Photograph:Eucalyptys/Getty Images/iStockphoto The legislature of the Australian state of Queensland has passed a law requiring priests to violate the seal of confession to report known or suspected child sex abuse.
Failure to do so can be punished with three years in prison.
Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane has said such a reporting requirement would “not make a difference to the safety of young people” and that the bill was based on a “poor knowledge of how the sacrament actually works in practice”.
Last week the Australian bishops provided the federal government with the Holy See’s observations on 12 recommendations of a 2017 report on child sex abuse in the country’s institutions.
In response to a recommendation regarding the seal of confession and absolution, the Holy See reiterated the inviolability of the seal and that absolution cannot be conditioned on future actions in the external forum.
Obligation
Mark Ryan, the Queensland police minister and a member of the Australian Labour Party, said that “the requirement and quite frankly the moral obligation to report concerning behaviours towards children applies to everyone in this community” and that “no one group or occupation is being singled out”.
Archbishop Coleridge has also said the law would make priests “less a servant of God than an agent of the state” and raise “major questions about religious freedom”.