How Secret the Confessional?

Five years ago, in Langenberg, West Germany, a teen-age butcher's apprentice confessed to a Roman Catholic priest that he had murdered an eight-year-old boy. During the confession, and in subsequent conversations, the priest urged the murderer to turn him self in and refused him absolution until he did so. The youth would not. Bound by canon law to observe the church's tradition that nothing said in confession may ever be disclosed, the priest was helpless to protest publicly. Yet in the next four years, three more chil dren in the Langenberg area were abducted and killed in much the same manner as the first.

Last week Jurgen Bartsch, 21, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the four murders. On the stand, he not only admitted the killings and confessed attempts to abduct 70 other children, but also allowed that he had sought ab solution from a priest after attacking his first victim. In Germany, the trial and its ghastly revelations have stirred a bitter debate on whether the confessional should be inviolate when it is privy to admissions of crime.

Unchallenged Principle. Even in an age when Catholic theologians are willing to challenge almost every other established doctrine or discipline, no one has yet challenged the principle that private confessions should be secret. Under church law, a priest may be automatically excommunicated if he divulges any information told him by a penitent --and deviations from the rule are al most nonexistent. Protestant ministers are equally circumspect regarding personal matters discussed with parishioners. The privilege of the confessional is acknowledged by courts in most West ern countries. In West Germany, for example, both Catholic and Protestant clerics -- as well as psychiatrists dealing with mental patients -- are exempt from a law requiring citizens to report any knowledge of crimes committed. The Bartsch case, however, has stirred an extraordinary amount of outcry against the silence of the priest involved be cause of the peculiarly repellent nature of the crimes.

The illegitimate son of a tuberculous war widow and an itinerant Dutch street singer, Jurgen Bartsch was adopted in 1954 by a Catholic couple. According to his own testimony, he was sexually molested by a male relative when he was eight, and in puberty displayed homosexual tendencies. All of Bartsch's victims were boys, all had been lured away from carnivals, all had been killed in an abandoned air-raid shelter. On the witnessstand, Bartsch described in detail how he had attempted anal intercourse with two of the boys, masturbated over them, then slaughtered the children as a butcher would a steer.

Essential to Integrity. Since Bartsch admitted that he had told a priest of the first killing, letters have poured into German newspapers, protesting that had the confessor not remained silent, the three other boys might be alive today. Nonetheless, Catholic priests and Protestant ministers have overwhelmingly defended the priest and confessional secrecy. On purely practical grounds, they contend, the secret confession probably prevents far more crimes than it hides, by providing an emotional outlet for disturbed persons.

Moreover, priestly guidance given in the confessional often persuades criminals to surrender to the authorities. Finally, were any exceptions made to secrecy, confidence in the value of confession would be destroyed. "The priest, like the physician or lawyer," said Dr. Anton Maier, a spokesman for Munich's Julius Cardinal Dopfner, "must retain the professional secret as an essential part of the integrity of his calling." Adds Protestant Pastor Christian Schulze of Hamburg: "We can only be thankful that we still have one place left in the world where a man can speak freely and not fear retribution."

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