AUSTRALIA
The Conversation
Renae Barker
Lecturer in Law at University of Western Australia
The Australian Anglican Church has put the interests of children and victims of crime ahead of tradition and doctrine. Priests who hear confessions about serious criminal offences, including child abuse, will no longer be required to keep the confession confidential.
At the tri-annual sitting of General Synod – the church’s “parliament” – Anglican Church leaders debated the church’s response to the Royal Commission into the Institutional Handling of Child Sexual Abuse. A particular thorny issue for the church is the confessional seal. Under church law, priests who heard private ritual confessions of sins were required to keep all confessions confidential, regardless of the nature of the confession.
The 1989 Canon Concerning Confession states:
If any person confess his or her secret and hidden sins to an ordained minister for the unburdening of conscience and to receive spiritual consolation and ease of mind, such minister shall not at any time reveal or make known any crime or offence or sin so confessed and committed to trust and secrecy by that person without the consent of that person.
Acting on abuse as a crime
The Anglican Church has revised its position. Priests will be permitted to break the seal of confession in some circumstances. The Canon Concerning Confessions 1989 (Amendment) Canon 2014 states that:
… where a person confesses that he or she has committed a serious offence an ordained minister is only obliged to keep confidential the serious offence so confessed where the ordained minister is reasonably satisfied that the person has reported the serious offence to the police.
The seal of confession will no longer apply to confessions of serious offences. This includes criminal offences involving child abuse, child exploitation material or crimes punishable by life imprisonment or imprisonment for five or more years.
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