws, especially laws mandating silence, and loyalty to colleagues at the expense of everyone else, and concealment at all costs.
Next Michael gives a good summing up of how warped Catholic morality is, and there’s a fraught little pause, and then the priest says, “All I can do is repeat” and I laugh loudly and hit the pause button [9:48] and that’s enough for now.
Surely, if a Catholic priest was told by a confessor that the altar wine was poisoned, the priest could not grant forgiveness until the confessor got rid of the poison. At least that’s my understanding from M*A*S*H’s Father Mulcahey, who insisted that he could not forgive the person for a sin that was ongoing (pretending to be someone else so that he could go home).
From my childhood training in Catholicism, NitricAcid is correct.
The priest would not “grant forgiveness” in such a case.
There is nothing to prevent the priest from disposing of the wine before anyone is harmed.
(the confessor is the priest, the one confessing is a penitant)
I don’t care about canon law, but I’m interested in a broader question. Is anyone allowed to flout secular law, ever? Is there anything that does or should supersede obedience to secular law?
There is a book by Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis called Cannon Law.
In my childhood Catholic religion classes I was told the same thing as chigau that a priest can withold absolution to prevent an on-going offense. Moreover a priest can make the penitent go to the appropriate authorities as a requirement for absolution.
Gearoid is trying to protect both the church and his personal ass by pretending his hands were tied by “confessional silence.” Besides, if he broke the silence he just needs to go to a priest and get absolution for his “sin.”
@A masked avenger:
I respectfully link.
@nitricacid:
It’s my understanding that M*A*S*H was fiction and that periodic plot points revolved around forcing Father Mulcahey into conflicts where the best thing to do was not the thing required by canon law. By routinely choosing the best thing rather than doctrine, the imaginary Mulcahey reinforced to primary messages of M*A*S*H:
1: War corrupts everyone.
2: You can’t rely on higher ups or doctrine to tell you what’s right: inevitably you have to think for yourself.
Since Mulcahey is imaginary, and since this was a periodic plot device that meshed with the goals of the show’s writers, I think one should be pretty careful drawing conclusions about canon law from a sitcom.
I don’t think he was saying anything about forgiving the wine-poisoner, rather he was saying that anything he hears in the confessional has to stay in the confessional; his whole schtick is that he has to act as if he hasn’t heard any of the things he hears there.
And toward the end it becomes apparent (due to some excellent questioning from Michael Nugent) that he has heard some appalling things and done nothing about them because reporting them would make baby Jesus cry…
I just have to ask, when reading the name “father Gearoid” does anyone else here get the mental Image of Inspector Gadget in a dog collar?
@Al Dente:
Actually, that particular “sin” gets the priest automatically excommunicated; it can only be forgiven, and the excommunication reversed, by the Pope. It’s still contemptible ass-covering, of course; there’s just that extra degree of convenient institutional leverage backing it up.
How is this guy not arrested for aiding and abetting?
If it’s that important, they won’t mind so much if their asses are thrown in prison for failing to report a major crime.
And unlike Huck Finn he’s too much of a coward to do the right thing and show compassion even if it means he’ll go to hell.
@3 A Masked Avenger: Is anyone allowed to flout secular law, ever? Is there anything that does … supersede obedience to secular law?
Interestingly enough, the foreign diplomatic corps is excused from our secular law. It’s called “diplomatic immunity” and it’s caused all sorts of problems – from years of parking tickets that can never be collected to, if memory serves, one time a diplomat’s son murdered someone. There are cases of rape and assault and pretty much the whole 9 yards – which cannot be prosecuted because of diplomatic immunity.