AUSTRALIA
ABC – Drive
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has recommended 85 changes to the law in a new report.
One of the most controversial recommendations is that clergy who fail to report information about child sexual abuse heard during confession, would face criminal charges.
The proposed change has already been met with opposition from some members of the Catholic Church because of the ‘seal of confession’.
Talkback caller Martin from Heidelberg, a Melbourne priest for 34 years, told Ali Moore on Drive, “We can’t reveal what someone says to us in confession…There’s a higher law and that is – I can’t reveal.”
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