Bishop Says Priests Will Keep Confessional Seal

WCAX-TV (Vermont), April 16—Vermont's Bishop Kenneth Angell announced on April 15 that priests in his diocese would never be permitted to breach the seal of the confessional—as a proposed state law would require, according to a local TV station.

The bill would compel Vermont clerics and other Church employees to report any suspected child abusers to the police. The bishop said he would support the law if it allowed an exemption for sacramental confession.

“What is told in the confessional stays in the confessional,” Bishop Angell said. “The priest is not allowed to talk to anybody about it. Even if the penitent said, ‘Go ahead, talk,’ I couldn' do it. And if that meant that I' have to go to jail, I' have to go to jail. That includes all the priests in the state of Vermont and beyond.”

The bishop pointed out that priests who hear confessions of criminal acts are supposed to order the penitent to go to authorities.

Easter a Time for Conversions

USA TODAY, April 16—In a story to mark the Easter season, USA Today reported on a number of recent conversions, including some 160,000 to the Catholic faith.

The story noted that the ecumenical movement has helped break the barriers to conversion, as members of different faiths are exposed to others’ beliefs.

Egon Mayer, an author of the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, reported that some 16% of Americans said they' changed religions at some point in their lives.

It seems interfaith marriages are a key factor in conversions—some 43% of former Jews now identify as Catholics; the article speculates many married Catholics, since the two religious groups tend to live in close proximity in major American cities.

The story noted that such conversions rose steadily by 10 to 15% each decade throughout the 20th century, stalling in the 1960s, then rising again during the current pontificate.

Last year, some 161,000 adults joined the Church—up from 80,000 in 1973.

Catholic Parody Play Opened on Good Friday

CATHOLIC LEAGUE, April 17—“The Children of Fatima” opened on Good Friday at Rider University, an independent school in New Jersey, a move that was criticized by the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights.

Written by Michael Friel, the plot revolves around a Catholic schoolboy in the 1960s who fears the world will end when the pope reveals the third secret of Fatima. The play features a drunken Irish priest and an “[expletive] Sister Regina Coeli,” according to the Princeton Packet, a local New Jersey newspaper.

Catholic League noted that a friend of the play's author called it “Catholic bashing.”

President William Donohue inquired in a press release: “Why is the play opening on Good Friday?”

He continued: “I am asking [Rider University] President [Bart] Luedeke to reassure Catholic students that the university does not endorse this play.”