No, that’s wrong. If the previous ruling stood, there would be no way for the Catholic, Orthodox or those other faiths that believe in this particular form of religious practice to ever defend themselves from being civilly sued into oblivion. They can’t even confirm a particular confession occurred much less anything that was said in it, even if the person confessing wants them to do so.
I think the reason that this is so is that the Church is afraid the person might be induced against their actual will by the state or whoever to ask for the priest to tell what he knows about any alleged confession that was given. So they just shut it all down, so no one will even try to do something like that.
Freegards
Fair enough. I suspect that anyone who harms another innocent is not likely to confess their deed in the first place.