There's no "IF." The jury has to decide that way. You have only the girl's evidence, and the priest's silence. That silence cannot be construed as a rebuttal. As a matter of fact, the normal injunction that it has to be regarded neutrally might not even hold, since the defense can argue that the church's defense of the Seal shields a testimony detrimental to its material interest.
but how come less reputable people haven’t done exactly that long ago or whenever this law changed to allow it?
The laws in most states protect evidence given in specific kinds of confidence. [BTW, none of the protections are actually absolute, not even the attorney-client privilege, which is the oldest privilege recognized in law. It actually predates Christianity.] However, the "mandatory reporting" laws are relatively new, and they were specifically passed in many jurisdictions to keep priests, schoolteachers, social workers, and others who work with people the law does not consider legally competent from withholding evidence of a crime.
You will see more of this, and it's likely that cases like this and the Federal case law it produces will lead to model laws with better protections for confidants, children, or both.
I just looked at those old threads, the article in this one says the law was passed back in ‘91.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3180453/posts
So around 20 years or so. I still don’t understand why this didn’t happen before in the last decade or two if the legislation passed in 91. There seems to be no way to defend against it, you would figure there would be those who would take advantage of that in a heartbeat. Not saying this case is something like that, or even if they are suing for monetary damages.
Freegards