News
31st Aug 2018
Gillian Fitzpatrick
The country’s top Catholic body, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, announced that despite the outcome of an official State inquiry, it wouldn’t instruct priests to report abuse to police when they hear about it in confession.
RTÉ News explains: “One state and a territory in Australia have since introduced laws making it a crime for priests to fail to report abuse heard in the confessional, while the other five states and remaining territory have said they are considering their response.”
The ACBC said in a report that children “will be less rather than more safe if mandatory reporting of confessions were required”.
Mark Coleridge of the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference: Refusing to remove the seal of confession is not because we regard ourselves as being above the law or because we don't value the safety of children as supremely important.
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— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) August 31, 2018
ACBC President Mark Coleridge added that the seal of confession was “a non-negotiable element of our religious life and embodies an understanding of the believer and God”.
The five-year long Australian government report concluded that 7 percent of Catholic priests working in Australia between 1950 and 2010 had been accused of child sex crimes.
Two weeks ago, former Australian archbishop Philip Wilson became the most senior Catholic cleric globally to be convicted of concealing abuse. He is serving a one-year prison sentence at home but has said he will appeal the conviction.
Pope Francis was also recently accused by a United States archbishop of knowing for years about sexual misconduct by a US cardinal.
