AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun
NADJA FLEET THE ADVERTISER JULY 02, 2014
ANGLICAN priests will no longer be bound by the 1000-year-old convention of confidentiality in confessions when they are told of serious crimes, including child abuse.
Church leaders have unanimously backed a historic change that starkly sets Anglican policy against that of the Catholic church, which maintains that “the Seal of Confession is inviolable”, and creates grounds for a major rift between the nation’s two most powerful Christian bodies.
About 250 members of the Anglican Church, including bishops and clergy representatives, voted to amend the 1989 canon on confession at the General Synod in Adelaide on Wednesday.
The Christian convention of strict secrecy of confessions is believed to be more than 1000 years old.
The policy change only becomes active, however, where an individual diocese adopts it.
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