Australian report into child sex abuse wants to break confessional seal

SYDNEY: An Australian report into child sex abuse yesterday recommended new laws to compel clergy to report sex abuse allegations they hear in religious confession.

Current laws in most Australian states uphold the confidentiality of the religious confession.

A government- sanctioned inquiry into child sex abuse said it heard that some perpetrators who confessed to sexually abusing children went on to reoffend and seek forgiveness again.

“Clergy should not be able to refuse to report because the information was received during confession,” the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse said in a statement attached to the report yesterday.

“Persons in institutions should report if they know, suspect or should have suspected a child is being or has been sexually abused.” The government did not immediately respond to the report.

The Royal Commission had previously heard that 7 per cent of Catholic priests working in Australia between 1950 and 2010 were accused of child sex crimes and that close to 1,100 people filed child sexual assault claims against the Anglican Church over a 35year period.

A royal commission is Australia’s most powerful kind of governmentappointed inquiry and can compel witnesses to give evidence and recommend prosecutions, but it does not make laws.

“Priests are able to say that they didn’t have to divulge anything in confessional because of this privilege — this would change that,” barrister Miiko Kumar, a legal academic at the University of Sydney, said of the commission’s recommendation.

“It would make it absolutely clear that this should be an offence and a priest can’t claim the privilege.” A similar rule, overriding the confessional privilege in Church law that prevents clerics from sharing information, was introduced in Ireland in 2012.

A spokeswoman for Australia’s Catholic Church did not immediately respond to a request for comment. — Reuters