Western Australian Legislative Committee Recommends Preserving Confessional Seal

Catholic News Agency ^ | 9/12/20

[marshmallow]

CNA Staff, Sep 12, 2020 / 05:01 am MT (CNA).- Religious ministers should not be required to violate the seal of confession to report child sex abuse, a committee of the upper house of Western Australia’s parliament recommended Thursday.

The Legislation Committee of the Legislative Council recommended that “Ministers of religion be excused from criminal responsibility [of mandatory reporting] only when the grounds of their belief is based solely on information disclosed during religious confession.”

It also recommend that the state government “consult with ministers of religion on non-statutory provisions that would facilitate the effective use of information received during religious confession.”

The recommendation, made by a narrow majority of the committee, came in its report on the Children and Community Services Amendment Bill 2019. In its current form, the bill would require priests to break the confessional seal to report known or suspected child sex abuse.

Of the three committee members who supported the recommendation upholding the confessional seal, two belong to the opposition Liberal Party, and one to the crossbench National Party.

The committee’s two members of the governing Labor Party recommended that no provision be made to maintain the seal of confession.

The bill is meant to implement some recommendations made by the 2017 report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse. Much of the bill focuses on child protection for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

It was introduced in November 2019, and completed a third reading in the Legislative Assembly in May, at which point it passed to the Legislative Council.

[CondorFlight]

In this instance Caesar’s law means nothing; the priests will not break the seal of the confessional.