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Plea to Pope: Stop childhood Confession!

In an open letter to Pope Francis, the award winning Catholic author, John Cornwell, who was victim of sexual solicitation in Confession as a boy, has called for a ban on childhood Confession. The letter follows the UNs harsh criticism of the Vatican over its handling of paedophile priests. Backed, he claims, by thousands of clergy, teachers and parents, Cornwell charges that obligatory Confession of young children in situations of unsupervised intimacy has been a crucial factor in clerical sexual abuse. The obligation for children to confess before they make their first Holy Communion, aged seven, he says, continues to put children at risk. First Confession should be delayed until a young person has acquired maturity, he says. The ritual of forgiveness of sins should be allowed in the case of children only in a public act of worship. The letter coincides with the publication in the US, Germany, Ireland, the UK and British Commonwealth of Cornwells investigative book, The Dark Box: A Secret History of Confession. The book reports widespread cases, recent and historic, of confession being used to test the vulnerability of child penitents for sexual solicitation. He estimates that more than 40 per cent of paedophile offences were committed by priests who had been trusted and given access as confessors. Cardinal Cormac Murphy OConnor, Emeritus Archbishop of Westminster, has written to Cornwell conceding that Confession, now known as the sacrament of Reconciliation, has not received serious reflection by any authoritative people within the Church. There should be proper reform of the sacrament, he says. Frequent confession of children barely out of infancy, Cornwell states, was first introduced in 1910 by Pope Pius X , who lowered the traditional age at which children made their first confession from puberty ( about 13 or 14, sometimes later) down to seven. Cornwell has assembled an extensive dossier of clerical sexual abuse by confessors, both within the confessional box and outside. He cites the experiences of hundreds of respondents. A priest-psychotherapist working for twenty years with paedophile priests writes: in all those cases of clerical abuse of minors, the sacrament of confession was used by the molester to discover vulnerability and groom candidates for abuse. Moreover, says Cornwell, abusers frequently exploited confession to square the circle of their offending and pastoral lives. He cites the case of a priest who confessed his paedophile attacks 1400 times to 32 different priests. Cornwell has copied the papal letter to senior members of the Curia. He says: This is a listening Pope who wants to know what Catholics really think. I hope that he will act. Eamon Duffy, Professor of the History of Christianity in the University of Cambridge, says Cornwells The Dark Box is a

major contribution to the Catholic Churchs examination of conscience about the roots and circumstances of sexual abuse.
Catholic best-selling author, David Lodge, writes:

Confession turns out to be the key that explains so much that is discreditable in the history of the Catholic Church. Contact John Cornwell via email: jc224@cam.ac.uk or publicity@profilebooks.com in US Leah.Stecher@perseusbooks.com

Papal Letter Sacrament of Reconciliation/Confession Dear Holy Father, Catholics have largely ceased to attend confession. A crucial reason is the introduction of children to confession at age seven, which has trivialised and infantilized this serious and beautiful sacrament. Moreover, untold millions of Catholics, of an older generation, suffered psychological abuse because of premature, frequent confession in their childhoods. Priestly access to children in unsupervised intimacy led to sexual abuse of minors. Public (as opposed to private) contrition and absolution is much to be desired for the young, and, where preferred, for the old. Following an article on the neglect of confession in the international Catholic weekly, The Tablet, 18 August 2012, widely distributed via the internet, thousands of Catholics have responded as follows: Forcing children barely out of infancy to make their first confession from the age of seven trivialises the sacrament, and creates opportunities for priestly abuse -- psychological and sexual. The Church should return to the traditional practice of many centuries ---allowing first confession only in early teenage years or thereafter. People (parents especially) and Priests want the return of the now banned option of General Absolution which emphasises the social nature of reconciliation, and in the 1970s brought millions of Catholics back to practice. The views and experiences of a wide constituency of Catholics are expressed in my recently published book The Dark Box: A Secret History of Confession (published by Berlin Verlag in Germany as Die Beichte: Eine Dunkle Geschichte) in the UK and Commonwealth by Profile Books, and in the US by Basic Books. Sincerely

John Cornwel