Child protection hypothetical

[Joseph Brossart]

Richard Dougherty:

   Volokh, Eugene wrote:
        You bet that the law would interfere with the church's performance
of its sacerdotal functions.

  Maybe not as much as one might think.  While it is common practice now for
Confession to be heard face-to-face, the older practice, still in vogue in
some venues, involves the confessional "box" where priest and penitent are
not together.

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A further practical manner of compliance, which I have seen several parishes
utilizing in recent years, is a "reconciliation room" for confessions where
one can confess face-to-face or anonymously but with a window on the room so
that encounter is not entirely private.

Joseph Brossart
Office of the Federal Public Defender
Charleston, West Virginia

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